Diane de Poitiers | |
|---|---|
| Grand Senechal of Normandy Countess of Saint-Vallier Duchess of Valentinois andÉtampes | |
 Diane de Poitiers,Jean Clouet, 1525 | |
| Born | (1500-01-09)9 January 1500[1] Château deSaint-Vallier,Dauphiné, France |
| Died | 25 April 1566(1566-04-25) (aged 66) Anet,Normandy, France |
| Buried | Château d'Anet, Eure-et-Loir, France |
| Spouses | |
| Issue | Françoise de Brézé Louise de Brézé |
| Father | Jean de Poitiers, Seigneur de Saint Vallier |
| Mother | Jeanne de Batarnay |
Diane de Poitiers (9 January 1500 – 25 April 1566) was aFrench noblewoman andcourtier who wielded much power and influence as KingHenry II'sroyal mistress and adviser until his death. Her position increased her wealth and family's status. She was a major patron ofFrench Renaissance architecture.
Diane de Poitiers was born on 9 January 1500, in theChâteau deSaint-Vallier.[a][1] Her parents wereJean de Poitiers and Jeanne de Batarnay.[1] She became a keen athlete, and frequently went riding and swimming for exercise.[2]
When still a girl, Diane was briefly in the retinue of PrincessAnne de Beaujeu,[2] KingCharles VIII's eldest sister who skillfully held theregency of France during his minority. Like her fellow charges, Diane was educated according to the principles ofRenaissance humanism, includingGreek andLatin,rhetoric, etiquette,[2] finance, law, andarchitecture.
On 29 March 1515, at the age of 15, Diane was married toLouis de Brézé, seigneur d'Anet, Count of Maulévrier, andGrand Seneschal of Normandy, who was 39 years her senior.[2] He was a grandson ofKing Charles VII by his mistressAgnès Sorel[3] and served as a courtier toKing Francis I. By Louis, Diane had two daughters,Françoise (1518–1574)[4] andLouise (1521–1577).[5]
Shortly after her marriage, Diane becamelady-in-waiting to QueenClaude of France.[6] After the Queen died, she served in the same capacity toLouise of Savoy, the King's mother,[3] and then to Francis' second wife, QueenEleanor of Austria.
In 1523, her husband uncovered a plot against the King by theConstable of France, Charles de Bourbon, unaware that his father-in-law was also involved. Jean de Poitiers was accused oftreason and in 1524 sentenced to death, but this sentence was commuted. He was instead confined to prison until the signing of theTreaty of Madrid in 1526.[5]
After her husband died in 1531 inAnet,[5] Diane adopted the habit of wearing black and white for the rest of her life.[7] They were among the permitted colours ofmourning and the symbolic colours of the sides of themoon, playing on her name which derived fromthe Roman moon goddess. She commissioned sculptorJean Goujon to build a tomb for Louis in theCathedral of Rouen.
Diane's keen interest in financial matters and legal acumen became apparent for the first time during this period. She managed to retain her late husband's emoluments as grand seneschal of Normandy and challenged in court the obligation to return the family'sappanages to theroyal domain. Impressed, King Francis I allowed the widowed Diane to manage her inherited estates without the supervision of a male guardian and keep their considerable revenues.
In 1526, the princesFrancis andHenry were sent toSpain as hostages for their father who had been captured by Imperial troops at thebattle of Pavia in 1525 and imprisoned in Spain. Because their ransom was not paid, the two boys (eight and seven at the time) spent nearly four years isolated in a succession of ever-bleaker castles. This experience may account for the strong impression that Diane made on Henry as the very embodiment of the ideal gentlewoman: his mother being already dead, it was Diane, his grandmother's lady-in-waiting who gave him his farewell kiss when he was sent to Spain.[9] At thetournament held in 1531 for thecoronation of Francis's new wife,Eleanor of Austria, theDauphin Francis wore the colours of the new Queen as expected, but Henry wore Diane's colours.[9]
In 1533, Henry marriedCatherine de' Medici[10] despite domestic opposition to the alliance, since the Medicis were no more than merchant upstarts in the eyes of many in the French court. However, Diane approved of the choice of bride,[11] to whom she was related (Catherine's maternal grandfather and Diane's paternal grandmother were siblings, making Diane and Catherine second cousins).[12] Based on allusions in their correspondence, it is generally believed that Diane became Henry's mistress in 1534, when she was 35 years old and Henry was 15.[13]
In the early years of their marriage, Henry and Catherine had been childless and Diane became concerned, once Henry became heir to the throne following the death of his elder brother in 1536, of a possible repudiation of the royal wife that she had in her control, so she made sure that Henry's visits to the marital bedroom would be frequent[14] (in the end, the royal couple had ten children). In another act of self-preservation toward the royal family, Diane helped nurse Catherine back to health when she fell ill.[15]
Despite his occasional affairs with other women, such asPhilippa Duci,Janet Fleming, andNicole de Savigny, Diane remained Henry's lifelong companion. For the next 25 years, she was one of the most powerful women in France.
When Francis I was still alive, Diane had to contend at the court with the enmity of his mistress,Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly.[16]
In 1544, Anne convinced Francis I that Henry (now the Dauphin) and Diane were working to reinstateConstable Montmorency at court (Montmorency, a favourite of Henry, had been in disgrace with the King ever since the collapse of negotiations withEmperor Charles V over the future of theDuchy of Milan: Charles had withdrawn his promise to grant the duchy to Francis' third son, theDuc d'Angoulême, for which Francis blamed Montmorency). When Francis banished Diane from court as a result of these accusations, Henry and his supporters retreated to Diane's chateau atAnet; father and son would not reconcile until 1545.
After Francis's death in 1547, Henry had Anne banned from court and confiscated herDuchy of Étampes.[16] By then, Diane's position in the Court was such that whenPope Paul III sent the new Queen the "Golden Rose", he also presented the royal mistress with a pearl necklace. She received the prestigious title ofDuchess of Valentinois in 1548 and was made Duchess of Étampes in 1553. Through the extensive patron-client network she cultivated, her sons-in-law received important positions.
Although she was not openly involved in politics, Diane's sharp intellect, confident maturity and loyalty to Henry II made her his most dependable ally in the court. He trusted her to write many of his official letters, which were signed jointly with the one name: "HenriDiane". Until 1551, she was in charge of the education of Henry and Catherine's children,[17] and gave orders to their governors, Jean andFrançoise d'Humières.[18] Diane also took care of raisingDiane of France (1538 - 1619), natural daughter of Henry andFilippa Ducci, whom she treated as if she were her own, to the point that some contemporary chroniclers wrote that Diane was actually the biological mother of the girl. Her daughter Françoise managed the Queen's household aspremière dame d'honneur (chief lady-in-waiting).[16]
The King's adoration for Diane caused a great deal of jealousy on the part of Queen Catherine, particularly when Henry entrusted Diane with theCrown Jewels of France and gave her theChâteau de Chenonceau, a piece of royal property that Catherine had wanted for herself. However, as long as the King lived, the Queen was powerless to do anything about it.
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Most of the sources in Diane's hand are accounts, demonstrating her meticulous attention to finances. She profited from the confiscation of Anne de Pisseleu's estates and managed the lands well, to the point where she became the beneficiary of 300,000écus. One of the most successful royal mistresses in acquiring wealth, Diane used her income to build castles by commissioning architectPhilibert de l'Orme. Making strikingly effective use of Renaissance arts and rhetoric, she constructed an image of herself as a paragon of virtue and presented the image of Henry II as a model of chivalry.
Diane supervised the remodeling ofChâteau d'Anet, her late husband's feudal castle of stone. It has a porch with widely spaced paired ionic columns between towers crowned by pyramidal spires. The château is noted for its exterior, notably theFountain of Diana, in which the mistress represented the goddess reclining with her two dogs and stag.[19] There is the mortuary chapel built according to Diane's wishes to contain her tomb, commissioned from architectClaude de Foucques by her daughter Louise,Duchess of Aumale.
Although its ownership remained with the crown until 1555, Diane was the unquestioned mistress ofChâteau de Chenonceau, the jewel of the Loire Renaissance palaces. In 1555, she asked de l'Orme to build the arched bridge joining the château to its opposite bank and oversaw the planting of extensive gardens filled with varieties of fruit trees. Set along the banks of the river, her exquisite gardens were famous and copied.
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Despite wielding such power over the court, Diane's status depended on the King's welfare and his remaining in power. In 1559, Henry was severely wounded in ajousting tournament - his lance wore Diane's favour (ribbon), rather than his wife's - a wound that would soon prove fatal. Queen Catherine soon assumed control, restricting access to the royal chambers. In the (ten) days before his death, Henry was alleged to have called out repeatedly for Diane, but she was not admitted to his deathbed nor invited, as was custom and tradition, to his funeral. With Henry now dead and Catherine Queen Mother, Diane was immediately obliged by her royal rival to exchange the Château de Chenonceau for the less attractiveChâteau de Chaumont; a punishment much less severe, however, than ones suffered by other royal mistresses.[20]
Diane lived out her remaining years in her château inAnet, where she lived in comfortable obscurity as a virtual exile.[20] At the age of 64, she suffered a fall during a ride from which she never fully recovered and died a year later.[8] In accordance with Diane's wishes and to provide a resting place for her, her daughter completed the funeral chapel, built near the castle.
During theFrench Revolution, her tomb was opened, her corpse desecrated, and her remains thrown into a mass grave.In 1866, Georges Guiffrey published her correspondence. When French experts exhumed her remains in 2009, they found high levels of gold in her hair. It is suggested that the "drinkable gold" that she "reportedly" regularly took, believed to preserve youth, may have ultimately killed her.[21][22][23] In May 2010, she was reburied at her original tomb in the Château d'Anet.[24][25]
