Women and Power at The French Court, 1483-1563: Edited by Susan Broomhall

G E N D E R I N G T H E L A T E M E D I E V A L A N D E A R LY M O D E R N W O R L D
Edited by Susan Broomhall
Women and Power at

the French Court, 1483-1563
Women and Power at the French Court, 1483–1563
Gendering the Late Medieval and
Early Modern World
Series editors: James Daybell (Chair), Victoria E. Burke, Svante Norrhem, and
Merry Wiesner-Hanks
This series provides a forum for studies that investigate women, gender, and/
or sexuality in the late medieval and early modern world. The editors invite
proposals for book-length studies of an interdisciplinary nature, including,
but not exclusively, from the fields of history, literature, art and architectural
history, and visual and material culture. Consideration will be given to both
monographs and collections of essays. Chronologically, we welcome studies that
look at the period between 1400 and 1700, with a focus on any part of the world,
as well as comparative and global works. We invite proposals including, but not
limited to, the following broad themes: methodologies, theories and meanings
of gender; gender, power and political culture; monarchs, courts and power;
constructions of femininity and masculinity; gift-giving, diplomacy and the
politics of exchange; gender and the politics of early modern archives; gender
and architectural spaces (courts, salons, household); consumption and material
culture; objects and gendered power; women’s writing; gendered patronage and
power; gendered activities, behaviours, rituals and fashions.
Women and Power at the French
Court, 1483–1563
Edited by
Susan Broomhall
Amsterdam University Press

Cover image: Ms-5116 réserve, fol. 1 v (détail): Claude de France recevant un manuscrit des
mains d’Anne de Graville. © Bibliothèque nationale de France
Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden

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Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
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isbn 978 94 6298 342 7

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doi 10.5117/9789462983427
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Table of Contents
In the Orbit of the King 9

Women, Power, and Authority at the French Court, 1483–1563
Susan Broomhall
Part I Conceptualizing and Practicing Female Power
1. The Political, Symbolic, and Courtly Powerof Anne de France

and Louise de Savoie 43
From the Genesis to the Glory of Female Regency
Aubrée David-Chapy
2. Anne de France and Gift-Giving 65

The Exercise of Female Power
Tracy Adams
3. Louise de Savoie 85
The King’s Mother, Alter Rex
Laure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn
Part II Centers and Peripheries of Power
4. Literary Lessons in Queenship and Power 117

Mary Tudor Brandon and the Authority of the Ambassador-Queen
Erin A. Sadlack
5. Claude de France and the Spaces of Agency of a Marginalized

Queen 139
Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier
6. Portraits of Eleanor of Austria 173

From Invisible to Inimitable French Queen Consort
Lisa Mansfield
Part III The Power of Creative Voices
7. Family Female Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France 209

The Power of Text and Image
Cynthia J. Brown
8. The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Graville 241

The Rondeaux and the Denunciation of Slander
Mawy Bouchard
9. Imagination and Influence 263

The Creative Powers of Marguerite de Navarre at Work at Court and
in the World
Jonathan A. Reid
10. Power through Print 287

The Works of Hélisenne de Crenne
Pollie Bromilow
Part IV Economies of Power and Emotions
11. The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress 309

Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes
David Potter
12. ‘The King and I’ 335

Rhetorics of Power in the Letters of Diane de Poitiers
Susan Broomhall
13. Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charity (1533–1559) 357

Discourse and Metadiscourse
Denis Crouzet
Index 377
List of Figures
Figure 3.1 Symphorien Champier, Les Grandes Chroniques de Savoie 89

Figure 3.2 Jean Thibault, La Triumphe de la paix celebree en Cambray 105
Figure 3.3 Jean de Bourdigné, Hystoire agregative des annalles et
croniques d’Anjou 107
Figure 5.1 Jean Pichore, Juno and Jupiter 146
Figure 5.2 Godefroy le Batave, Mary Magdalen Going off to Hunt
( for Pleasure) 148
Figure 5.3 The King, the Queen, Good Counsel and Good Will,
Prudence and Knowledge, Prowess Labor and Concord
(Parisian scaffold) 150
Figure 5.4 Master of Claude de France, St. Ursula and Her Maidens 158
Figure 5.5 Queen Hippolyta, Emilia, King Theseus and a Mounted
Knight 162
Figure 6.1 Anonymous artist (French School?), François I with
Eleanor, Queen of France, c. 1530–40 180
Figure 6.2 Joos van Cleve, Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France, c.
1532–34 187
Figure 6.3 Workshop of Bernard van Orley, Portrait of a Lady
(probably Eleanor of Austria), after 1516 189
Figure 6.4 Léonard Limosin, Eleanor of Austria, 1536 195
Figure 7.1 Anne de France’s dedication of her Enseignements to
her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon 217
Figure 7.2 Anne de Bretagne at her prie-dieu before Saint Claude,
accompanied by Saints Anne and Mary 220
Figure 7.3 Claude of France at her prie-dieu before Saints Anne
and Mary, accompanied by Saint Claude 221
Figure 7.4 Renée de France in prayer before the Virgin 226
Figure 7.5 Renée receiving absolution 230
Figure 11.1 Hans Liefrinck the elder, Anne de Pisseleu, 1545 313
In the Orbit of the King
Women, Power, and Authority at the French Court,
1483–1563
Susan Broomhall
Abstract
This essay provides both an assessment of the most recent historiography
of women and power in early modern Europe and also explores possibilities
for new analyses of power and authority through the lens of gender studies
and broadening interpretations of politics and power in cultural, social and
material forms. It situates the studies to follow in the collection in relation to a
burgeoning scholarship on courts in early modern Europe and highlights the
distinctions of the contemporary French experience that this volume reveals.
Keywords: women, power, authority, emotions, cultural politics, male rule
Towards the end of 1563, Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589) drafted a lengthy

memoir intended for her son, Charles IX (1550–1574). The young man was
about to assume rule of the French kingdom from his mother. Growing
religious tensions across the court and country made it a challenging time to
establish the authority of an inexperienced sovereign. Catherine’s advice to
the young man looked back to the past, to the reigns of three predecessors,
his father Henri II (1519–1559), his grandfather François I (1494–1547), and
Louis XII (1462–1515). Catherine set out a code of courtly conduct that was
social, spatial, and emotional, promising to assert Charles’s royal authority
by outlining to him ‘what I consider necessary to have you obeyed by all
your realm, and […] to see it in the state that it was in the past, during the
reigns of the kings your father and grandfather’.1 Advising her son, Catherine
1 ‘ce que j’estime aussi nécessaire pour vous faire obéir à tout vostre royaunme, et […] le
revoir en l’estat auquel il a esté par le passé, durent les règnes des Rois Messeigneurs vos père
Broomhall, S. (ed.), Women and Power at the French Court, 1483–1563, Amsterdam University
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/intro
10 Susan Broomhall
narrated a golden age of past male rulers in a highly emotive visualization

of Charles as the latest in a long lineage of successful kings.2
However, this age to which Catherine could look back fondly was also a
time when contemporaries had firmly recognized the power and influence
of leading women and their networks, in religious affairs, key literary and
artistic endeavors, and over the governance of the kingdom. Antonio de
Beatis, secretary of Cardinal Luigi d’Aragon, recorded from his observation
of the court during 1517 that François I’s mother, Louise de Savoie (1476–1531),
wielded ‘absolute power’ over the royal couple.3 During his visit to the king
in Rouen, among the few he identified by name, de Beatis observed Louise
and her sister, Philiberte, with Queen Claude, who he specifically noted was
treated with ‘great respect and honor’ by the king. 4 At Gaillon, he observed
that a number of the senior men resided in surrounding villages, including
his employer, the cardinal, ‘because he could not stay in the palace, even
though there were numerous rooms, because of the quantity of lords and
ladies who escorted Queen Claude and the queen mother’.5 Salic law, and
the assertion of agnatic primogeniture for the French throne, might have
determined that ultimate authority to rule France lay with men, but this
did not preclude women from visible influence and authority at the court.6
Indeed, Catherine’s first years at the French court, and the memories of
it that she imparted to her son Charles, had been in the orbit of these very
women de Beatis observed at first hand.7 That they could work together,
independently or in opposition, to achieve their objectives she knew well.
Catherine had been among another, later, group of women that included
François’s sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême (1492–1549), his daughter Margue-
rite de Valois (1523–1574), his mistress Anne d’Heilly de Pisseleu (1508–1580),
Duchess of Étampes, and Marguerite de Bourbon-Vendôme, Duchess of
et grand-père’, La Ferrière-Percy, p. 91. There are competing views about the date of this text.
However, Cosandey, 2016 (p. 61, n. 4) presents compelling evidence to place it just after the
proclamation of the majority of Charles IX in 1563.
2 For a more detailed analysis of this text, see Broomhall, 2018b, pp. 87–104.
3 ‘un pouvoir absolu’, Beatis, p. 137.
4 ‘beaucoup de respect et d’honneur’, Beatis, p. 136.
5 ‘parce qu’elle [Sa Seigneurie] ne pouvait pas rester dans le palais, bien que les chambres y
fussent nombreuses, à cause de la quantité de seigneurs eet de dames qui faisaient escorte à la
reine Claude et à la reine mère’, Beatis, p. 145.
6 A range of scholars has debated the precise political and cultural contexts in which Salic
law came to be applied in the French context. See Hanley, 1997a; Hanley, 1997b; Hanley, 1997c;
Cosandey, 2000, Chap. 1; Viennot; Conroy; Taylor.
7 On Catherine’s development from duchess to dauphine during the reign of François I, see
Broomhall, 2017a.
Nevers (1516–1589), who in the late 1530s formed a tight-knit textual and emo-
tional community of care and concern for the king at court.8 In Catherine’s
experience, even a king’s mistresses could be part of its orderly system of
power. In the 1580s, she recalled that the courtly conduct of her husband’s
acknowledged mistress Diane de Poitiers (1499–1566), ‘was, as with Madame
d’Étampes, all honorable, but he [Henri] would have been very annoyed if I
had retained close to me those who were so silly as to tear apart [the good
order of the court]’.9 Here and elsewhere, Catherine remembered leading
women as integral to a powerful courtly system that she sought to re-create
with her son, strong, courteous, and cultivated, at its heart. In this schema,
the court’s female members were vital participants in the establishment of
a particular culturally sophisticated emotional community.10
Catherine’s reflections came as she looked back over her experiences at
the French court into which she had been acculturated as a young woman,
when older women had transferred to her systems of knowledge about
court conduct and access to influence and authority as they claimed to
have experienced them. In time, Catherine’s own courtly world would
be immortalized in print, thanks to figures such as Pierre de Bourdeille,
seigneur de Brantôme (c. 1540–1614).11 But even her own writing pointed to
fractures in the good order of the past that she envisaged for her son. Courtly
order of the kind she strove for demanded continual efforts, especially in
artistic representations, literary narratives, leisure pursuits, and political
policies, to direct courtiers’ attention to her goals. These forms of power were
coupled with an exceptional emotional control. This encompassed careful
performances of feelings, for, as Catherine later confided, ‘If I made good
cheer for Madame de Valentinois [Diane de Poitiers], it was the King that I
was really entertaining […] for never did a woman who loved her husband
succeed in loving his whore’.12 Women’s emotional strategies also involved
cultivating networks within and beyond the court, which became their own
kind of power. Catherine’s varied ruminations highlight the complexities of
8 Broomhall, 2017a.
9 ‘De Madame de Valentinois, c’estèt, comme Madame d’Estampes, en tout honneur; mais
celes qui estoient si foles que d’en fayre voler les esclats, yl eust esté bien marry que je les eusse
retenues auprès de moy’, Baguenault de Puchesse, p. 36.
10 On Catherine’s concern for morale, see Zum Kolk, 2006; Zum Kolk, 2009a; Zum Kolk, 2009b;
McIlvenna; Broomhall, 2017b.
11 Adams, 2016.
12 25 April 1584. ‘cet je fèse bonne chère à madame de Valantynnois, c’estoyt le Roy, et encore
je luy fésèt tousjours conestre que s’étoyt à mon très grent regret: car jeamès fame qui aymèt
son mary n’éma sa puteyn’, Baguenault de Puchesse, p. 181. See further discussion in Broomhall,
2018a.
12 Susan Broomhall
women’s forms of power and authority at the French court that she knew,
power that operated through careful emotional management, political and
religious engagements, creative visual representations, and narratives voiced
with the pen and in print. These forms of power may have been unstable,
uncertain, and transient, just as they were for most men below the level
of the monarch, but they were no less effective and real, and they made
meaning and authority both for those within the court and those beyond
it in geography, culture, and time.
Women, Power, and Early Modern Court Communities
This collection explores these ways that a range of women under the rule of
a male sovereign interacted with power, principally from within the French
court, in order to advance individual, familial, and factional agendas. They
did so from a range of positions that extend from holding official courtly
status as consorts and regents, to influential and persuasive roles such as
mistresses, factional power players and authors. Recent scholarship has
demonstrated the important political work conducted by women as ladies-
in-waiting, members of household staff with significant responsibilities, as
mediators and go-betweens, spies, communication nodes and networkers,
and in circles of female involvement in factions around a monarch, in addi-
tion to both queen consorts and regnants.13 Likewise, at the French court,
some women studied here worked from within the courtly household, as
attendants residing at court, such as lady-in-waiting and insightful writer
Anne de Graville (c. 1490–c. 1543). However, women’s activities, just as those
of men, also extended beyond the courtly domain, as they advanced family
and dynastic ambitions, publicized ideas and opinions in letters, scribal
texts, and print publications, and conducted diplomatic work in a number
of ways. Scholars have shown how women utilized forms of power operating
through letters, artwork, clothing, embroidery, or through their participation
in gift-giving, fostering, patronage, diplomatic roles, and via social and
communication networks.14 This was also the case in relation to the French
court. Moreover, the court was both highly visible, and to some extent and in
13 Recent examples include Zum Kolk, 2009a; Zum Kolk, 2009b; Akkerman and Houben;
Walker and Kerr.
14 In addition to studies already cited, see also Frye and Robertson; Tarbin and Broomhall;
Campbell, Larsen, and Eschrich; Campbell Orr, 2002a; Campbell Orr, 2004; Herbert; Palos and
Sánchez; Daybell and Gordon, Watanabe-O’Kelly and Morton.
some modes permeable, to those who did not physically make contact with
the king or reside in proximity to him. The published author Hélisenne de
Crenne (c. 1510–c. 1560) interacted from beyond the court with high-status
individuals at its heart by offering her work as a gift to the sovereign. As
a whole, these women’s means to assert their authority were varied, but
included involvement in high politics and religious movements, financial
transactions, ritual and ceremonies, epistolary exchanges, creative composi-
tion and translations, emotional self-management, development of networks
of sociability, and sartorial, artistic, and architectural engagements as forms
of power. Some of those considered here were perceived by contemporaries
and historians to have successfully advanced the agendas that they chose
to pursue. Recognition of their achievements has sometimes been voiced,
however, as fears, concerns, and criticism. Other women discussed here
have received little attention as political protagonists of the early sixteenth
century. In this collection, we review the opportunities and actions of diverse
women interacting with the court in different circumstances and consider
their possibilities for asserting and wielding power.
These women operated with those who were at the apex of authority, in
particular the male monarch who was the symbolic center of rule and the
court personnel who supported him in that role. Some were queens consort
and regents, two official positions for women that have received important
attention from scholars in recent years. Not only have the individual women
who occupied these roles gained more recognition as significant political
actors in their own right, but so too has the complexity of their roles as
agents of cultural transfer from natal dynasties to new courts, or as nodes
for ongoing cultural exchange, as Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly has recently
argued.15 Yet individual women did not occupy only these roles but could
transition through these and other positions and identities during their
time at a court. Catherine de Médicis, for example, arrived at the French
court as a young duchess, assumed the title of dauphine after the death of
her husband’s elder brother, became a mother, was queen consort to Henri
II, acted as his regent, was widowed, and performed on further occasions as
governor of the kingdom and close adviser for her sons as the queen mother.
Other women of interest here did not participate in courtly life through
official positions, although their influence on the king and courtly culture
was widely acknowledged by contemporaries. This includes particular
mistresses such as Anne de Pisseleu and Diane de Poitiers, who were able to
translate emotional intimacy with the monarch into more sustained forms
15 Watanabe-O’Kelly, pp. 231–49.
14 Susan Broomhall
of influence and authority. These women were not isolated individuals, but
were firmly integrated into court life, interacting with women and men
in official positions in the court hierarchy. Similarly, those women like
Graville and Crenne who wrote manuscript and printed works from or in
communication with courtiers were also important in shaping court life
through their writings, although only some held official appointments at
the court.
To capture these complex social, cultural, political, religious, and emo-
tional interactions, the focus of this collection is on women’s varied forms
of power, their scope for achievement and its outcomes at the French court,
understood here as a complex conceptual community, which was movable in
physical space and which had its own particular traditions and conventions.
It involved elites and service personnel in close proximity with the royal
family through official appointments as well as emotional engagements that
created opportunities for physical intimacy with rulers and others.16 The
court could convey stability and a coherent set of interests at one level, yet
also encompassed many competing interests that continually changed with
altered social circumstances and political manoeuvers. It also disseminated
its culture and ideologies to a wider populace both physically on progress
and in ceremonial entries, and in visual and textual terms depicting the
court in media programs that were, in some cases, of the court’s making
and in others, beyond its control.17 The power of the French court and
its leading women and men, then, reached far beyond its physical form,
gaining influence and producing consequences well beyond the borders
of the kingdom.
The Court as Disseminator of Female Forms of Power
These essays focus on the French court in an influential period that was
book-ended by two female regencies: commencing in 1483 with that of Anne
de France (1461–1522) for her young brother, Charles VIII (1470–1498), and
concluding with that of Catherine de Médicis for another Charles, her son
Charles IX (1550–1574), in 1563. The end date of this collection is not intended
to suggest necessarily a change in the nature of women’s forms of power
or their authority at the French court under the reign of Charles IX and
16 See Zum Kolk, 2009a; Zum Kolk, 2009b; Akkerman and Houben.
17 For conceptualizations of the early modern court and its culture, see Adamson; Campbell
Orr, 2002b, pp. 24–32; Cosandey, 2016, pp. 16–18.
beyond, although our period of interest does offer a certain coherence of

courtly orientation around French engagement in the Italian Wars, before
the period of the civil and religious wars of the second half of the sixteenth
century. Furthermore, the French court of this period formed an influential
model of how women could draw upon a number of forms of power in order
to access authority, and its practices and its assumptions about women’s
significance as interlocutors at court were passed down and across Europe
over time.
Limited by the interpretation of Salic law from rule as reigning monarchs,
women were nonetheless appointed as regents by monarchs and their senior
male councillors, on multiple occasions during this eighty-year period, as
the wives, daughters, and mothers of kings. It was moreover a topic on which
women confidently expressed their own ideas and disseminated those
of other female authors.18 It was not the first time that women had been
regents and held positions of central influence in France and, as the essays
here show, literature including that by Christine de Pizan (1364–1430) which
narrated particular predecessors such as Blanche of Castile (1188–1252) and
Isabeau of Bavaria (1371–1435) was a vital part of building a repertoire of
strategies of authority that women in this era could employ, and that they
disseminated as practices of power to others thereafter.19
However, it was not merely their significance as regents that determines
our work’s focus on this time period but also women’s activities as diplomats,
authors, educators, patrons, and as political and religious factional leaders.
In these years, the French court was a noted center of culture, representative
of the kingdom’s international prestige and ambitions, in which a range
of leading women, in positions of power around the monarch that were
both formally recognized and informally understood, enjoyed significant
influence and authority. During the 22 years that she was twice queen at
the French court, Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514), as the heir to the then
independent Duchy of Brittany, consort to two monarchs, Charles VIII and
Louis XII, continued the court’s status as a famed school for educating elite
young women that Anne de France had fostered. Nowhere was this more
visibly rendered than at the Ladies’ Peace (1529), secured by two trainees
of Anne de France, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) and Louise de Savoie
negotiating on behalf of Habsburg Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) and
François I respectively.
18 Adams, 2015.
19 Adams and Rechtschaffen; Adams, 2009.
16 Susan Broomhall
The French court became renowned for a kind of female civilizing influ-
ence, and a courtly discourse and activities that assumed the participation of
women. Several of the most influential works of Christine de Pizan, including
the City of Ladies and Othea, were held in the library of Anne de France,
and other women at the court also both possessed and commissioned print
and manuscript editions of other works about women in power.20 Anne de
Graville, lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude de France (1499–1524), demanded
greater consideration of women’s voices and her scribally circulated works
foregrounded courtly women as active interlocutors with their own opinions
rather than simply as muses of men. In addition to manuscripts, a number
of works by Pizan were printed as incunabula in France (albeit not always
with reference to her name or sex).21 Moreover, women at the court began
to feature in print publications during this period, spreading female courtly
visibility and audibility far and wide. In the first half of the sixteenth century,
many of the living women whose works were printed were connected to
the court, and the impact of their conspicuousness in print is powerfully
suggested by the large increase of the number of female authors in print in
the second half of the century.22
The French court was at this period the training ground for a number of
aristocratic women who went on to shape political life across Europe. That
women played a key role in international relations and diplomacy is now well
understood, especially as consorts, and the manner in which they transferred
ideas and cultural trends through transnational ties has been studied in
considerable depth. Adam Morton adopts the term ‘cultural encounters’
to capture the rich and dynamic array of exchanges and entanglements
that royal marriages, and queens consort in particular, enabled between
different territories.23 But women at the French court did not only play such
roles as cultural agents when they moved beyond it as brides, but also, for
example, as educators of a wider circle of aristocratic women and through
their writings. Moreover, the cultural practices that they took with them
included significant ideas about the important role of women in courtly life
and their sustained involvement in its artistic, literary, religious, and political
activities. Margaret of Austria was raised at the French court, under the
watchful eye of Anne de France, in expectation that she would become bride
to Anne’s brother, Charles VIII, a marriage that did not eventuate. English
20 Schutz, p. 74. See generally, Tolley; Broomhall, 2007.

21 Brown.
22 See Broomhall, 2002a.
23 Morton; see also Hufton, p. 5; Campbell Orr, 2004; Sluga and James; Cruz and Stampino.
interactions increased with Mary Tudor Brandon (1496–1533) who became

queen consort to Louis XII. These included, perhaps most famously, Anne
Boleyn (c. 1501–1536). From a distance, her daughter Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
imbibed the formidable voice and spiritual ideas of Marguerite d’Angoulême
through her translation of the Miroir de l’âme pécheresse (first published
in Alençon in 1531), which the young princess offered to her stepmother
Catherine Parr (1512–1548) as a New Year’s gift, embroidered with the queen’s
initials, in 1545, and which was then printed multiple times.24 The influence
of the reform-minded Marguerite d’Angoulême on other elite women in
Protestant England was publicly disseminated with the funerary poems
by the Seymour sisters, Anne, Margaret, and Jane, who composed over a
hundred Latin distichs at the queen’s death, which were published in France
first in Latin in 1550 and then subsequently in a French edition.25
Moreover, Marie de Guise (1515–1560), who had resided at the French
court in her teens alongside Madeleine de Valois (1520–1537), the daughter
of François I and Claude de France, later served as regent in Scotland for her
young daughter, Mary Queen of Scots (1542–1587). The latter was educated
under the watchful eye of Catherine de Médicis and Diane de Poitiers at
the French court. The royal daughter with whom Mary shared her room,
Elisabeth de Valois (1545–1568), would later take her French courtly train-
ing to the Spanish court, as bride of Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). There,
Catherine de Médicis continued to engage her daughter, husband and their
two daughters, in ongoing emotional and cultural ties with the French
court, and to Valois dynastic interests, through correspondence.26 Renée
de France (1510–1575), daughter of Anne de Bretagne and sister of another
French queen, Claude, went to Ferrara as bride to Ercole II d’Este (1508–1559),
from where she continued to promulgate her Protestant beliefs through
lavish artistic and textual commissions. Marguerite de Valois, named for
her aunt Marguerite d’Angoulême, and sister-in-law of Catherine de Médicis,
took the extensive learning for which she was praised by contemporaries to
Savoy, where she became duchess as wife of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy
(1528–1580).
These patterns of cultural transfer to other elite environments of female
religious creative, literary, religious, and political engagement as forms of
power and authority at the French court continued after the period studied
24 Navarre, 1548. See also Prescott; Snyder.

25 Seymour, 1550; Seymour, 1551. Published in English in Hosington; see also Stevenson and
Davidson.
26 Broomhall, 2002b; Broomhall, 2015c; Broomhall, 2015b.
18 Susan Broomhall
here. Another Elisabeth, Elisabeth de Bourbon (1602–1644), became a further

Spanish consort, as wife of Philip IV (1605–1665), in the early seventeenth
century, while her sister, Christine Marie (1606–1663), married Victor Ama-
deus I of Savoy (1587–1637). Both women would later act as regents, Elisabeth
while her husband was occupied with the revolt in Catalonia and Christine
Marie for eleven years on behalf of two of her sons.27 Their youngest sister
also married out from the French court and was seen by contemporary
commentators to have brought many of its courtly cultural forms, as well
as fervent faith practices, with her, as Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669),
consort to Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1600–1649).28
At the same time, the French court was itself enriched by female influ-
ences brought from elsewhere. In the period of the Italian Wars, foreign
brides came to the French court as part of diplomatic solutions to military
interventions. As such, they were as much ‘figures of suture’ as the ambas-
sadors that Timothy Hampton has described in these terms; their royal
marriages bringing together respective sides after times of war as acts of
healing.29 Burgundian and Habsburg courtly practices shaped both Louise
de Savoie and Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), mother and second wife of
François I respectively, who were trained at the court of Margaret of Austria.
Catherine de Médicis, consort of Henri II, brought cultural influences from
the Florentine and Roman environments in which she had been raised,
adding to the many Italian artistic and cultural innovations transferred
with French involvement in the Italian Wars. As regent, in 1526, Louise de
Savoie oversaw the first steps towards a French alliance with the Ottomans,
which endured through much of the century and generated a profound
appreciation among female leaders of the French court for exotic material,
cultural artefacts and even individuals. Two young women from the Ottoman
Empire were raised in the households of Catherine de Médicis and her
sister-in-law, Marguerite de Valois.
In the seventeenth century, new female regents in France, Marie de
Médicis and Anne of Austria, would look back to the experience of courtly
women during this period, as well as those they knew from their home
environments, in order to formulate their own, often similar, forms of
power to be applied in new social and political contexts. Jean-François
Dubost argues that Marie looked for inspiration to her forebear Catherine de
27 On Elisabeth, see studies by Oliván Santaliestra, 2013a; Oliván Santaliestra, 2013b; Oliván
Santaliestra, 2014. The activities of Christine Marie are discussed in Oresko.
28 Griffey, 2008; and Griffey, 2015. See Bell on the influence of Marie de’ Medici on her daughter.
29 Hampton, p. 9.
Médicis through cultural leadership at court and artistic and architectural

patronage that could translate into political actions and authority both as
regent and then as mother of a king.30 Marie faced challenging circum-
stances in a different political context and the strengthening ideology of
absolutism. Nonetheless, models of women with power and authority such
as Catherine de Médicis and Louise de Savoie who were regents in times
of a king’s military engagements would assist her to act in a similar role.31
Marie’s dominating role through the reign of her son mirrored much that
was familiar to the actions of Catherine, and as dowagers heavily involved
in the arts, Catherine, Marie, and, in her turn, Anne, seem to have formed
models for later powerful women in similar positions, such as Hedwig
Eleonora in Sweden.32 Through the movement of women, and the exposure of
their voices and visual representations, female forms of power and access to
authority that were practiced at the French court in this period were spread
far and wide, where they could be adopted and adapted by other women.
Gender, Politics, and Power
The French court was a significant contributor to wider European courtly

culture of its time and generative of new ideas and examples of women’s
powers and authority. Therefore, it is important to bring analysis of the
French court more fully into the current literature. This volume brings
together scholars from both Anglophone and Francophone traditions of
scholarship on elite women in early modern France, making the most recent
research available in an English-language collection. Individual women
have been treated with these questions in mind only in a more dispersed
manner to date, in collections with generally broad chronological scope.33
The questions and focus that drive this investigation sit squarely within
a burgeoning multidisciplinary scholarship that has been produced with
consideration of the relationships between gender, the political, power,
and authority over the past few years. For the early modern period, there
has been concerted attention to such a lens applied to a range of dynasties
30 In the context of the relationship of their regencies with Parlement and the Estates General,
see Hanley, 1983, Chaps. 10–12, pp. 231–306; Dubost, 2009a; and the discussion of Marie in the
third section of Cosandey, 2000: ‘Souveraineté et dignité’.
31 Dubost, 2009b, p. 45.
32 Neville and Skogh, p. 10.
33 See, for example, Viennot; Schaub and Poutrin; Santinelli-Foltz and Nayt-Dubois.
20 Susan Broomhall
and courts.34 We explore what forms of power were available to women

interacting with the French court in this period. What was the scope for
achievement of these forms? What domains of activity — financial, political,
religious, or otherwise — did they involve? And what were women’s successes
in achieving these goals? What did agency, ‘success’ or the achievement of
authority look like, to contemporaries and to twenty-first century scholars?
This collection explores power available to women at the French court,
considering its many forms, women’s capacity to act through them, their
ability to realize goals, and to manoeuver to their advantage (through their
own actions by asserting themselves over others) in a range of domains.
Understanding power in this way is complex, as it conceptualizes it in
flexible and dynamic (as well as context-specific) terms. The evidence
here points to the analytical value of power theorizations that consider
relational and dynamic concepts of power as it has been expressed in the
works of Michel Foucault and Anthony Giddens.35 Additionally, feminist
interventions such as those of Iris Marion Young, Nancy Hartsock, and Mary
Caputi fruitfully propose notions of empowerment and models of power that
are more transformative than dominating; that is, providing agency and
the ‘power-to,’ and collaborative power forms that consider ‘power-with’.36
Moreover, comprehending how forms of power foster the possibility of
authority creates further entanglement since power and authority can be
mutually reinforcing and enabling. Some forms of power provide authority,
while authoritative status appears to legitimize access to yet other kinds of
power. But there were also systemic structures of power in operation, which
made forms of power more than practices for women to employ according to
their individual circumstances. The prevailing social and cultural structure
of the period also governed women’s (and men’s) possibilities to act, assert,
persuade, or dominate. The specifics of the courtly system also imposed a
further set of rules and regulations that could on the one hand reinforce
the wider social structure and, on the other, subvert it. For example, the
ways in which emotional connections could provide some women with a
conduit to agency, as a mistress to a king, was one such subversion of wider
34 Levin and Bucholz; Calvi and Chabot; Broomhall and Van Gent, 2011a; Cruz and Stampino;
Sluga and James; Broomhall and Van Gent, 2016; Daybell and Norrhem, 2016b. The works published
in the series ‘Queenship and Power’ edited by Charles Beem and Carole Levin by Palgrave/
Springer likewise participate in this scholarship.
35 Dreyfus and Rabinow, including Foucault’s ‘Afterword: The Subject and Power,’ pp. 208–28;
Giddens.
36 See Hartsock; Hirschmann and Di Stefano; Young; Wartenberg; Caputi; Allen.
social expectations that was nonetheless tolerated at the court under many
a sovereign.
Often drawing upon theories and concepts developed in sociological and
anthropological literature, scholars now look beyond ‘high politics’ in order
to embrace a wide range of acts and agency by both women and subordinate
men in environments of power. In relation to such ideas, gender scholars
of the early modern period have increasingly questioned the viability of
distinctions such as ‘private’ and ‘public’ in terms of considering the political
work of women and men, especially in courtly environments. Scholars’
conceptualizations of arenas of official, formal, and informal political
activities render these complex, sometimes overlapping forms and their
utility for analysis ambiguous. James Daybell and Svante Norrhem have
recently considered the inflection of gender in ‘political culture’, a broad-
ranging term that encompasses ‘modus operandi, spaces and institutions,
underlying structures and ideas, practices and protocols’.37 As Merry Wiesner
Hanks observes, this term importantly breaks down any conceptual divide
between the political and the cultural.38 In the wider literature on early
modern diplomacy, the cultural aspects of political work are also being
given renewed attention under the term ‘soft power’.39 Yet there is perhaps
a risk that the terminology of hard/soft power, just as formal/informal and
high/other politics or public/private, continues to perpetuate gender and
other divisions that were not understood in these terms by contemporaries.
Given our interest in pursuing a broad conceptualization of women’s forms
of power, this collection is multidisciplinary in its perspectives, including
studies by historians, art and literary scholars who shed light on the agency
and authority of courtly women through examination of different kinds
of activities and actions, political, religious, creative, literary, social, and
emotional.
Great inroads in breaking down historiographical divisions have been
made in the area of cultural patronage, including for women at court, now
the subject of a large body of scholarship. As Erin Griffey argues in her
recent study of the French-born Henrietta Maria, ‘display permeated every
aspect of the early modern court’; indeed, she argues, it was ‘the materi-
alization of authority’.40 Women at the French court made extensive use of
creative commissions in complex representations of their authority. Aubrée
37 Daybell and Norrhem, 2016b.

38 Wiesner-Hanks, p. 217.
39 See, for example, Rivère de Carles.
40 Griffey, 2015, p. 1.
22 Susan Broomhall
David-Chapy argues here that Anne de France as regent for Charles VIII and
Louise de Savoie for her son, François I, established access to high political
decision-making not only through official recognition but also through
close attention to the symbolic. Significantly, Christine de Pizan emerges
as an important inspiration and guide for the models of female virtues that
were foregrounded by these princesses. Erin A. Sadlack emphasizes that the
cultural training of the French queen, Mary Tudor Brandon, during her brief
marriage to Louis XII, primed her for such a role as an ‘ambassador-queen’.
Her analysis traces the formidable influence once again of Christine de Pizan
through the libraries of Mary’s female mentors and tapestry commissions.
Laure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn examine Louise de Savoie’s commission
of many texts and images to define her ambiguous status as mother of a king
and as a regent. Fagnart and Winn identify the historical exemplars, biblical
heroines, and astrological signs that Louise, neither the daughter of a king
nor a consort, combined in pursuit of a compelling narrative of authority.
Lisa Mansf ield argues that Eleanor of Austria was likewise adept at
employing cultural politics that could assert an identity during her challeng-
ing time at the French court, using portraits in particular to locate herself
politically and culturally within Habsburg dynastic networks. Discussions
of Eleanor’s actions as French queen have been limited by assumptions both
contemporary and historical that Eleanor was overshadowed at court by
François’s mother, sister, and mistress, Anne de Pisseleu. Yet, Mansfield
contends, during Eleanor’s marriage to François, itself an outcome of the
Ladies’ Peace (1529) engineered by two powerful women, Margaret of
Austria and Louise de Savoie, the queen adopted and adapted Margaret’s
strategic use of portraiture as political communication. Both of François I’s
wives, Claude and Eleanor, have been marginalized in historiography by
the dominating presence of their husband, his mother, Louise de Savoie,
and his sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême, who became Queen of Navarre in
1526. Yet Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier re-reads the symbolic power accrued
in royal entries (as well as ambassadorial attention to Claude in gifts and
interviews) as evidence that the queen consort was well understood in her
lifetime as a key courtly figure.
Women’s production of creative expressions was clearly a major and
continuing form of power that sought to assert authority in the courtly
realm. Cynthia J. Brown studies courtly women’s attention to commissioning
texts and illustrations, composition of new works, and print publication,
including a primer given from one queen, Anne de Bretagne, to her daughter,
another queen, Claude de France; a prayer book produced by Claude for her
sister Renée de France; a comportment manual written by the regent Anne
de France for her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521) that Suzanne

organized to have printed; a prayer book given as a gift by Louise de Savoie
to her daughter Marguerite d’Angoulême; and Marguerite’s work of short
stories, the Heptaméron, which her daughter, Jeanne d’Albret (1528–1572),
was instrumental in having published in a manner befitting her mother’s
authorial legacy. By contrast, Pollie Bromilow studies how the material,
visual, and paratextual apparatus of Hélisenne de Crenne’s printed publica-
tions sought to establish a provincial woman’s power to write and be read
by female and male readers, even at the court, at a time when, as Brown’s
essay explores, such roles were more typically undertaken by elite women
such as Suzanne de Bourbon and Jeanne d’Albret in service of the publication
of their influential mothers’ works.
As these examples suggest, a further form of power for these women was
the dissemination of their own voices and ideas in manuscripts, letters,
and printed editions. Wilson-Chevalier demonstrates how Queen Claude
cultivated a flourishing literary culture that maintained the intervention of
intelligent social interlocutors such as Anne de Graville, who dedicated her
works to the queen. In her analysis of the writings of Anne de Graville, author
and lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude, Mawy Bouchard examines a woman’s
conceptualization of social forms of power through language, speech, and
gossip. As Bouchard argues, Graville provides a unique female perspective
to contemporary debates about courtly modes of social interaction and
women’s capacity to think, talk, and decide. She pointedly emphasized the
risks to women of courtly speech and conceptualized slander as a kind of
rhetorical assault, but also proposed the possibilities of eloquence as a form
of resistance for women. While Graville’s scribally circulated works were
dedicated to the queen, another female author sought courtly patronage
by dedicating her works to the king, François. Pollie Bromilow’s study of
Hélisenne de Crenne argues that her works held particular pedagogical
value that could empower female readers and enable their participation in
the culture of the book, actions that Bromilow argues were deeply political.
Jonathan A. Reid extends this exploration into women’s creative responses
with specific consideration of Marguerite d’Angoulême’s activities both at
the court and beyond it. Marguerite modeled herself on female forebears:
literary, such as the ever-present Pizan; spiritual (including Marguerite
Porete (c. 1248/50–1310)); and political — and became, in turn, an exemplar
for women after her. Thus, Marguerite acted as a key connection between
many of the influential women studied by this volume, such as Anne de
Bretagne, Louise de Savoie, Anne de Graville, Anne de Pisseleu, Catherine
de Médicis among them, as well as others beyond the French court, such
24 Susan Broomhall
as the Roman poet Vittoria Colonna (1490–1547) and Genevan religious

reformer Marie Dentière (1495–1561).
A number of essays here also consider affective forms of power, in
analyses of emotional self-management and the development of networks
of sociability. Psychic power, they find, asserted over selves and others
created significant consequences. Tracy Adams embeds her investiga-
tion of Anne de France within the current literature on elite networks
and gift-giving as acts of reciprocal obligations, but extends the analysis
by considering how emotions created a particular practice of gift-giving
gendered feminine. She argues that Anne’s gift-giving practice to other elite
women constructed and cultivated distinct female emotional communities,
networks of sociability, and gendered affects that did particular kinds of
collaborative political work for (or, indeed, that constructed) Anne’s exercise
of power. Brown’s analysis highlights the possibilities of female creativity
and spiritual expression conveyed in texts and images transferred in a
female lineage, of mother–daughter and sisterly relationships of feeling and
acculturation sustained through lavishly illustrated manuscripts and printed
texts. Mansfield demonstrates how Eleanor of Austria crafted a physical
and sartorial connection in her portraits to a proud Habsburg heritage that
resisted courtly hostilities and protected her psychologically by embedding
her within a community of care. Sadlack argues that the correspondence
of Mary Tudor Brandon attempted to establish alliances and influence at
the French court that could be of value to her elder brother, Henry VIII
(1491–1547). Diane de Poitiers’s interactions, also through correspondence,
as an authoritative protagonist both during and after the lifetime of Henri
II, suggest a considered use of particular emotional expressions that were
tailored to her recipients and topics of discussion. Such rhetoric and practice
were vital to Diane, who, like Anne de Pisseleu beforehand, had a precarious
status of authority founded upon emotional and sexual transactions that
were unofficial and subject to a monarch’s changing feelings and fortunes.
Denis Crouzet’s analysis of Catherine de Médicis’s discursive activities
as queen consort likewise emphasizes the important role of emotional
articulation in developing a flexible political position from which she could
advance the prerogatives of the Valois dynasty. As Crouzet argues, Catherine
visualized her role as one of benevolence and harmony, and voiced in her
letters her desire to act with gentleness and charity, as well as her capacity
for fortitude.
Engagement with the dynamic religious politics of the French court was
yet another form of power for women. The French court fostered generations
of women deeply engaged in promoting religious values and movements.
At the turn of the century, Jeanne de France (1464–1505), divorced wife of

Louis XII, founded a new monastic order, the Annonciades, that gathered
together young ladies and spawned seven sister convents within 30 years. 41
Visible representations of religious devotion were a long-held avenue for elite
female agency and one that many courtly women of this era maintained
through financial contributions and in artistic and literary forms. 42 Brown’s
cross-generational analysis vividly demonstrates female networks of cultural
power in which women were influential spiritual interlocutors. By the
early sixteenth century, the influence of Protestant views sparked new
religious divisions that infiltrated the courtly sphere. Accordingly, elite
women’s religious engagement began to take on new forms that included
visible critique of institutional practices. Some women were closely tied to
the religious reform movements within the Church. As Wilson-Chevalier
argues in her study of Claude’s spaces of agency, the queen attracted a
coterie around her that was a counterpoint for those opposed in religious
and political terms to the positions of her husband and mother-in-law.
Furthermore, evidence emerges in both her choice of confessor and the
works dedicated to her that Claude followed the spiritual path of her parents
in favor of religious reform.
This reforming position would be advanced in different directions by
other women in Claude’s immediate environment, as evangelical support
by Marguerite d’Angoulême, sustained tolerance by Marguerite de Valois,
or espousing Protestantism as was the case for Anne Boleyn and Renée
de France. Reid examines the letters and literary output of Marguerite
d’Angoulême as well as court records to assess the challenges faced by a
female courtier, albeit sister to a king and a queen in her own right, to assert
and advance political and religious agendas of her choosing. He argues that
Marguerite imaginatively exploited resources and pathways open to her,
through courtly activities and writings that were circulated scribally and
in print. If Claude de France, Marguerite d’Angoulême, and even Catherine
de Médicis were all associated with evangelism during this period, other
women became vital protagonists in the advancement of Protestant politics
in France and beyond, such as Renée de France and Anne de Pisseleu who
converted to the reformed faith. These leading women, perhaps especially
41 See Drèze, 1991; and Broomhall, 2008, pp. 10–15, 49–58.

42 The development of religious culture through the activities and patronage of princesses
is an important aspect, and has been discussed elsewhere. Zum Kolk, 2016; Wilson-Chevalier.
Wilson-Chevalier outlines the important early role of Claude de France in these reforming
movements before the better-known involvement of Marguerite d’Angoulême.
26 Susan Broomhall
two mistresses whose faith affiliations were diametrically opposed, played

determining roles through their networks in the development of factional
divisions at court. Diane de Poitiers (1499–1566), for example, advanced
the cause of a hardline Catholic network, especially supporting the Guise
dynasty to whom she was connected through her daughter’s marriage.
These factions remained powerful blocs that deeply affected the stability
of the kingdom through the second half of the sixteenth century, long after
both Pisseleu and Poitiers had left the court.
As can be seen, authors here focus on forms of power, artistic, cultural,
creative, literary, emotional, religious, and political interventions, which
encompassed and achieved not just formal political acts, but more broadly
asserted the interests of women or others of their choosing, even to represent
themselves or their sex in a beneficial way. These forms of power are difficult
to separate neatly from each other; many worked hand in hand, or one
form enabled another. Separately and collectively, they gave these women
authority and influence. This suggests a nuance to the conclusion of a
recent study edited by Eva Pibiri and Fanny Abbott in which they argue
that power itself was masculine. 43 The essays here suggest that women had
access to a range of forms of power, from involvement in political decisions,
advancement of religious beliefs to commission of creative works, writing
narratives of their own, and management of their own emotions and those
of others as a potent force for action. These forms of power provided the
possibilities for authority, largely understood by contemporaries to be a male
preserve. Power and authority were, however, interconnected and often
mutually enabling, complicating any overly sharp distinction in terms of
the gendered nature of these concepts and their practice.
Authority at the French Court
Realms of power informed and reinforced patterns of conduct across key

organizational structures, making a study of women’s actions at the French
court, and the ideologies that surrounded them, pertinent to other contexts,
such as print publication, religious institutions, and legal discourses. Read
together, these essays reveal the complexities of elite women’s agency at the
43 See Pibiri and Abbott, pp. vii–xiv. ‘Le pouvoir était masculin, tout comme l’accès au sacré; y
pretendre en tant que femme revenait à contrevenir à la norme. Seuls le caractère exceptionnel
et le respect de critères temporels et constitutifs definés par des hommes permettaient de ne
pas envisager une incursion féminine, dans ces domaines, comme une transgression’.
French court during this period. The majority of essays focus on individuals
who were clearly symbolically at the apex of the courtly hierarchy and others
who, through a variety of means and circumstances, enjoyed influence
and were able to assert at least some of their own agendas or those of their
families and favorites. Nonetheless, each of the studies also emphasizes the
active cultural work in visual, textual, and material forms and the social and
emotional labor that these women were engaged in to justify, shore up, or
advance their capacity for influence at the court. Legitimacy to act in many
courtly contexts was precarious and limited. This points to a fundamental
difference between the relationship of women and authority, and that of
men and authority. Whether as consorts, regents, mothers of kings, or as
women employing forms of power in the female voice in manuscript and
print, women had to insist upon their right to speak, act, and determine,
because it was not assumed. 44 Men too were actively building up their
authority and insisted upon their status as men of influence, but women
by contrast were repeatedly asserting their fundamental right to wield
these forms of power at the same time as they were attempting to employ
and preserve them. Royal rule was certainly male in France; indeed, male
rule was often argued by male contemporaries to be natural and divine. 45
Authority too, the assertion of one self over another, was a practice that
was deeply informed by cultural and social rules and gender ideologies.
However, it was also a negotiated and dynamic practice that enabled some
women in the right contexts to assert themselves over others.46 They looked
to authoritative women from the kingdom’s past, their dynastic heritage,
ancient mythology, biblical narratives, and literature, and their identities
as mothers, as evidence that their authority in various matters at court was
viable and legitimate. Moreover, they created for themselves communities
of shared beliefs and feelings, often among women, although not exclusively
so, that reinforced their ideas. In some cases, these provided intellectual
and spiritual support for evangelical views the status of which was at best
ambiguous at the court in this period. However, other modes of community
creation suggest insecurities and a need for emotional bonding or buffering
that extended beyond practical gains.
44 See also for a slightly later period, Hanley, 2006.

45 See Cosandey, 2000; Viennot, 2006, Hanley, 1997a; Hanley, 1997b; Hanley, 1997c; Taylor;
Conroy.
46 For discussions of early modern authority specifically in the context of gender, see Broomhall
and Van Gent, 2011b; Broomhall, 2015a.
28 Susan Broomhall
These essays suggest that there are few limits to the kinds of sources that
can be drawn into such analyses if approached with questions about women’s
power and authority to interpret them with. Authors here consider their
varied source material through lenses shaped by literary, anthropological,
history of emotion, cultural history, and performativity scholarship. As such,
the essays to follow adopt more precise terminology for forms of power that
reflects the specific nature of access and scope of authority available to the
individuals they study. These terms include governance, control, dominance,
creation, drive, status, affluence, influence, persuasion, and dynamism. They
consider the agency of their subjects in terms of capacity and capability to
act towards their goals, as well as the duration of such agency, particularly
in changing life circumstances. Such a focus necessarily recognizes how
women’s choices, actions and experiences were shaped by the power of
others to limit actions and impose the will of another. Nonetheless, their
studies reveal that, in this light, women could assert authority from often
unexpected positions, sometimes marginalized positions, as well as through
more visible and formally recognized roles.
The first group of essays in the volume examines how forms of women’s
power were conceptualized and practiced by two particular women at
the French court. Just as the chronology of the collection is framed by
female regencies, the volume begins with Aubrée David-Chapy’s study
of two game-changing regencies exercised in the period: those of Anne
de France for Charles VIII and Louise de Savoie for her son, François I.
David-Chapy explores their distinct strategies in very different political
and courtly contexts but also their shared approaches to legitimacy as
women in, and of, power. The legacy of their highly visible authority at the
apex of the court and kingdom would inform the possibilities for action
of many elite women in the courtly realm during this period and beyond,
as the studies to follow demonstrate. Regency is a key role in which these
individuals wielded influence but it was by no means the only status that
provided such opportunities. The following essay, by Tracy Adams, likewise
examines Anne de France, but in relation to a precise form of her power as
an important mediator between elite cohorts at the French court through
her gift-giving practices. Focusing upon the visualization of the identity of
Louise de Savoie as mother and widow, Laure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn
then examine how Louise’s representational achievements sustained her
enduring influence as a dominant force in the kingdom as François’s political
companion, interlocutor, and mediator with foreign powers.
Essays brought together in the volume’s second part consider women at
both the center and yet seemingly the periphery of power, consorts who
were symbolically powerful as partners of monarchs and reproductive

laborers in the service of dynastic continuities, but whose political activities
and courtly roles have received little attention to date. The consorts who
are the subject of the following three chapters, Mary Tudor Brandon, third
wife of Louis XII, and the consecutive wives of François I, Claude de France
and Eleanor of Austria, have thus far received little scholarly discussion
as figures of power at the French court. Erin A. Sadlack demonstrates,
however, how the correspondence of French queen, Mary Tudor Brandon,
during her brief marriage to Louis XII, offers an opportunity to analyze
her attempts to establish alliances and commission creative projects as an
‘ambassador-queen’. With tenures as consorts far longer than that of Mary,
the wives of François I, Claude and Eleanor, here also receive renewed at-
tention. Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier indicates in her study Claude’s spaces of
agency for spiritual, creative, and literary engagements, while Lisa Mansfield
argues that Eleanor of Austria was likewise adept at asserting her potential
influence and connections to the Habsburg dynasty.
The volume’s third part shifts focus to assessments of women’s production
of creative expressions in the courtly realm. Cynthia J. Brown contributes
a cross-generational analysis of female creativity and spiritual expression
through spiritual and literary works passed from mothers to daughters, and
between sisters. Jonathan A. Reid considers the opportunities for Marguerite
d’Angoulême to achieve her own political and spiritual goals through a study
of her letters and literary output in manuscript and print. Mawy Bouchard
examines the works of Queen Claude’s lady-in-waiting, Anne de Graville,
which insisted on the importance of women’s speech on their own terms.
Pollie Bromilow investigates the work of another female author who sought
courtly patronage by dedicating her works to the king, François, in her
analysis of Hélisenne de Crenne whose printed fictional works were among
the first published by a living female author and provide a complementary
perspective on the production of a creative female voice.
The volume’s f inal section brings together essays that study how
emotional rhetoric and sociability practices could generate and define
specific forms of power for courtly women. David Potter examines how
Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes, who rose to enjoy a role of immense
political influence at the French court as maîtresse en titre of François I,
converted her authority at court into forms of power that lasted well after
the death of her royal partner. While the extent of her status as a political
interlocutor in François’s final years has been previously documented,
Potter analyzes here the legal, marital, and financial transactions of her
familial network that demonstrate Anne’s continued signif icance as a
30 Susan Broomhall
key f igure in these deliberations and in pursuit of Protestantism until

her own demise. The following essay studies another prominent woman
who rose to influence at the court as a mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Her
particular rhetorical forms, and emotional expressions, were designed to
insist upon the reach of her influence at court, in securing positions and
the king’s favor for her nominees, and in asserting her knowledge widely,
from matters of child-rearing to international political negotiations and
military engagements. Like Pisseleu, Diane outlived the monarch who
was her access to status by many years, and thus her correspondence both
enacted and reflected activities similar to those of Pisseleu, which were
designed to achieve longevity for her reach and influence. Denis Crouzet
studies Catherine de Médicis’s interventions as regent while consort of
Henri II, which developed a pragmatic position of prudence, moderation,
and flexibility that she would demonstrate more fully as queen mother and
regent for her son Charles IX. Peace — Catherine’s objective — demanded
these qualities, and a practice of gentleness became more than a feminine
tool of power, Crouzet argues, but rather the expression of it.
In the Orbit of the Monarch
What did it mean for women to seek power in a political system such as that
of France in which the monarch was always a man? How significant to their
actions were individual, cultured men who surrounded themselves with
female advisers who were relatives and lovers, and considered, and at times
advanced, their opinions? Catherine de Médicis was clearly trying to mold
her son Charles in the manner of male rule that she had seen practiced by
monarchs during this period (or perhaps idealized in ways useful to women).
At the same time, these leading women understood that power, as agency,
influence, control, determination of selves and others, was uncertain and
unstable in the orbit of the monarch. As such, it was something to be gained,
used, preserved, or converted if possible.
Nurturing emotional engagement with royal partners, Anne de Pisseleu
and Diane de Poitiers operated in political circles by accruing high status
and courtly recognition. This required far more of such women than sexual
attractiveness. François I and Henri II, their respective royal partners,
were both known to have had sexual relations with other women, which
did not accrue for them the sustained political access that Pisseleu and
Poitiers achieved. Similar forms of personal and emotional service as family
members also proved significant to high political access for other women.
This includes Anne de France and Louise de Savoie, as sister and mother of
kings respectively, and Catherine de Médicis for her sons.
Women benefited from access to influence only in certain life stages
that signaled different uses and experiences of women’s symbolic and
lived bodies, from their sexual activity to their reproductive capacity. 47
As wives and mothers of kings, women were recognized with high status
that converted into social and cultural power at court, but not necessarily
regular influence with the monarch himself or decision-making capacity
in the kingdom’s affairs, as it did for at least two royal mistresses. Neither
of François’s two wives, Claude de France nor Eleanor of Austria, acted as
regents during his reign, although Catherine de Médicis served multiple
times in this role for her spouse, Henri II. Royal wives who came from
elsewhere, such as Anne de Bretagne, Eleanor of Austria, and Catherine
de Médicis, had to find mechanisms to assert themselves at the French
court that both expressed pride in their own dynastic origins and signaled
a capacity for harmonious union in their new environments. Producing
children assisted these women to assert identities as royal mothers that
provided the capacity for influence, particularly if they lived to witness the
reign of a son and enjoy the status of queen mother.
Yet, although they shared what appear to be close emotional bonds with
their brothers, other sisters of monarchs such as Mary Tudor Brandon,
younger sister of Henry VIII, Marguerite d’Angoulême, elder sister of
François I, and Marguerite de Valois, younger sister of Henri II, held more
ambiguous forms of authority and influence in their brothers’ orbits. Agency
to determine an independent path was limited. Having fulfilled a dynastic
obligation with her first marriage, Marguerite d’Angoulême was given some
autonomy from her brother, François, in the choice of her second marriage
partner. However, this was a freedom Henri II did not permit his aunt when
it came time for Marguerite’s daughter Jeanne d’Albret to marry.
In such circumstances, women aimed not to rely on the changeable feelings
or disposition of a monarch for their action. The political influence of Pisseleu
and Poitiers may have come initially through intimate attachments but they
were able to convert it to other, more sustainable, forms of political influence
through networks with powerful allies, and especially into lands and monies
that they could then control themselves. Jeanne de France chose the convent
after her divorce settlement from Louis XII, where she became the creator of
a wholly new order for elite women, and acted largely autonomously within
it. Other women sought independent action, without reference to monarchs,
47 Schulte; Weil.
32 Susan Broomhall
in different ways. Mary Tudor Brandon did not wait to discover her brother’s
inclinations before she followed her own, risking his wrath to wed Charles
Brandon soon after the demise of her first husband, Louis XII.
Finally, and importantly, Marguerite d’Angoulême powerfully extended
the range of her voice beyond the ears of her brother, or even the court,
amplifying her views through the circulation of her writings in manuscript
and print. Courtly daughters, Suzanne de Bourbon and Jeanne d’Albret,
followed her lead on behalf of their powerful mothers. In doing so, the
actions of these elite women provided role models and access to the pen
and readers for women of lesser status, whether within the court such as
Anne de Graville, or those who gazed at it from afar, such as Hélisenne de
Crenne. These women, through their own contributions to literature, took
up the possibilities that women at court seemed to make available to them
and assumed a right to act, speak, and be heard in their own time and since.
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About the author
Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University

of Western Australia. She is author or co-author of eight monographs and
ten edited volumes exploring women and gender, power, and most recently
emotions and material culture, from late medieval to nineteenth-century
Europe, although the particular focus of her work is early modern France
and the Low Countries. She has published Women and the Book Trade in
Sixteenth-Century France (Ashgate, 2002), Women’s Medical Work in Early
Modern France (Manchester University Press, 2004), Women and Religion
in Sixteenth-Century France (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and most recently
(with Jacqueline Van Gent), Gender, Power and Identity in the Early Modern
House of Orange-Nassau (Routledge, 2016), and Dynastic Colonialism: Gender,
Materiality and the Early Modern House of Orange-Nassau (Routledge, 2016).
She holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, researching
emotions and power in the correspondence of Catherine de Médicis. From
this research, she has published a series of book chapters and articles, and
is currently writing a monograph on emotions in Catherine de Médicis’
letters for Brill. From 2018, she leads a major Australian Research Council
project, with Carolyn James and Lisa Mansfield, ‘Gendering the Italian
Wars, 1494–1559’.
Part I
Conceptualizing and Practicing Female Power
1. The Political, Symbolic, and Courtly
Powerof Anne de France and Louise
de Savoie
From the Genesis to the Glory of Female Regency
Aubrée David-Chapy
Abstract
The last decades of the fifteenth and the dawn of the sixteenth century
represent a political and institutional turning point when women such
as Anne de France and Louise de Savoie asserted themselves at court
and at the head of the realm. This chapter considers how both princesses
established and sustained power. Their legitimacy was built on blood,
dynasty, law, and royal choice, adopting similar strategies to strengthen
their power and wielding an unusual authority. Surrounded by many
women, both regents build a ‘royaume de fémynie’ at the royal court
where they displayed their political and symbolical power. Under their
influence, the female court became a political sphere where they held
first rank, just under the queen.
Keywords: regency, Anne de France, Louise de Savoie, networks, e loquence,

ethics
In France, the end of the fifteenth century and beginning of the sixteenth
century witnessed the emergence of female regency, which became pro-
gressively established as an institution and form of government in itself.
The French court became a place of exercise of women’s power where two
princesses, Anne de France (1461–1522) and Louise de Savoie (1476–1531)
imposed themselves, successively, at the head of the realm, and played an
essential part in the genesis of this new kind of power.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch01
44 Aubrée David - Chapy
First, Anne de France, dame of Beaujeu, daughter of Louis XI (1423–1483),

rose to power at her father’s death in order to assist her younger brother,
Charles VIII (1470–1498). With the help of her husband, Pierre de Beaujeu
(1438–1503),1 she managed the realm for more than a decade and asserted
her unequaled influence. Without having any official title, she played an
important role in entrenching modern regency. It was a feature of every
subsequent reign, from François I (1494–1547) to Louis XIV (1638–1715).
Anne de France exerted her influence on her brother until his death in 1498,
and she imposed her political and symbolic authority both at the French
court and at the head of the realm. In 1515 the newly crowned François I
officially entrusted his mother Louise de Savoie, Duchess of Angoulême,
with the regency, before leaving the country for his first Italian expedition
that culminated with victory at Marignano. Again in 1524, at the time of
his second Italian War, he bestowed the regency upon his mother, giving
her many prerogatives. This was the first time a woman had been officially
appointed as a regent.2 Anne and Louise stand apart from the female
regents who followed, including Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589), Marie
de Médicis (1575–1642), Anne of Austria (1601–1666), and Maria-Theresa
of Austria (1638–1683). Neither woman was a queen, and each used her
particular status, as ‘Daughter of France’ for Anne, and as ‘the King’s Mother’
for Louise, to legitimate her presence at the head of the realm and to build
power at the French court.
This power had two interlinked aspects: one political, the other
symbolic. This study analyzes the genesis of female regency as a new
institution off icially integrated into monarchy. It examines the nature
of this new power exerted by two women who gained the authority to
rule for the king. It aims to demonstrate that, over years and in spite of
several limitations, this female power, modeled upon royal power, could
be identified with the auctoritas and imperium, which were usually the
preserve of the king. This study also investigates the strategies that Anne
de France and Louise de Savoie employed at the French court to retain
power and limit that of their opponents. Finally, it analyzes the different
political and symbolic means that each woman used to build, strengthen,
and practice their power.
I would like to thank Susan Broomhall and Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier for their corrections
and advice.
1 He became Duke of Bourbon in 1488.
2 This includes even Blanche of Castile (1188–1252), mother of Saint Louis (1214–1270).
The Political, Symbolic, and Courtly Power 45
Rising to Power: The Genesis of Feminine Regency
A priori, neither Anne de France nor Louise de Savoie was destined to exert
an almost sovereign power by the side of Charles VIII or François I. Neither
had been part of the King’s Council before arriving on the political stage.
Nevertheless, they had had experience at the French court where each had
been brought up and lived, either as the king’s daughter in the case of Anne
or, for Louise, as niece of Charlotte de Savoie (1441–1483).3
From an institutional perspective, the two women came to power in
very different ways. In 1483, Anne’s accession to power because of the
king’s minority occurred outside of any legal framework. Indeed, there
was no fixed rule as to the choice of the regent who received power during
a sovereign’s minority. Traditionally, the latter was under the guardianship
of his mother, the queen, but no law determined this practice. Anne de
France took advantage of this situation to exclude her mother from the
tutelage of the king, whom she took under her own care. There were several
points in her favour. At the death of Louis XI, whose main councillor was
her husband, Pierre de Beaujeu, the couple were already established at the
head of the realm. Their accession to power provided political continuity
that Louis XI desired. Indeed, in 1482 the king had verbally designated them
legatees of power to his son Charles during a famous session in which he gave
instructions to the dauphin. 4 All the contemporary chroniclers, including
Philippe de Commynes (1447–1511) and Alain Bouchart (b. 1440), confirm
that the king intended to bring the Beaujeus to power during Charles VIII’s
minority.5 Yet, in the ordinance written after this episode, the couple were
not identified directly. This vagueness weakened their position and forced
them to confront others who considered themselves as the legitimate holders
of power. Their most vigorous opponent was the first blood prince, Louis II,
Duke of Orleans (1462–1515), future Louis XII, who would inherit the crown
if Charles VIII died without issue. Louis claimed the regency due to his rank
3 Louise de Savoie was the daughter of Count Philippe of Bresse, future Duke of Savoy, and
the niece of Louis XI.
4 Pardessus, pp. 56–60: ‘Nous lui avons ordonné, commandé ainsi que père peust faire à
son filz, qu’il se gouverne, entretiengne en bon regime et entretenement dudit royaume par
le conseil, advis et gouvernement de noz parens et seigneurs de nostre sang et lignaige’ (‘We
ordered and commanded him, as a father can his son, to govern himself, and rule the realm with
the council, advice and government of our parents and feudal lords of our blood and lineage’).
All translations are my own unless otherwise stated.
5 Commynes; Bouchart.
and rallied many noblemen around him. The ‘princes’ party’ opposed the
‘royal party’ of the Beaujeus as early as 1485.
In this unstable context, the États généraux met at the beginning of 1484
in Tours. They aimed primarily to designate the future King’s Councillors
and to declare the need for a regency. The decision of the members benefited
the Beaujeus, who received the guardianship of the king.6 Pierre was also
designated as Council President in times when Charles VIII and the Dukes
of Orleans and Bourbon were absent.7 Thus, the Beaujeus held power. But
they endured opposition from the nobility for several years and it would be
1488 before Anne de France won the war against the dukes, Louis of Orleans,
François II of Brittany (1435–1488), and Maximilian of Austria (1459–1519), after
the victory of Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier. This took her to the height of her power.
During this ‘Mad War’, Anne de France fought to retain her power while
ruling the realm, making her a powerful female exemplar for those who
followed. She laid the foundations for a feminine practice of power as she
ruled almost as a regent. This facilitated Louise de Savoie’s rise to power as a
regent in 1515, only nine months after the accession of her son, François I, to
the throne. Anne de France’s government prefigured that of Louise de Savoie;
it provided both practical and theoretical principles for its establishment.
Over three decades, a new institution and the implementation of a power
of unprecedented proportions was formed.
The nomination of Louise de Savoie, Duchess of Angoulême, as regent
occurred in a peaceful context and did not generate any opposition, for the
king took many precautions in the way he designated his mother. After the
legal vagueness of Anne’s experience in the 1480s came an institutional
precision that strengthened Louise’s status against potential opponents.
Thus Anne de France’s de facto regency was followed by a de jure regency
instituted in 1515. The rupture was semantic, juridical, institutional, and
political. For the first time, a woman held the title of regent with considerable
prerogatives that were defined in a royal ordinance, promulgated before the
king left for Italy.8 On the eve of his second departure and during his war,
the king promulgated the 1523, 1524, and 1525 ordinances in which he again
delegated vast powers to his mother.9 The shift towards an entirely female
power occurred during François I’s captivity in Madrid, in 1525. Louise, regent
6 Bernier, p. 703.
7 Bernier, p. 702.
8 Archives nationales (AN), J. 1037, n°7 and published in Levasseur, I, 1902, pp. 262–67.
9 Champollion-Figeac, pp. 1–9 and Levasseur, III, 1932, pp. 282–89; then AN, J. 910, n° 10, and
published in Champollion-Figeac, pp. 29–31 and in Levasseur, IV, 1933, pp. 51–52; and finally,
Champollion-Figeac, pp. 416–25.
of the realm and guardian of the children of France, had issued hundreds of
edicts and mandates written in her own name and using her own formula
‘for such is my pleasure’.10 Louise de Savoie, legitimized in power by her son,
was the embodiment of auctoritas, potestas, and imperium. In theory, she
was in possession of a quasi-sovereign power.
Thereafter female regency could exist because it had been officially
established as a fully fledged power. After Anne de France, women progres-
sively rose to the head of the realm and this process bolstered their personal
power. In turn, with the support of the monarchs, both princesses imagined
and practiced an almost royal power, during the minority or the absence
of the kings with whom they shared the authority. Each wielded a vast
power and was involved in all aspects of politics including diplomacy and
marriages, domestic and foreign affairs, justice, and economy.11
Proximity to the King: The Key to Power
As their authority and their presence at the head of the State could be
contested, Anne de France and Louise de Savoie both developed strategies
to retain power. The differences in their strategies followed from the nature
of the power each exerted. Regency was by nature an unstable and weak
form of power as it arose in the minority or absence of the sovereign: it was
open to challenge, especially when upheld by women.
For Charles VIII’s sister and François I’s mother, a key concern was to
remain the exclusive intermediary between the monarch and his subjects.
A key strategy to keep power was to remain beside him at court as well as
at war.12 Anne acted as a shield, a bulwark, against the king’s enemies; that
is, her own enemies. The rebellious nobles of the realm such as Louis II
d’Orléans, Charles d’Angoulême (1459–1496), René d’Alençon (1454–1492),
and François de Dunois (1447–1491) were not permitted to approach the
royal person. This proximity had a double meaning. It gave power to the
Beaujeu family who monopolized and controled access to the king and also
symbolized their power and status. The Beaujeus appeared as the most senior
individuals in the realm after Charles VIII. Anne de France exerted power
through her permanent proximity to her brother, a symbolic presence that
was the guarantee and the expression of her might.
10 ‘Car tel est mon plaisir’, David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 525ff.

11 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 403–63, pp. 478ff.
12 David-Chapy, 2012.
Louise de Savoie’s situation was very different. Her two regencies cor-
responded with the absence of the sovereign and were generated de facto by
his physical distance from her. Alone at the head of the State, she held almost
full power. During the king’s absences, the regent stood in for the sovereign
and represented him in the eyes of the subjects. The king’s presence was
thus superfluous, as his mother assumed the features of a quasi-sovereign,
provided with an auctoritas that bestowed real political power. On the other
hand, when François I returned, the regent Louise de Savoie, a woman, was
deprived of institutional office. The essence of the power she exerted then
metamorphosed into a power of influence of the kind more commonly
wielded by women in particular, and often difficult for historians to discern
and to measure. This power of influence flowed from an everyday pres-
ence close to the king, at court, at his Council, and even during the royal
ceremonies. Contemporaries at the royal court expressed Louise’s influence
through the formula, ‘the King and Madame’, which signified a couple
connected through blood, presence, power, and shared decision-making.13
For Anne de France and Louise de Savoie, the political consequence of
their presence close to the king at court was the exercise of power as a couple.
Indeed, Anne exerted power either with her brother, or her husband, but always
as one partner in a couple. In her History of the Siege of Brest that follows the
Enseignements (1503) written for her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521),
Anne de France expressed a personal vision of power. Through the voice of
a noblewoman, the main character of the work, she asserts to her husband:
My dear, love and duty claim that, of all principal matters, according
to God and wisdom, I should share with you as one heart in two bodies
and one will.14
Through the words of the protagonist, Anne revealed her personal political
practice, in which a wise woman was equal to her husband, especially in
matters of rule and decision-making. Moreover, an attentive reading of the
correspondence between Anne de France and Charles VIII reveals the extent
to which the king’s will merged with that of his sister.15 Within this inseparable
political couple, each played a role: Charles retained symbolic authority,
13 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 250, 525.

14 ‘M’amie, amour et devoir veulent que, de tous mes principaux affaires, selon Dieu et raison,
vous en dois départir, comme un cœur en deux corps et une même volonté’, David-Chapy, 2016,
pp. 107–08.
15 AN, X1a 9319, 9320, 9321; Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), ms. fr 15538; Charles VIII.
while his sister held the real power; that is, the decision-making power. Anne
exerted this prerogative in full: Charles legitimated his sister’s decisions.
This modus operandi represented the application of an ideal of government
that would gain unprecedented political and mystical magnitude under
Louise de Savoie. As regent, she was a member of a united ‘royal trinity’
along with François I and his sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême.16 Louise
de Savoie used this expression, coined by Marguerite, in her letters and
in ceremonies to present their relationship as a quasi-mystical union.17
Even contemporaries used it. For example, the poet Jehan Marot (c. 1450–c.
1526) evoked the ‘royal trinity’, as did the bishop and statesman, Guillaume
Briçonnet (1470–1534) who wrote to Marguerite: ‘You are in this world a
trinity of persons’.18 Thus, with the support of her daughter and contemporary
authors, Louise de Savoie worked to build her political power on blood and
a mystical conceptualization. Whether as a couple or a trinity, however,
these formulations functioned only with the presence of the king.
Masculine and Feminine Networks as Supports of the Regents
To strengthen their personal power at the head of the realm, Anne de France
and Louise de Savoie developed strong networks, especially at the French
court, through numerous alliances.19 The establishment of Anne de France’s
government was based primarily on people gathered within networks that
she maintained, consolidated, and enlarged. Her power was established
through favor and fidelity as well as a party of loyal followers, from princes
to nobles and servants of the State, who were integrated into these networks.
Loyalty represented a political instrument in the hands of the Beaujeus, as
was frequently the case in the period.
The Beaujeus first relied on networks inherited from the reign of Louis
XI. In the midst of the ‘Mad War’, Anne de France knew how to maintain
the loyalty of military men and servants of the State.20 She progressively
gained the support of the princes who represented a potential threat to her
power. Providing gifts and bestowing responsibilities, she won the support
16 Knecht.
17 She writes: ‘by the grace of God our Trinity has always been united’ (‘le Créateur nous a fait
la grasse que nostre trynyté a tousjours esté unye’), cited in Lecoq, p. 393.
18 Translation of the author. ‘Vous estes en ce monde une trinité de personnes’, Lecoq, p. 395.
19 David-Chapy, 2018b.
20 These men are Louis Malet de Graville, Jean de Baudricourt, Louis II de La Trémoille, and
the marshal of Gié.
of many noblemen, such as the dukes Jean II de Bourbon (1426–1488) and

René II de Lorraine (1451–1508). Multiple treaties were developed between
1484 and 1487; alliances were made and unmade in favor of Anne de France,
who sought help in the realm and beyond it, particularly in Flanders and
in Brittany.21
Above all, Anne de France relied on the House of Bourbon, which was
a key pillar for her power. Within this House she found her most faithful
supporters who acted as the bulwark to the endangered kingship. Anne’s
efforts engaged the mighty Jean II, Duke of Bourbon, her husband’s brother,
who vacillated between the royal and princes’ parties. Others, however,
including the Bourbon-Montpensier, the Bourbon-Vendôme, and the
numerous illegitimate members of the House, were constant supporters.22
Members of the House of Bourbon were thus over-represented on the King’s
Council, in the government, in the royal army, and at court where they
supported Anne’s policies. Family relationships played a significant part
in her political strategies. Indeed, the parliamentary archives, which allow
us to sketch the Beaujeus’ networks, emphasize the extent to which blood
and service were essential elements of Anne de France’s policy as ‘regent’
and as Duchess of Bourbon.23
Louise de Savoie inherited dynamic and eff icient networks that she
needed only to maintain. Fidelity was less important for her than it had
been for Anne de France. Louise was surrounded by men who applied
her policies, and who were present on the King’s Council, the main place
of government, which she dominated during her two regencies. In the
Council, she supported many powerful men such as Florimond Robertet
(1458–1527), Chancellor Antoine Duprat (1463–1535), her brother, René de
Savoie (1473–1525), and Jacques de Beaune, Lord of Semblançay (1465–1527),
until his disgrace. Moreover, she introduced men into the Council who
would become the most important statesmen of her son’s reign, such
as Artus Gouff ier (1475–1519), François de Tournon (1489–1562), Jean
Caluau (?–1522), Jean de Selve (1475–1529), Philibert Babou (1484–1557),
Jean Brinon (1484–1528), and Gilbert Bayard (?–1548). As Cédric Michon
has pointed out, this group constituted seventeen per cent of the main
21 Treaty of Montargis, 13 October 1484, BnF, coll. Doat, vol. X, fol. 95. Letter of René, Duke of
Lorraine, Bar, 30 September 1484, in Jaligny, pp. 451–52.
22 Members of the house of Bourbon included Louis, bastard of Bourbon and admiral of France,
Charles de Bourbon-Lavedan, Louis de Bourbon-Montpensier, François de Bourbon-Vendôme,
Gilbert de Bourbon-Montpensier.
23 AN, X1a 9319, 9320, 9321.
councillors of the reign.24 He argues that Louise ‘asserted herself as the

patroness of the Council where she controled the entries and ordered
the departures’.25
For both princesses, these f idelity networks were essential and had
their counterpart among elite women at the French court and in their
correspondence. Female networks are more difficult to trace due to a lack
of sources. However, letters that Anne de France sent and received identify
more than 20 princesses and noblewomen who belonged to her circle.
Several family and political networks coexisted and sometimes overlapped
with one another. Blood links were the keystone to the networks of women
that Anne created. She was connected to three different family networks
that included princesses who belonged to the Houses of France, Savoy,
and Bourbon.26 Second, she was a part of political networks with foreign
princesses such as Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) and Anne de Bretagne
(1477–1514), among other European women of power. Finally, the fidelity
networks linked Anne to ladies and demoiselles of more humble birth, who
belonged to families of royal and ducal officers.
Correspondence highlights Anne de France’s superior and remarkable
position at the heart of the courtly system. Her correspondents treated her
with esteem and deference, even her mother-in-law, Agnès of Burgundy,
Duchess of Bourbon (1407–1476), her sister Jeanne de France (1464–1505),
and the young queens Margaret of Austria and Anne de Bretagne. Her
supremacy was due to her triple status as daughter of France, a woman
ruling the realm, and as duchess of a prestigious principality. She acted as
a patron to the members of her networks; this augmented her prestige and
power, and provided her with an important circle of followers.
Anne and Louise, ‘mirrors of virtue’ in the ‘realm of femynie’27
More than any other strategy, however, Anne de France and Louise de
Savoie practiced a power based on virtue at court and at the head of the
24 Michon, p. 77.
25 ‘Elle s’impose indiscutablement comme la protectrice du conseil dont elle contrôle les
entrées et ordonne les sorties’, Michon, p. 85.
26 These princesses included her sister Jeanne de France, her aunt Madeleine de France, her
mother-in-law, the Duchess of Bourbon Agnès of Burgundy, her sister-in-law Jeanne de Bourbon,
her cousins and nieces Philippe de Gueldres, Gabrielle de Bourbon-Montpensier, Jeanne de
Bourbon-Vendôme, and Françoise and Marie of Luxembourg.
27 Pizan, 1992, pp. 144–45.
realm. For these princesses, virtue was at once a factor of legitimacy and a
source of power. Virtue was an ethic as well as a policy, a perpetual quest
and an object of discourse that permitted them to shine at court. It was
partly because of their personal virtues that Louis XI and François I chose
Anne and Louise, respectively, to govern, preserve peace and common good,
and secure the crown. The virtues modeled by the princesses corresponded
to standards Christine de Pizan (1364–1430) theorized and addressed to
women in the Book of the Three Virtues.28 Such ideals had a legitimizing
effect upon which these kings and princesses relied. Among these qualities
was intelligence, or political ‘finesse’, which both women possessed from
long experience and observation at the court. Above all, both Anne de
France and Louise de Savoie had inherited a set of political practices from
their fathers. This fact is highlighted by the Venetian ambassador Girolamo
Zorzi, present at the court from 1485 to 1487, who described Anne as ‘a
woman of great seriousness and intelligence, who is walking, by her action,
in the footsteps of her father’.29 The political practice of Anne and Louise
was based upon careful observation of the mechanisms and functioning of
power at the French court, and inspired by a common heritage of practices,
the ‘memory’ of which they perpetuated and maintained through their
government.
This ‘finesse’ was enhanced by a shared experience of education and
acculturation. First, as princesses, their training stemmed from the same
basis and was inspired by the same referents, found in the same books.
Second, they shared blood ties and an intimate relationship that developed
at the court of France where Anne educated Louise.30 Anne transmitted
to Louise an important cultural heritage based on the imitation of ethical
and political models. Thus, when they came to power, Anne and Louise
were accomplished and cultured women able to draw upon their culture
to govern the realm wisely and virtuously and to shine at court through
their conversation and behavior.31
28 Pizan, 1989.
29 ‘Une femme de grand sérieux et intelligence, qui marche, dans son action, dans les traces
de son père’, Letter Book of Girolamo Zorzi, British Museum, MS Add. 48067, fol. 12v, cited in
Blanchard, p. 49.
30 Louise de Savoie arrived in 1483 at the French court and was educated by Anne de France,
as well as Margaret of Austria or Philippe de Gueldres.
31 Anne de France was only 22 years old when she came to power; Louise de Savoie was 40
years old in 1515 and was, at her second regency, a mature woman with 50 years of experience
of power.
Beyond culture, they also needed to possess wisdom and prudence,

chief among virtues, because both were inherent in the royal office, as
Christine de Pizan and other political theorists reminded readers. In her
Enseignements, Anne de France reminded her daughter that ‘the nobility,
even high, is not worth anything if not ornamented with virtues’.32 Virtues
had to be present in the princesses’ practice of power; they were a tool to
retaining power. This was a constituent aspect of the practice of both Anne
and Louise.
The exercise of virtuous government by women had its source in the
theory written by Pizan.33 It was embodied in the actions of Anne de France
at the head of the State, as early as 1483.34 The statesman and author, Claude
de Seyssel (1450–1520), was not the only author to describe Anne as ‘one
of the wisest and most virtuous’ ladies of the realm, as he did in his early
sixteenth-century work, Louenges du Roy Louys XIIe de ce nom.35 François I
praised his mother’s numerous virtues in ordinances conferring the regency
upon her. Both women appeared as model Christian princesses, correspond-
ing to Pizan’s description. In such texts, Anne and Louise were endowed
with clemency, charity, piety, compassion: that is, feminine virtues suited
to a queen of France.36 The Christian virtues of both princesses added to
their political qualities.
Virtue had to be the quest of a lifetime, as Anne de France emphasized
more than once to her daughter Suzanne.37 These theories were embodied
in her government in the form of political humility towards the different
political units of the realm, according to Pizan’s advice.38 Among these was
the Parlement of Paris whose advice she sought with humility. In exchange,
she gained its support in her opposition to the rebellious princes.39 Thus,
Anne displayed humility publicly in order to maintain and strengthen her
political authority.
Anne de France also possessed unequaled political acumen.40 Above all,
virtuous government had to be prudent. Just as Pizan advised, the
32 ‘Noblesse, tant soit grande, ne vaut rien si elle n’est ornée de vertus’, David-Chapy, 2016,
p. 61.
33 Pizan’s Livre de la Cité des Dames and Livre des trois Vertus were specifically addressed to
women.
34 See David-Chapy, 2016, p. 263.
35 ‘Madame Anne […] est encores des plus saiges et vertueuses’, Seyssel, p. 190.
36 Gaude-Ferragu, p. 117.
37 David-Chapy, 2016, p. 41.
38 Pizan, 1989, pp. 66–68 and David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 267–68 and also pp. 597–98 and p. 634.
39 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 60–61.
40 See David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 188–89.
Enseignements glorified prudence, which embraced wisdom, restraint,

discernment, intelligence, and self-control, as well as cunning and dissimula-
tion. All of these were aspects of prudence that Anne put into practice as
a woman of power. 41 Thus were placed the first stones in the construction
of a political and allegorical character of Prudence, which supported her
auctoritas. Anne transmitted this art of power to her niece Louise de Savoie
who gave it a symbolic and allegorical turn.
Indeed, Louise de Savoie, whose cultural and ethical references were the
same as those of Anne, perfected her aunt’s model. Louise had to be virtuous
for two reasons: first, as the king’s mother and instructor; and second, as
regent and a woman of power. She identified herself with Prudence as a
strategy of power. François Desmoulins de Rochefort (c. 1470/1480–1526?)
and Jean Thenaud (1480–1542) were two key authors who worked for Louise
and strove to associate her with the figure of Prudence through their works
and iconography. In one manuscript, Louise de Savoie was termed ‘divine
Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana and fountain of all the virtues’. 42 This
identif ication was also made at royal ceremonies. At royal entries, for
example, she was glorified as Dame Prudence. In Rouen, on 2 August 1517,
Louise appeared with the features of Pallas-Minerva, holding ‘the shield
of prudence’ that she gave to the young king. 43 The mater regis displayed a
political and religious mysticism, in which she guided the sovereign by her
ethical and political perfection and holiness.
Finally, Anne de France and Louise de Savoie established their power to
lead as women upon virtue. Wisdom was a policy in itself: it had to shine at
the French court where the regents represented models for emulation. The
example of Anne and her Enseignements constituted the basis of a virtuous
and wise government that represented an ideal for Marguerite d’Angoulême
and other Renaissance princesses including Philippe de Gueldres, Duchess
of Lorraine (1467–1547), Margaret of Austria, and Catherine de Médicis. We
know that Marguerite d’Angoulême had a personal copy of the Enseigne-
ments, as did Catherine de Médicis. 44
41 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 270–78.

42 Desmoulins, BnF, ms. fr. 1863 and BnF, ms. fr. 12247. Thenaud, BnF. ms. fr. 144: ‘Divine Latone,
mère d’Apollon et de Diane et fontaine de toutes vertus’.
43 ‘escu de prudence’, cited in a relation to the royal entry, Lecoq, p. 113.
44 We do not know whether Louise de Savoie held a copy but the Bourbon library was taken
by the Crown when Louise won her trial against the constable Charles de Bourbon. She may
have been in possession of her aunt’s book at that time.
The Power of Eloquence at the French Court
Prudence in behavior was closely linked to eloquence, and this verbal prudence
was considered a gift from God. It was a political tool, a way of building and
reinforcing power and used as such by Anne de France and Louise de Savoie.45
This period witnessed the genesis of a new kind of civility, based on the
art of speech, and the presence of women at court. It was theorized in Anne
de France’s Enseignements as well as in The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare
Castiglione (1478–1529), published in 1528. Mastering the art of eloquence
stemmed from an ability to distinguish between reality and appearance,
between what was seen and shown, and what was thought and said. It gave
one a political advantage. In all situations, as Pizan suggested, one had to
‘have an ordered way of speaking and a wise eloquence’. 46 Anne de France,
heiress to Pizan’s ideas, began to conceptualize eloquence and to establish
protocols for it. Anne herself was praised by her contemporaries for her
prudent and efficient speech. Thanks to her wisdom and her knowledge,
she defeated her enemies, and persuaded her interlocutors. The anonymous
author of L’Ainsnée fille de fortune, a panegyric poem composed in honor of
Anne in 1489, described her powerful eloquence as follows:
Let all people come

From all countries and lands,
She knows how to speak to them,
About peace or war,
And she speaks so well,
That words never fail her,
She is worthy of praise. 47
By her actions, her example and her Enseignements, Anne de France, as a

woman of power, placed eloquence and speech at the heart of the ethical
and political system. She conferred an essential role upon eloquence, one
that continued to be strengthened after her to such a point that it became
an ideal for princesses of the period such as Louise de Savoie, Marguerite
de Navarre, and Catherine de Médicis.
45 See David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 281–86; and Crouzet, p. 24.

46 Pizan, 1989, p. 45: ‘avoir parler ordonné et sage éloquence’.
47 ‘Laissez trestoute gent venir / De tout païs, de toute terre, / Elle les scet entretenir / Soit de
la paix ou de la guerre; / Et son langaige si bien ferre, / Qu’elle ne faut point de propos, / Elle est
bien digne d’avoir los [louange]’, Lancelot, p. 594.
Thus, the literary circle of Louise de Savoie maintained the intellec-

tual emphasis upon speech being at the heart of politics, and idealized
women as those who would obtain peace and concord thanks to their
gentle eloquence. 48 In 1519–20, François Desmoulins evoked ‘the science
and divine speaking of Mrs. Concordia’, Louise, in his Commentaires de la
guerre gallique. 49 The virtue of eloquence remained closely linked to that
of prudence, so important for the king’s mother, who presented herself as
born under the sign of Mercury, the god of fluency.
The Assertiveness of the Court of Ladies
Under the influence of Anne de France and Louise de Savoie, a Court of La-
dies emerged as a political space.50 The court was becoming an increasingly
feminized center of power. Formerly a male-dominated sphere, henceforth
it contained more and more ladies and demoiselles who played symbolic
and political roles.51 Although author Pierre de Brantôme (1537–1614) at-
tributed the development of a strong female presence at court to Anne
de Bretagne, it may be necessary to look more closely at Anne de France’s
contribution.52 She worked towards the feminization of the court, even
before her sister-in-law. The ducal court of Moulins, in which Anne de
France moved as early as 1488, represented a kind of courtly laboratory due
to the number of women present there. This female court was intended as
the place where the model of the virtuous princess was embodied. Through
its moral prestige and its wealth, this Bourbon court was intended as the
expression of Anne’s political power. The maintenance of this court, which
was the materialization of the ideal of virtuous and noble behavior, was
part of a female practice of power. Elements of a political strategy, based
on fidelity networks, enhanced it further, reinforcing the princess’s power
at the ducal level as well as at the French court. Furthermore, the symbolic
power of a brilliant court whose prestige redounded on Anne de France’s
authority was considerable. The Court of Ladies reflected the quest for an
ideal, at the same time as a deliberate strategy of political reinforcement.
48 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 285–86.

49 ‘sapience et divine faconde de Madame Concorde’, Desmoulins, Musée Condé, ms. 1139,
fol. 55 (1519–1520).
50 See David-Chapy, 2018a.
51 See David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 123 and 264ff.
52 Brantôme, p. 262.
The process of feminization continued with Louise de Savoie. Under the

reign of François I, the ‘incorporation of women at the French court’ that
Caroline zum Kolk has described was perpetuated under the influence of
Louise.53 Her accounts attest it.54 They document a particular organization
of her female household as early as 1502 in which she occupied a specific
position as ‘royal mother’.55 Composed then only of demoiselles, ladies
entered in 1515, the year of her son’s accession to the throne. The personnel
grew suddenly and the emoluments of ladies and demoiselles doubled as a
consequence of her change of status as the king’s mother. These ladies came
primarily from noble families of the Angoumois and Poitou region; that is,
from her ducal lands and local networks. As the years passed and Louise’s
power grew, the duchess also introduced the daughters and spouses of great
servants of the State into her household.56
Strikingly, Louise de Savoie seems to have employed ladies and demoiselles
in order to illustrate her political power and her symbolic prestige. Their
numbers speak volumes, especially if compared to the number of those in
the service of the queen during the same period. In 1530, the Queen, Eleanor
of Austria (1498–1558), had 253 officers and servants in her household,
among whom were fourteen ladies and demoiselles. In 1531, there were
272, including 25 ladies and demoiselles.57 In the same year, by contrast,
Louise’s household contained 250 individuals, of whom 33 were women.
The king’s mother was then at the height of her power and symbolically
surpassed the queen.
More than ever, the Court of Ladies was asserted as a site of power and self-
representation in which each princess expressed and affirmed her political
and symbolic power. Both used the court as an instrument of power and the
women who were part of their brilliant retinues as a way of producing their
prestige through their number, high birth, beauty, and moral conduct. The
court became a place of sociability and political friendship to which foreign
ambassadors flocked. In 1516, the Mantuan ambassador Grossino wrote to
his mistress Isabella d’Este that there were so many beautiful demoiselles
53 ‘L’incorporation des femmes à la cour de France’, Zum Kolk, p. 238.

54 BnF, ms. fr. 3054, fols. 27–32 (1531); ms. fr. 3068, fols. 119–21: Year 1531; BnF, ms. fr. 5503, fols.
20–21: Year 1531; BnF, ms. fr. 7856, fols. 849–59: Years 1496–1518; BnF, ms. fr. 8815, fols. 69–70:
Year 1497; BnF, ms. Clairambault 816, fols. 361–87: Years 1502, 1503, 1506, 1517; BSG, ms. 848: Years
1515 and 1522.
55 She was given the title of ‘royal mother’ (mère royale) by Louis XII as early as 1505.
56 On the origin of the ladies of the house of Louise de Savoie, see David-Chapy, 2018a.
57 See the figures given by Zum Kolk, p. 257.
at the court of Anne de France that he had fallen in love with one of them.58
The Italians particularly marveled at the friendly reception that princesses
and ladies of their households extended to them, and specifically discussed
important and serious matters with Anne and Louise. In 1515, Anne still
granted audiences. The Mantuan ambassador, and future Duke of Mantua,
Federico Gonzaga (1500–1540) described the ‘marvellous joy’ with which
Anne welcomed him during his visits.59 The relationships were more than
cordial but political concerns underpinned the discourse; Anne de France
remained above all a woman of power. Gonzaga wrote that he ‘spoke about
the Italian case with Madame of Bourbon who told [him] she desired peace’.60
Anne de France and Louise de Savoie both dominated these courts from
which they obtained formidable prestige. Indeed, in May 1506, at the betrothal
of Claude de France and François d’Angoulême, a contemporary exclaimed of
the procession led by Anne and Louise, surrounded by numerous ladies, that
‘it seemed that the realm of femynie had arrived’ at the French court.61 This
reflects the image of power, prestige, and perfection that both princesses,
who appeared as queens in this ‘realm of femynie’, sought to bring to life. In
the eyes of contemporaries, the courts of these princesses embodied, by their
magnificence, the theoretical, cultural, and social ideals proposed by Pizan.
They represented the symbolic and political accomplishment of a model that
participated in the creation of the new courtly character of the female regent.
Gaining a Position at Court
Political power was expressed through symbols and with rank at court, which
was itself a locus of power. Anne de France and Louise de Savoie dominated
the courtly sphere by their presence and the symbols they deployed over
time. This staging at court was part of their female power.62
What rank could Anne de France claim in the courtly ceremonies from her
royal birth? What place did she hold at the queen’s court? Le Cérémonial des
Estats de France, written by Eleanor de Poitiers, answered these questions
58 Grossino to the marquise of Mantua, 28 February 1516, Mantua, Archivio di Stato, A.G. 633.
David-Chapy, 2016, p. 603.
59 Tamalio, p. 234.
60 ‘Heri ragionando dela cose de Italia con Madame de borbone la mi disse che la desideraria
pace’, Tamalio, p. 242.
61 Anonymous. ‘Il semblait que le royaume de fémynie fût arrivé’, cited in Viennot and
Wilson-Chevalier.
62 See David-Chapy, 2014.
for the Burgundian court.63 For the ‘daughters of France’, blood was more
important than the rank of their husband: they were positioned at court
just behind the queen. Thus, until 1491, in the absence of the very young
queen, Margaret of Austria, Anne de France held precedence in all court
ceremonies. According to the chronicler Alain Bouchart (c. 1440–after
1514), Charles VIII’s sister demanded that everybody should curtsey to her.
This gesture was supposed to pay homage to the dignity of the woman
who was the king’s guardian: ‘Madame de Beaujeu had the guardianship
of the person of the king and for this reason, all the other state officers and
noble men would curtsey to her’.64 Moreover, Anne de France projected her
omnipresence at state ceremonies such as the coronation, royal entries, and
weddings. Her precedence at court continued after her brother’s death. In
the reigns of Louis XII and François I, Anne was treated with the utmost
respect, as the letters of the Mantuan ambassador Grossino show. In 1516 he
wrote that the Duchess of Bourbon was treated with ‘the highest honours
by the whole court of France’.65
Whereas Anne benefited from a specific rank as ‘daughter of France’,
Louise de Savoie had to create a specific position with a kind of dignitas
at the center of the court, one which was legitimized by her status as royal
mother and regent. A quest for precedence at court inspired her actions
and motivated the construction of the political character she designed for
herself. A priori, Louise’s body had no sacred nature in itself, as she was
not a queen; thus, the king’s mother had to assume a sacredness of a new
essence and to transpose the notion of the sovereign body of the queen to
the regent’s body.66 Thus, she assumed an unprecedented courtly character
that reflected and expressed her political power. More than Anne de France,
Louise de Savoie created a concept around her person to extol her image
and power. With her developed the desire to imagine this new political and
courtly character of the female regent as a fully fledged woman of power,
as devoted to the realm as the king. This process would reach its peak with
the queen Catherine de Médicis.67
63 Paviot, pp. 163–79; and Broomhall.

64 ‘Madame de Beaujeu avoit la personne du roy en garde et à celle cause tous autres person-
naiges d’estat et de nom luy clineroient le genoil’, Bouchart, p. 170.
65 ‘Non mi par di tacere l’onor grande ch’è fato da tuta la corte di Francia ha Madama di Borbon’,
letter of Grossino to the marquise of Mantua, 28 February 1516, Mantua, Archivio di Stato, A.G.
633.
66 Guillaume Michel called Louise de Savoie ‘the Royal Blood of France’ (‘Le Sang Royal de
France’) in his Penser de royal mémoire (1518).
67 Crouzet.
As a regent and mother of the king, Louise de Savoie had no codified rank
in the protocols of the court. To bridge this theoretical gap, she endeavored
to gain a rank that reflected her very extensive power and her status as
mother of the sovereign. As early as 1515, she was given an exceptional place
in ceremonies at the court, in which she had thus far appeared among the
second rank. Her son promoted her to an unequaled rank that permitted
her to stand next to her daughter-in-law, the queen, during royal ceremo-
nies. Louise valued her place at the very heart of the court and sought to
strengthen it from 1515 until her death in 1531.68 Contemporary chroniclers
confirm Louise’s precedence in royal ceremonies from as early as 1515.69 For
example, in 1517, at the coronation of Claude de France: ‘after [the queen]
Madame, mother of the king, walked alone’, followed by the ladies of the
court.70 Likewise, in 1531, at Eleanor of Austria’s coronation, Louise again
walked first and alone, even before the king’s daughters.71 In 1520, during
royal entries in cities of the realm such as Poitiers, Angoulême, Cognac, and
La Rochelle, Louise stood next to the royal couple.72 Such an association of
the king’s mother to the royal couple during such entries was a remarkable
phenomenon in the history of the realm.
The absences of François I whom Louise officially represented justified
the place of honor in power and court ceremonies that she was given. Louise
de Savoie was engaged in a real conquest of the courtly and ceremonial space
where the queen was the only person who legitimately had precedence over
her. As was Anne de France before her, Louise was distinguished as the
first princess in the realm, after Claude de France and Eleanor of Austria.
From 1524 until 1530, when there was no queen, she appeared as the main
female figure in the realm. From 1525–1526, she was honored for her political
successes during the war against the imperial camp and the liberation of
François I from his captivity in Madrid during 1525.73 Through the influence of
the king, the realm expressed its gratitude towards the regent via precedence
protocols that she had contributed to creating. The institutional invention
that gave birth to female regency was linked to an associated invention of
protocol. The political character of the regent corresponded with a hitherto
unprecedented court figure who symbolically dazzled the court with her
prestige and might.
68 See David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 624ff.

69 See the numerous relations in 1619; and Godefroy, 1649.
70 ‘Après [la reine] marchait Madame mere du Roy seule’, Godefroy, 1649, p. 755.
71 Godefroy, 1649, pp. 796–801.
72 Rivaud.
73 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 551, 625, 654–56.
Louise de Savoie stood as a character apart, between the queen and the
other princesses. Such staging arose from an intellectual and carefully
considered construction that verged on glorification, thanks to extensive
use of symbols in ceremonies, iconography, and books. She was already
employing the features of Prudence and associating herself with Saint Louis’s
mother, Blanche of Castile, as early as 1517, at Claude de France’s coronation
and arrival at the Palais Royal in Paris.74 Indeed, Blanche of Castile was
represented on a scaffolding, saying to the King of France: ‘my beloved son,
do love wisdom’.75 The example of Blanche here functioned as a symbolical
and metaphorical reference to the power that Louise, the virtuous mother
and widow, held in government. In 1530, when Eleanor of Austria entered
Bordeaux, Louise was again associated with the royal couple during the
entrance ceremony. The city glorified the king’s mother as a member of the
royal dynasty and even of a divine family. She was compared with Pallas,
goddess of prudence and wisdom.76 Ceremonies were an opportunity for
Louise de Savoie to display the symbols that she held dear and that she
employed to build her image of woman of power and mother of the king.
During the early Renaissance, a double process was occurring, which
consisted in the construction of a political and courtly female power. The
‘regents’, Anne de France and Louise de Savoie, dominated both the head
of the State and at the French court. Through the power they wielded, both
princesses were the pivots of political and court life. Their precedence at
court, their numerous networks, their major influence in political decision-
making tell us a great deal about the early exercise of female regency in
France. In spite of the challenges and opposition they had to overcome,
supported by Charles VIII and François I and thanks to political strategies
that included networks, proximity next to the king, the virtuous practice of
power, and eloquence, they succeeded in gaining unequaled cultural and
political might and asserting a legal and institutionalized kind of power
modeled on royal power. Ruling the realm, they took part in sovereignty
and possessed the auctoritas and imperium usually constitutive of royal
power; in the monarchical ceremonies and at court, they were honored
and even glorified as women of power. Following in the footsteps of Pizan,
both princesses embodied virtuous power. This political and ethical art
of behavior at the head of the State and at court was an enduring legacy
74 Godefroy, 1619, pp. 193–94.

75 ‘Mon tres amé filz, ayme sapience’, cited in Gringore, pp. 171–72; and Godefroy, 1619, p. 193.
See also David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 653–54.
76 Godefroy, 1649, p. 770; and David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 655–56.
for the numerous women who filled the European courts during the early
modern period.
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About the author
Aubrée David-Chapy wrote her PhD thesis from Paris-Sorbonne University

on the power of Anne of France and Louise of Savoy, which was published
as Anne de France, Louise de Savoie, inventions d’un pouvoir au féminin
(Classiques Garnier, 2016). She contributed to Louise de Savoie, mère de
François Ier, with Th. Crépin-Leblond, Murielle Barbier, and Guillaume
Fonkenell (RMN, 2015). She has also published several articles including ‘Une
femme à la tête du royaume: Anne de France et la pratique du pouvoir’, (in
Anne de France, art et pouvoir en 1500 (Picard, 2014, pp. 27–36)) and ‘Louise
de Savoie, régente et mère du roi: l’investissement symbolique de l’espace
curial’, Réforme, Humanisme, Renaissance, Cahier François Ier, 79 (2014),
pp. 65–84. She has recently edited ‘La deploration de la mort de feu tres
haulte et magnannime princesse madame Anne de France par le seigneur
de La Vauguyon’, Annuaire-Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de France (2018).
2. Anne de France and Gift-Giving
The Exercise of Female Power
Tracy Adams
Abstract
Anne de France’s early political success – her ability during the reign of
her younger brother, Charles VIII, to force the barons, especially the Duke
of Brittany, into line, – can be attributed in large part to her strategic
gift-giving. The first part of the essay draws on the canonical works on
gift-giving to create the context for examining Anne’s most important
presentations to show that women, like men, used gift-giving to consolidate
power. The second part of the essay proposes that, in addition, a specifi-
cally female version of gift-giving existed. Powerful women patrons or
brokers could call on female networks in ways open only to women to
accomplish goals that would have eluded men.
Keywords: Anne de France, gift-giving, communities, networks, affect

transmission
‘Kings and emperors give gifts’, announces the anonymous 1378 treatise on
kingship, Le Songe du vergier, ‘and for this reason they are powerful’.1 Female
members of the royal family also gave gifts: did this make them powerful as
well? Anne de France (1461–1522), regent for her younger brother Charles VIII
(1470–1498), gained the support of hostile barons through gift-giving after
the death of her father, Louis XI (1423–1483). Distributing gifts just as a male
regent would have done, she received the baronial cooperation that she was
seeking in return. But this was an exceptional case, earning Madame, as she
was often called in contemporary documents, praise as a sort of ersatz man,
1 ‘Lez Roys et lez imperereurs sont donataires, par consequant ilz sont seigneurs’, Schnerb-
Lièvre, II, p. 123.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/CH02
66 Tr ac y Adams
a ‘woman truly surpassing the female sex’.2 In the context of this collection
on female power, a more relevant question than the one posed above might
be whether a specifically female version of gift-giving existed, and, if so,
what sort of power it yielded. Did Madame, in her capacity as giver of gifts,
that is, as a patron or broker, call on her female networks in ways open only
to women to accomplish goals that would have eluded men?
As recent work — including Nadine Akkerman and Birgit Houben’s vol-
ume on female households and Barbara Stephenson’s study of the patronage
of Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549) patronage — demonstrates, women,
like men, created communities upon whose members they drew for support
through strategic gift-giving.3 But whereas results of the practice — offices
and territories awarded, alliances in war — are relatively visible for men,
such female activity is often invisible to historians. Although we assume
that women prevailed on each other to carry out political work that required
the intervention of another woman, much of this influence was exerted
indirectly and therefore tends to be difficult to recover, as Sharon Kettering
has noted. 4 Still, if identifying concrete examples of women exchanging
gifts for services requiring a woman’s touch is not straightforward, such
examples can be unearthed, as I hope to show here, using the example
of the extended circle of Madame, who with her spouse Pierre of Beaujeu
(Duke of Bourbon as of 1488) served as unofficial regent for her younger
brother Charles VIII from late 1483 until the first years of the 1490s. Once
visible, these examples offer an important dimension to our knowledge of
how elite women ‘got things done’ in early modern France.
I begin this essay with a brief survey of Madame’s early gift-giving strate-
gies, by means of which she stabilized the kingdom after the death of Louis
XI. When the dying king left his daughter and Pierre as guardians of the
young monarch and therefore effective rulers of the realm, the pair faced
widespread challenges to their authority. Madame, however, as noted above,
managed to gain the support of the barons who otherwise would have risen
up against her. Still, new kings always awarded gifts (although, in contrast
with Madame, they typically enjoyed many other means of asserting their
authority), and thus it is difficult to see Madame’s practice in this case as
particularly female. The lack of distinction, however, can be seen as the
exception that proves the rule. Throughout this essay I hope to show that
2 ‘Virago sane supra muliebrem sexum’, a description attributed to Benedictine monk and
writer Nicolas Barthélemy of Loches (b. 1478), cited in Pélicier, p. 54, n. 1.
3 Although Stephenson (p. 2) emphasizes Marguerite’s extraordinary position.
4 Kettering, 1989, p. 837.
Anne de Fr ance and Gif t- Giving 67
when we move from Madame’s relations with the great lords of the kingdom
to her interactions with the women whom she raised and the interactions of
those women with each other, we discover women practicing a particularly
female version of gift-giving, getting things done indirectly but effectively.
Madame is known for her role as mentor, with courtier, soldier, historian and
memoirist, Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme (1540–1614), famously
remarking that she was ‘always accompanied by a large number of ladies
and girls whom she raised very virtuously and wisely’ and adding that ‘there
was hardly a lady or girl of a great family of her times who did not learn
from her, the house of Bourbon being at the time one of the greatest and
most splendid in Christendom’.5 These ladies may very well have learned
virtue from Madame. But, as I hope to show here, they also learned how to
cultivate relationships, that is, give gifts to create bonds upon which they
drew for accomplishing political goals.
Gift-Giving as Political Act
Madame’s position as unofficial regent for her younger brother Charles VIII

was initially precarious. Just before his death in August 1483, Louis XI
verbally expressed his wish that his heir be placed in the care of Madame
and Pierre, passing over the two traditionally most likely candidates for
regency, the queen mother, Charlotte of Savoy (1441–1483), and the closest
adult male relative to the king, Louis of Orleans (1462–1515).6 The queen
mother, backed by Louis of Orleans, made a counter-claim, but she died in
November of the same year.7 Louis of Orleans, reinforced by a coalition of
powerful lords, including many of the princes of the blood, then claimed
regency for himself. To settle the question the Estates General were called
to meet in Tours in January 1484. Between November and January, Madame
toured the territories of Louis of Orleans with the young king to win support
for him and for herself and Pierre as his guardian.
Under the best of circumstances a young king was vulnerable, and, in
this case, the situation was all the more perilous because many of the great
lords of the realm felt themselves to have been badly treated by Louis XI.
5 ‘accompaignée de grand’ quantité de dames et de filles qu’elle nourrissoit fort vertueusement

et sagement’; ‘n’y a guières heu dames et filles de grand’ maison de son temps qui n’ayt appris
leçon d’elle’, Brantôme, VIII, pp. 104, 105.
6 Seyssel, p. 39.
7 Saint-Gelais, p. 43.
68 Tr ac y Adams
To win their cooperation, Madame courted them with gifts, attempting

to rectify her father’s brutal transgressions and forge new relationships.
The concept of gift, or don as it was called in French, covered an enormous
variety of objects, physical and abstract, from jewels and clothing to land
and pensions to rights, offices, titles, human beings, through marriage: favors
in general.8 Moreover, as Kettering explains, gift-giving was transactional,
used to create and maintain a personal bond; there was an obligation to

reciprocate; and the reciprocity was disguised and governed by the rules
and language of courtesy. Gift-giving was a euphemism for patronage,
the material assistance and protection of a patron. Clientage was the
loyal service that a client owed in exchange, sometimes disguised as
voluntary assistance.9
Thus when on 12 September 1483 Madame had the new king confirm the
officers of the Parlement of Paris in the exercise of their functions she was
awarding a gift that demanded reciprocity, in this case, loyalty.10 The next
day Charles VIII confirmed the offices of the Cour des aides.11 Madame then
approached the people, reducing the taille in a number of cities.12
She turned next to winning back the individual princes who had suffered
under her father. She freed René, Duke of Alençon and Count of Perche
(1454–1492) from the prison into which he had been thrown by Louis XI
and restored the territories that the king had seized from his father; she
restored the confiscated heritage of the children of Jacques d’Armagnac,
Duke of Nemours (1433–1477), another rebellious lord who had clashed
with Louis XI; she recalled Prince of Orange, Jean de Chalons (1443–1502),
from the banishment imposed on him by Louis XI; she restored the Barrois,
usurped by Louis XI, to René II, Duke of Lorraine (1451–1508); she returned
the territories that Louis XI had taken from the La Trémoille family, kin of
her husband, and given to royal favorite, Philippe de Commynes (1447–1511).
Her husband Pierre’s older brother, Duke Jean de Bourbon (1426–1488),
furious that Pierre, as the king’s son-in-law, had appropriated from him
Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, les Dombes, and the Beaujolais, was made con-
nétable and given governance of the Languedoc. Heir presumptive Louis of
8 Bijsterveld, pp. 124–26.
9 Kettering, 1988, pp. 131–32.
10 Pastoret, pp. 124–29.
11 Pastoret, 129–32.
12 For the details that follow see Labande-Mailfert, 1986, p. 43; Pradel, pp. 45–50; Chombart
de Lauwe, pp. 65–87; and Pélicier, pp. 54–61.
Orleans, outraged that the Beaujeus were trying to deny him guardianship
of the king, was awarded governance of Paris, Île-de-France, Champagne,
and Brie as well as leadership of the Royal Council. Louis of Orleans’s uncle,
the Bastard of Orleans, Jean de Dunois (1402–1468), was given governance
of the Dauphiné.
Desirable marriages were gifts, as we noted, and, to further solidify
her relationship with the powerful seigneurs whom she was bringing to
her side, Madame turned to match-making when possible. She offered
her niece through Pierre, Gabrielle de Bourbon (c. 1460–1516), to Louis II
de la Trémoille (1460–1525) in 1484, and Philippe de Gueldres (1467–1547),
whom Madame at that time was raising at her own court, to René II, Duke
of Lorraine in 1485. Her aptitude for negotiation in this case is noted in
Philippe’s 1627 biography: Madame, interested in the marriage, spoke of it
to the Duke of Bourbon, and was ‘skilfully able to spin the thing’ such that
he was persuaded to approve it. In 1488 she gave her young charge, Louise
de Savoie (1476–1531), to Charles d’Angoulême (1459–1496).13
Through these large-scale forms of gift-giving, Madame created and
maintained the asymmetrical relationships necessary to her regency. True,
given Madame’s need to consolidate support quickly because her authority
was being openly challenged, this form of gift-giving was a more valuable tool
to her than it would have been to a male counterpart. Still, it might be argued
that her gift-giving in these cases does not represent a particularly female
way of asserting authority, for men also solidified alliances by awarding
lands, favors, and marriages. Such gift-giving was typical at the beginning
of any reign.
Female Gift-Giving
The large-scale gift-giving that we have just considered was open to any
ruler, in this case, regent, male or female. In what follows, I suggest that we
look for specifically female gift-giving within female networks. To begin to
define the particularity of female gift-giving as a way of wielding power, I
first consider a form of the practice that was restricted to men.
Late medieval guides to chivalry emphasize the emotional communities,
as Barbara H. Rosenwein has called them, the ‘group[s] in which people have
13 For the La Trémoille–Bourbon marriage see Bouchet, pp. 392–96. On Philippa of Guelders see
Bertrand-Didelon; Madame ‘sçût si bien tourner la chose’, Mérigot, p. 12. On the Savoy–Angoulême
marriage see Maulde La Clavière, p. 13.
70 Tr ac y Adams
a common stake, interest, values, and goals’, that develop during combat,
demonstrating how solidarity of the members was further enhanced
through gifts.14 Le Jouvencel (c. 1466) by Jean de Bueil (1406–1477) shows
the eponymous hero first as a lowly man-at-arms, and, later, after he has
proven his mettle, as a royal captain. In both cases, he is moved to fearless
deeds by the strong sentiments fostered through participation in a com-
munity of knights. In his first raid, his captain, a wise man who listens to
his advice, offers the young man a gift, a cuirass. This gift, along with the
personal presence of the captain, ‘doubled his courage and boldness’.15 Years
afterwards, when the Jouvencel and his men take Crathor, he reflects on
the joys of war. Among these is the love that develops among men during
combat: a ‘sweetness enters his heart, of loyalty and pity to see his friend,
who so valiantly exposes his body to carry out the commandment of our
Creator’.16 A man, out of love, does not abandon his comrades, and, in the
experience of fighting together, ‘there is a delectation such that, for those
who have not experienced it, no one can say what it is’.17 In short, in male
emotional communities, a leader creates ties through gift-giving that he
can rely on when he needs military support.
Turning to female communities, as I noted above, understanding how
gift-giving took place among women is difficult, much of the activity between
members remaining invisible to modern historians. The rare glimpses
into the world of female networks that we possess seldom offer concrete
evidence of such exchange. For example, the account by an anonymous
female narrator of the 1501 journey of Archduke Philip of Austria (1478–1506)
and Archduchess Juana of Castile (1479–1555) across France on their way
to claim Juana’s Spanish throne depicts the court filled with the women
of Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514), first among them Madame. Arranged in
a minutely ordered hierarchy, they greet the Archduchess and follow her
into her chambers, tantalizing the reader with precious access to their
intimate feminine world.18 The story stops here without making us privy
to conversation. And yet, surely such women, like their male counterparts,
formed close ties that they used to further political goals.
14 Rosenwein, p. 25.
15 ‘lui doublerent coeur et hardement de bien faire’, Bueil, I, p. 37.
16 ‘Il vient une doulceur au cueur de loyaulté et de pitié de veoir son amy, qui si vaillamment
expose son corps pour faire et acomplir le commandement de nostre Createur’, Bueil, II, p. 21.
17 ‘une delectacion telle que, qui ne l’a essaiée, il n’est homme qui sceust dire quel bien c’est’,
Bueil, II, p. 21.
18 Chatenet and Girault, pp. 127–35. Many thanks to Cynthia Brown for the reference.
A further obstacle to retrieving information about female gift-giving

is that women’s accumulation of the materials of gift-giving has often
been dismissed by modern scholars as avarice. Princely accumulation of
such objects is taken for granted. For example, during the worst crises of
Charles VI’s reign, writes Daniel Russo, the princes continued to buy ‘for
themselves or to give them as gifts, all sorts of precious stones, embroideries,
jewels, mentioned in their inventories’.19 Queens, however, tend to be treated
as spendthrifts. In the words of Jean Verdon, Isabeau of Bavaria (1385–1422)
enriched herself ‘while the financial difficulties of the State grew’ and while
‘[j]ewels accumulated in her coffers’.20 Many recent historical studies on
medieval gift-giving do not indulge in such biased gender assumptions but a
surprising number continue to do so. This has long been the case for Madame.
Although her gift-giving practices have not previously been examined per
se, in studies about her life generally, Madame continues to be a target of
sexist moralizing. Even Jean-François Lassalmonie’s illuminating article
of 2008 refers to her as ‘undeniably greedy’, based on a handful of dealings
involving what are clearly episodes of gift-giving. Lassalmonie’s judgement
echoes that of Paul Pélicier’s 1882 political biography of Madame, as have
her other biographers, John Bridge, Marc Chombart de Lauwe, and Pierre
Pradel.21
According to Pélicier, Madame inherited the traits of her father, Louis
XI: like him, she pushed ‘finesse to perfidy, [and was] adroit at corruption,
humble of word but of a haughty and rigid character’.22 But ‘a more serious
reproach can be directed at the Lady of Beaujeu’, Pélicier continues, ‘and it
does not seem possible to justify it: that of unbridled and shameless avidity’.23
On the same pages, Pélicier lays out his evidence for the claim, emphasizing
Madame’s love of luxury and her propensity to engage in what to modern
readers might look like bribery and corruption. But when we regard the
examples that Pélicier marshals as evidence of Madame’s avarice through
the prism of gift-giving they become simple cases of political jockeying.
19 ‘faisant exécuter pour leur compte personnel ou pour les offrir, toutes sortes de bijoux, de
broderies, de “joyaux”, mentionnés dans leurs inventaires’, Russo, para. 5.
20 ‘La reine s’enrichissait, alors que les difficultés financières de l’Etat grandissaient […] Les
joyaux s’accumulaient dans ses coffres’, Verdon, p. 201.
21 Unfortunately, I could not consult Aubrée Chapy-David’s eagerly awaited Anne de France,
Louise de Savoie, inventions d’un pouvoir au féminin (Paris: Garnier, 2016) in time for this essay.
22 ‘la finesse jusqu’à la perfidie, adroite à corrompre, humble en paroles, mais d’un caractère
hautain et ferme’, Pélicier, p. 206.
23 ‘Un reproche plus grave a été dirigé contre la dame de Beaujeu, et il ne paraît guère possible
de l’en justifier: celui d’une avidité sans frein et sans vergogne’, Pélicier, p. 208.
72 Tr ac y Adams
To choose just one example, he concludes his case by citing Madame’s

irritation at being gifted only dishes by the city of Lyon in return for her
support of their fair.24 But Madame’s reaction should not be attributed to
greed. Rather, her annoyance was caused by the Lyonnais’s failure properly
to recognize her status and her support of their fair with a commensurate
gift. She was insulted, her honor injured: the gift, explains Jean Nagle, was
central to the honor society.25
Yes, support, favors, and offices were for sale, openly, during this period
before public bureaucracy; marriages were arranged as mergers; mercenary
soldiers served the highest bidder. Kettering notes the similarities between
gift-giving and modern bribery.26 Martha C. Howell, writing of late me-
dieval northern Europe, observes that scholars have often worried that
the ‘expansion of the commercial economy during the later Middle Ages
impoverished the gift’s cultural importance’ for when gifts were itemized
‘they seemed like cold, impersonal market exchanges’, indistinguishable
from ‘the self-interested, calculated, and quantifiable exchanges of the
marketplace’.27 Still, as Howell continues, there seemed to be no confusion
among contemporaries.28
It is necessary, therefore, to update the nineteenth-century assertions of
Madame’s greed and consider her actions within the tradition of gift-giving.
To further contextualize the examples to follow, I turn now to contemporary
traces of female attitudes toward the practice, the first from Madame’s own
instructions for her daughter, Suzanne, Duchess of Bourbon (1491–1521) the
Enseignements à sa fille, written in about 1505. This text is instructive on
female gift-giving, revealing the place of the practice in Madame’s more
general philosophy of how a great lady should manage herself and her
entourage.29 Anthropologists note that a special property of gifts, as opposed
to other forms of exchange, is that they reify social relationships.30 Madame,
vigilant about maintaining hierarchical boundaries, embeds her discussion
of gifts in a larger one about managing relationships with the women of
one’s hôtel. She reminds her reader to visit acquaintances who are in labour
or suffering bad fortune or illness with something new from her hôtel,
especially if the afflicted one is someone she knows or a family member,
24 Pélicier, pp. 210, 282.

25 Nagle, p. 128.
26 Kettering, 1988, pp. 147–51. See also Davis, pp. 142–66.
27 Howell, p. 148.
28 Howell, p. 149.
29 For all references to the Enseignements see Anne de France.
30 See, for example, Strathern, p. 333.
because these are the people, poor or rich, to whom she is the most closely
bound or indebted.31 Madame then reminds her reader of the importance
of graciously accepting all gifts, small as well as large: ‘Also, speak humbly,
as much to the small as the important’, she writes, ‘and receive with as
pleasant an expression small gifts and presents, if [your ladies] give you
any, thinking that you are as tied to them according to their little power as
to others who give larger gifts, and, for this reason you should not hesitate
to compensate and humbly thank them, sweetly and heartily, with no
affectation’.32 Madame’s advice is practical: if a great lady seems too proud,
as soon as her demoiselles are alone they are likely to make fun of her, and,
if this happens, she will lose her power to influence them.33 Gifts create
ongoing expectations of counter-gifts, which, as we have seen, amount
to ‘loyal service’, and, to perpetuate the cycle, a great lady must nurture
affection. To gesture back to Isabeau’s accumulation of jewels, cited above,
these would have been used as gifts to secure and reward loyal service.
Two other roughly contemporary texts corroborate this evidence for
gift-giving as a way of creating bonds. First, the funeral oration for Françoise
d’Alençon (1490–1550), daughter of René, who had been thrown into prison
by Louis XI, as we saw above, expatiates on Françoise’s liberality towards
her household. The long and vigorous defense of Françoise’s excessive
generosity is interesting in the present context because it suggests, by its
very vehemence, that women’s cultivation of their charges’ affection through
gift-giving was sometimes criticized by contemporaries as wastefulness.
The salient points here are that the oration argues that Françoise’s generous
gift-giving created ties and that her practice was deemed worthy, deserving
of lengthy attention and spirited defense.34 A second example is the 1617
biography of Philippe de Gueldres — whom Madame gave in marriage to
Duke René of Lorraine, as we saw above — written by Father Christophe
Mérigot (1579–1636). Mérigot showcases the heroine in the midst of a loving
circle of young women whose careers she has advanced. After her entry
into the Order of St. Clare, the Duchess of Lorraine is lauded for her loving
31 Anne de France, p. 63.

32 ‘Aussi, parlez humblement, autant au petit qu’au grand, et recevez à aussi grande chère les
petits dons et présents, si les vous font, pensant qu’autant êtes-vous tenue à eux, selon leurs
pauvres puissances, qu’aux autres de plus grands dons; par quoi, ne vous devez feindre à les
récompenser et humblement remercier, doucement et pleinement, sans nulles mignotises’,
Anne de France, p. 65.
33 Literally, ‘that would be all the recompense that you would get for it’ (‘et serait tout le guerdon
que vouz en auriez’). Anne de France, p. 65.
34 Sainte-Marthe, pp. 29–33.
74 Tr ac y Adams
encouragement and enthusiastic solicitation on behalf of the younger ladies

for their entry into the convent. Moreover, once they were admitted, the
happy girls who ‘landed in her care were better enlightened about their
obligations and firmer in the vocation’.35
Gift-giving, then, although transactional, created reciprocal obligation
at least partly by creating personal bonds of affection, not only in chivalric
circles but also in female entourages. Madame trained a group of young
women upon whom she could call for favors and who could rely upon each
other to reciprocate when they required assistance. But in the examples
below, I would like to emphasize that whereas male circles aimed to produce
members who would come to each other’s aid openly, the type of power
associated with female gift-giving is distinctive in that much of it was
carried out quietly or even invisibly.
In what follows I examine two examples of a favor being called in with
significant results, that is, of gifting cycles that permitted exercises of female
power. The first cycle begins with Madame’s presentation of sumptuous
wedding clothes to Anne de Bretagne, who in 1491 became the bride for
whom Madame’s brother, Charles VIII, repudiated Margaret of Austria
(1480–1530). Marriages, as we have noted, were conceived of as gifts awarded
to supporters. Under Madame and Pierre, the French conquered Brittany in
1491, and, to prevent the young Duchess Anne from allying with someone
else, the French determined to have her marry her conqueror, despite
the king’s prior — although unconsummated — marriage to Margaret,
and Anne’s own marriage by proxy to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian.
Although the king had to approve any significant marriage — in this case
his own — the details were often worked out through female networks.
Thus Madame, rather than Charles VIII, who was not even physically present
during negotiations, arranged the marriage.36 Not only did he cede that task
to Madame, he left to her the emotional work of bringing Anne into the
family. Anne resisted, but Madame strove to convince her of the benefits
to be gained from the union.37 With the engagement to her enemy Anne
35 ‘Aussi ces heureuses Filles qui lui tomboient entre les mains, prenoient si bien son esprit,
qu’elles en étoient et mieux eclairees sur leurs devoirs, et plus affermies dans leur vocation’,
Mérigot, pp. 158–59.
36 See Labande-Mailfert, 1978, p. 27. The king met the Duchess for the first time in Rennes
between 15 and 17 November. Before 22 November, he was in Baugé breaking the news of his
engagement to Anne de Bretagne to Margaret of Austria. On 2 December, he was in Tours. For
Charles VIII’s itinerary see Pélicier, p. 308. It is evident from Labande-Mailfert (1978, pp. 27–32)
that Madame was with Anne from the beginning of marriage negotiations.
37 The story is recounted in many chronicles, for example, Molinet, V, p. 177.
received a series of monetary gifts, the French taking on the payment of

all of her own and her father’s debts.38 Moreover, her marriage contract
stipulated that if Charles VIII predeceased her, she would remain a queen,
marrying the next king of France, if he were free.39
In addition, sometime between consenting to become queen of France
and departing for the wedding, Anne received a large supply of luxury items:
furniture, including a camp bed with crimson curtains; rich material to
make clothes for her servants; and gorgeous cloth and furs from which to
construct her own wardrobe, including her wedding dress. 40 The wedding
dress was made of over ten yards of golden cloth covered with a raised gold
design of the cross of the Order of St. Michael, and it was lined with 160 pelts
of sable. The gifts, surely arranged by Madame, were a means of reifying
the relationship between the women, of reinforcing Anne’s indebtedness
and position of inferiority, but also of making the new family relations
more palatable. Indeed, they seem to have worked. In its early stages the
relationship between Madame and Anne seems to have been positive, one of
mentor and student. Madame did not let the young woman out of her sight,
writes Milanese ambassador Erasmo Brasca (1463–1502). 41 The meaning
of such possessiveness is not easy to gauge: loving concern and/or jealous
anxiety? But Milanese ambassador Agostino Calco, writing almost four
months after the wedding, makes the former seem the likelier, describing
Madame standing next to the teenaged queen, who responded to courtiers
only after she had consulted Madame. 42 A nineteenth-century historian
laments that Calco does not comment on the character of the queen. And
yet, Calco does precisely that, by revealing her reliance on Madame. The
queen was a student, still getting her bearings and taking instruction. 43
Madame, through her early gifts, initiated a relationship that she main-
tained over the years. On 5 July 1492 she offered the queen the gift of her
alliance, joining her signature to that of the queen, Louis d’Orleans, and
Pierre de Bourbon, against the Admiral Louis Malet de Graville (1438–1516). 44
The Admiral had been one of Madame’s most powerful and successful
38 See Le Fur, p. 219.

39 The contract is printed in Morice, III, pp. 715–18.
40 The list of goods is printed in Le Roux de Lincy, pp. 214–18. See also La Borderie, pp. 235–52.
41 Cited by Labande-Mailfert, 1978, p. 34.
42 Delaborde, p. 246.
43 A long-standing assumption holds that Madame and Anne were rivals for power. Once
Anne became queen, so the legend goes, Madame tried to hold on to power but lost out. I have
addressed this story in another essay, see Adams.
44 Perret, pp. 147–48.
76 Tr ac y Adams
supporters in the war for Brittany, and yet, she swears with the others on
fragments of the true cross to give each other aid, help, and, with good love,
union, and intelligence to keep the king safe, to put a stop to the great dis-
order that reigned in his household, and to refuse friendship or intelligence
with the Admiral Graville, without the knowledge of the others. 45 Why
this decision to unite against Graville? The reason for the queen’s animus
is clear: he had been instrumental in Brittany’s defeat. But what brought
Madame and Pierre into the compact? Whatever the reason for Madame’s
reversal, the important point is that she supports the young queen against
a man who recently had been one of her most important military leaders.
Madame’s gifts over the years to Anne were reciprocated in 1504. Anne
still reigned although with a different king, Louis XII (1462–1515), Charles
having died prematurely in 1498. Madame’s husband, Pierre, by then Duke
of Bourbon, had arranged a marriage between his and Madame’s only heir,
Suzanne, and the young Charles IV, Duke of Alençon (1489–1525), whose
territories lay far to the north in Normandy. On his deathbed in 1504 Pierre
reiterated his desire for the marriage to be carried out. 46 Madame, however,
feared that with Pierre’s death his lands would not pass to Suzanne but to his
closest male relation, Charles, Count of Bourbon-Montpensier (1490–1527).
True, Madame and Pierre had made their support of Louis XII’s annulment
of his marriage to Madame’s sister, Jeanne (1464–1505), which freed him to
marry Anne de Bretagne, contingent upon the new king’s recognition of
Pierre’s lands as heritable by a woman. But such changes were always chal-
lenged by those cut out, who in this case would be Charles, and the king could
(and did) change his mind. Thus Madame determined to marry Suzanne
to the young Charles, uniting all of their territories. She easily persuaded
Charles. But the second obstacle was the king. Despite his earlier promise,
he did not want to approve the marriage, because it would consolidate
geographically contiguous lands into an enormous territory right in the
middle of the kingdom. Madame would never have gotten his consent in a
straightforward way. She needed the help of the queen, who owed her a favor.
Charles’s contemporary biographer, his secretary Guillaume de Marillac
(1521–1573), recounts the story. Immediately after Pierre’s funeral, Madame
let it be known that Suzanne’s inheritance was being challenged by Charles
— who was in fact complicit with Madame — and needed to be dealt
with quickly. Charles pressed his claim and demanded Suzanne’s hand,
45 Jaligny, p. 625.
46 Available in many sources, the story is found in the biography of Charles of Bourbon by his
secretary, Guillaume de Marillac, pp. 129–36.
first obliquely through his older sister, Louise, Duchess of Montpensier

(1482–1561), eventually the heiress of all the Bourbon estates, but not titles,
who had also been raised by Madame, and then personally. Madame showed
herself to be pleased, which, of course she had been all along. The case
was then presented to Louis XII who needed to approve the marriage.
He hesitated. The Alençon alliance would be much safer from the king’s
perspective, uniting two widely divided territories. Advising against the
alliance was Graville, the very same against whom the Bourbons and the
queen and king had earlier joined forces.
And yet Madame prevailed by persuading the queen, who had a good deal
of clout with the king, to lobby on her behalf. Marillac writes that ‘Madame,
drawing on her skill, convinced the king to be happy about and consent
to dropping the Alençon marriage agreement and to the marriage of the
aforesaid Charles with the lady Suzanne of Bourbon; and in this Madame
Anne de Bretagne, queen of France, helped her’, adding that the queen had
always liked the House of Montpensier, having raised a girl named Anne
from that house.47 This Anne (1495–1510), eight years old, was Charles’s sister.
There is no reason to doubt that the queen liked the Montpensier family.
However, had she not been inclined to help Madame, her love for this child
would not have kept her from thwarting the former regent.
To return to the point that this incident can be regarded as a particularly
female form of gift-giving and the power that it yielded as uniquely female,
Queen Anne was able to exert influence over the king that even his closest
advisers (Graville, for example) could not. This is the essence of the power
associated with female gift-giving; one imposes one’s will by calling on
members of one’s network to lobby quietly on one’s behalf, out of sight of
male advisers. After cultivating a relationship with Anne over the years
through gifts, Madame reaped the benefits, pulling off a major victory,
marrying Suzanne to Charles and keeping the Bourbon territories in her
family (at least for the moment). The triumph, which created a situation that
the king would have preferred to avoid, could only have been achieved by
women working through women.
The bonds between Madame and the ladies of the community that she
created extended into the next generation, as we see the next example in
47 ‘Madite dame éguisa son esprit et f it tant envers le roy qu’il fut content et consentit au
département dudit mariage d’Alençon et que ledit comte Charles épousât ladite dame Suzanne
de Bourbon; et à cela luy aida bien madame Anne de Bretaigne, royne de France, laquelle a
toujours aimé ladite maison de Montpensier, à cause d’une f ille de ladite maison, nommée
madame Anne, qu’elle avoit nourrie’, Marillac, p. 136.
78 Tr ac y Adams
which two of the women raised by Madame come together in an exercise

of power that, once again, could only have been carried out by women.
The Peace of Cambrai of 1529, popularly known as the Ladies’ Peace, was
negotiated by two of Madame’s former charges, Louise de Savoie and
Margaret of Austria, on behalf of Louise’s son, François I (1494–1547), and
Margaret’s nephew, Charles V (1500–1558). When several years after their
period at Madame’s court the women became relatives by marriage, with
Margaret united to Louise’s brother, Philibert II, Duke of Savoy (1480–1504),
Margaret convinced her husband to banish his and Louise’s half-brother,
René, known as the Bastard of Savoy (1473–1525), from Savoy. Despite this,
the women also worked together. Still later, after Philibert’s premature
death in 1504, they corresponded, offering gifts that required reciprocity
from one another. Louise agreed to Margaret’s request to arbitrate some
affairs between Margaret and François I. 48 After assuring Margaret that
she would treat her affairs as her own, Louise requested a favor, asking
that Margaret return some lands of the Bastard of Savoy in exchange for
unspecified compensation.
The Ladies’ Peace came about several years after François I’s 1525 capture
in Pavia by Margaret’s nephew, Charles V, for whom she acted as Regent of the
Netherlands. The women were in touch after the French defeat, painstakingly
working out an agreement on behalf of their respective male relatives.49 But
the Ladies’ Peace was their most famous collaboration, carried out after the
Treaty of Madrid that resulted in François I’s release in 1526.50 Ambassador
reports agree that only two women could effect the peace. In late autumn of
1528 with François I and Charles V at loggerheads over the Treaty of Madrid
(the terms of which François I had broken by refusing to turn Burgundy
over to the Emperor), Louise dispatched a messenger to Malines to sound
out Margaret on the possibility of entering into negotiations on behalf of
the kings. Margaret eventually agreed, and, over the next several months,
the two women and their advisers hammered out the details. In July 1529
they met in Cambrai for final negotiations. Charles V remained in Spain;
François I spent the month hunting in nearby Coucy and La Fère, where he
was kept informed of what went on every day.51 The treaty was signed on
3 August and then celebrated in the Cambrai cathedral in the presence of
François I two days afterwards.
48 Le Glay, II, p. 83.

49 Le Glay, II, pp. 607–09.
50 See Russell, pp. 94–154.
51 Knecht, p. 219.
What is interesting here is the way that the roles of Louise and Margaret
were imagined. An ambassador’s report to Charles V on the original peace
overtures describes the advantages of delegating negotiations to the two
women as they were laid out by Louise’s messenger. The report, through
the words of Louise’s ambassador, reveals François I’s perception, that he,
the king, was unable to negotiate with Charles V and that he was fully
dependent on his mother to bring his two sons home from Spain without
letting Burgundy devolve to the Empire. First, the report specifies, the kings
had fought and thus could not negotiate themselves without dishonor.52
Second, the King of France had many allies who would have to be consulted
if he were to enter negotiations with the King of the Romans, which meant
in practical terms that peace would never be achieved. However, if Louise
negotiated, the King of France could always later claim to his allies that he
had had no idea what she was doing and blame everything on her.53 Third,
no one was better suited to negotiate than the two women, who ‘would have
in this area no other interest or inclination than to bring about the good,
security and peace of the two princes, their estates and their subjects’.54
A specifically female power, unavailable to men and one enabled by
female gift-giving, then, brought the Peace of Cambrai to its realization. The
high-level negotiations between Louise and Margaret were possible in the
first place because of their relationship, itself a product of the emotional
community in which they both had spent formative years. Modern historian
Nicolas Offenstadt notes that peace throughout the Middle Ages and early
modern period was itself was conceived of as a gift.55 Certainly Louise and
Margaret saw it as such, a gift not only to each other, but to their respective
peoples: nothing could be more pleasing to God and useful to Christendom
than to ‘procure’ ‘a good, true, entire and perfect peace and friendship’.56
Conclusion
It is now widely accepted that women of the early modern period exercised
significant power indirectly. One form of such power, I have suggested,
is gift-giving between women. But concrete examples are often elusive.
52 Le Glay, II, p. 682.

53 Le Glay, II, pp. 682–83.
54 ‘que lesdites dames n’auroient en cest endroit nul autre regard ny affection que de faire et
procurer le bien, seurté et repoz desdits princes, et de leurs estats et subgectz’, Le Glay, II, p. 683.
55 Offenstadt, p. 218.
56 ‘une bonne, vraye, entière et parfaicte paix et amytié’, Le Glay, II, p. 682.
80 Tr ac y Adams
True, as I suggest in my discussion of Madame’s swift action to garner the

support of the disgruntled lords of the kingdom just after the accession
of Charles VIII, in many cases, gift-giving was not particularly female. In
distributing territory and releasing prisoners, Madame exerted authority in
the same way that any regent, male or female, would have done. However,
in building and nurturing communities of young ladies, noblewomen es-
tablished bonds upon which they and others of the networks depended for
support when they required the help of another woman. The marriage that
Madame envisioned as the best way of protecting the Bourbon territories
was possible only with the intervention of the queen, who was in a position
to exert influence as a wife. Several years after Madame’s own death, two
of her former charges came together to create a peace acknowledged at the
time to have been possible only with the help of women.
Although examples of the exercise of such power generally are not im-
mediately obvious, other examples could be adduced. Marguerite de Navarre
and Renée of Ferrara (1510–1574) cooperated in offering refuge to Clément
Marot; Louise de Savoie and Anne de Bretagne teamed up in overthrowing
Pierre de Rohan, Maréchal de Gié (1451–1513), whose influence with Louis XII
both deeply resented; Marguerite de Navarre and Anne Boleyn (c. 1501–1536)
cared for Nicolas de Bourbon (1503–1550), the young Master of Arts at the
University of Paris whose evangelical works were suppressed.57 Released from
prison in 1534, thanks to Marguerite’s influence on her brother the king, the
Queen of Navarre seems to have sent him on to Anne in England for protection.
Typically hidden from view and therefore diff icult to recover, such
cooperation is starting to receive scholarly attention. Recent studies are
beginning to demonstrate the interest of examining female networks as
authentic sources of power. The exercise of power was never solitary but
required the support of networks, especially for women, and these were
cultivated through judicious gift-giving.
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About the author
Tracy Adams received a PhD in French from Johns Hopkins University in

Baltimore, Maryland, in 1998. Associate Professor in French at the University
of Auckland, New Zealand, she has also taught at the University of Maryland,
the University of Miami, and the University of Lyon III. She was a Eurias
Senior Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies 2011–2012
and an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in the History of
Emotions Distinguished International Visiting Fellow in 2014. She is the
author of Violent Passions: Managing Love in the Old French Verse Romance
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), The Life and Afterlife of Isabeau of Bavaria (The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), and Christine de Pizan and the Fight for
France (Penn State University Press, 2014). With Christine Adams, she has
just edited Female Beauty Systems: Beauty as Social Capital in Western Europe
and the US, Middle Ages to the Present (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015).
3. Louise de Savoie
The King’s Mother, Alter Rex
Laure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn
Abstract
Neither queen nor queen-mother, but mother of the king, Louise de Savoie
nonetheless played a prominent role in the affairs of France. Married in
1488 at age 11 to Charles d’Angoulême, she gave birth to her illustrious
children, Marguerite in 1492, and François in 1494, and asserted her
maternal authority after the sudden death of her husband in 1496. As her
son rose to be king in 1515, she succeeded in establishing her place at court
through astute patronage of arts and letters, aligning herself, in text and
image, with illustrious women, past and present. Identified with ‘Dame
Prudence’ as she overcame obstacles and rivals, her tenacious devotion
to her children culminated in power as Madame, Regent of France.
Keywords: Louise de Savoie, regency, cultural patronage, motherhood,

self-representation
Countess, then Duchess, of Angoulême, Louise de Savoie (1476–1531) was

the mother of two illustrious children, Marguerite (1492–1549), poet and
future Queen of Navarre, and François (1494–1547), future King François I.
Even before her son’s ascent to the throne of France, Louise frequented
the royal court. Daughter of Philippe (1438–1497), Count of Bresse, then
Duke of Savoy, she was raised by her aunt, Anne de France (1461–1522),
elder sister of Charles VIII (1470–1498), before marrying Charles d’Orléans
(1459–1496), Count of Angoulême and head of a secondary line of the house
of Valois in 1488. At her husband’s sudden death in 1496, Louis XII (1462–1515)
insisted upon joint custody of François, the potential heir to the throne,
and compelled Louise and her children to reside at Amboise so as to be
closer to court.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch03
86 L aure Fagnart and Mary Beth Winn
Once her ‘Cesar’ became king, Louise governed the kingdom as his ap-
pointed regent at two different times: first, from July 1515 to January 1516,
then from August 1523 to March 1526. But her political role vastly exceeded
the periods of her two regencies.1 The omnipresent mother had her son’s
ear. During the first fifteen years of her son’s reign, she dominated the
Council and royal diplomacy, received foreign ambassadors, and negotiated
with princes and princesses of the time, culminating in the ‘Ladies’ Peace’
concluded in 1529 with Margaret of Austria (1480–1530). François signed
some of his letters with the words ‘the King and Madame’, while Louise
punctuated her own missives with ‘at my sole pleasure’, an expression
ordinarily reserved for the sovereign.2 Beyond the official documents, letters,
and reports of ambassadors that attest to the key role played by Louise de
Savoie in orienting French politics from 1515 to her death in 1531, the books
that she commissioned or owned provide ample evidence for her exceptional
status, that of an alter rex. Although she was neither wife nor daughter of a
king, and never herself a queen, the texts and illustrations of Louise’s books
promoted her image, to members of the court and beyond, as the founder
of a new dynasty of French kings, as governess, and as protector of the
realm, another figure of her son. This essay considers not only her official
power during the periods of her regencies, when she was charged with the
government and administration of the state, but also her symbolic stature,
the authority that, as the king’s mother, she exerted at the court and in the
public domain and the strategies by which she achieved and promoted it.
Extending the analyses of Anne-Marie Lecoq and Myra D. Orth, we will
focus on the historical, religious, and mythological figures regularly invoked
by and for Louise as models for asserting her position as alter rex.3
Filial Trust, Maternal Love
Only a few months after acceding to the throne, François I conferred the
‘rule, government and total administration of affairs’ upon his beloved
mother, praising her prudence as well as her love. 4 The royal letter dates
1 Knecht, 2011; Michon, 2015; David-Chapy, 2016 (not yet published during the writing of this
essay) and her article in the present volume.
2 ‘le roi et Madame’, ‘à mon seul plaisir’, Michon, 2011, p. 85.
3 Lecoq; Orth, 1999.
4 ‘regime, gouvernement et totalle administracion des affaires’, ‘nostre très chère et très
amée dame et mère la duchesse d’Angoulesme et d’Anjou, comme à celle dont avons totalle et
parfaicte confidence et que savons certainement qu’elle se y saura saigement et vertueusement
Louise de Savoie 87
from 15 July 1515, when preparations for the invasion of Milan were almost
complete. In the history of France, Louise de Savoie was the first woman
to have been officially appointed regent when she was neither daughter
nor wife of a king.5 The rights transferred at that time to the Duchess of
Angoulême corresponded to a number of royal privileges. François I granted
to Louise ‘full power, authority and mandate’ to handle judicial and legal
affairs, defend the realm and its cities, convene the courts, and manage
finances, both ordinary and extraordinary.6 In addition, he entrusted her
with the right to grant pardons.7 In reality, the rights then conferred upon
the Duchess of Angoulême were limited. The king himself retained the great
seal that authenticated official documents, so it was he who continued to
handle state affairs, especially diplomatic ones and those concerning Italy.
Although this first regency lasted but a few months and granted limited
powers to Louise, contemporary writers already considered her the king’s
alter ego. Soon after François had returned from Italy and Louise’s regency
had ended,8 the Lyonnais writer Symphorien Champier (1471–1538) published
in Paris his Grandes Chroniques de Savoie.9 The author did not indicate that
Louise commissioned the work, but he nevertheless crafted it with details
that he knew would curry favour with her. In the frontispiece of the copy
offered to Louise, François and Louise are seated on one and the same throne
acquitter par sa prudence, pour la grande et singulière amour et zelle qu’elle porte à nous et
icelluy nostre royaume’. The text is quoted from Levasseur, I, 1515–1516, n° 64, pp. 262–68. All
translations are our own. About this letter, see McCartney, pp. 126–27.
5 Bertière. The author reminds us that in France, even though Salic law was barely contested,
the tradition of leaving his wife in charge of the domain when a husband departed for war or a
crusade was well established.
6 ‘plain povoir, auctorité et mandement’, Levasseur, I, p. 264.
7 ‘de remettre, quicter, pardonner et abolir à tous ceulx que besoing sera tous cas, crimes et
delictz qu’ilz pourroient avoir commis et perpetrez envers nous et justice’, Levasseur, I, p. 265.
8 According to the Itinéraire de la chancellerie royale sous le règne de François Ier published
in Marichal, ed., Catalogue des actes de François Ier, VIII, pp. 417–18, François arrived in Sisteron
on 13 January 1516 and on 24 February in Lyons where he remained until 28 May.
9 Printed by Jean de La Garde on 27 March 1516, the colophon records that Champier completed
the work in 1515 and that he was ‘conseillier et premier medecin’ of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine.
The Universal Short-title catalogue (USTC) lists 28 other copies of this edition, all of which bear
on the title page a large woodcut of the arms of Savoy. In the presentation copy (BnF, Rés. Vélins
1173), the arms have been painted (a white cross on a red field) and the motto ‘FERT’ added in
gold letters to either side of the cross. Moreover, the final words of the lengthy title have been
erased so that the names of both Champier and La Garde are missing. The page bearing the
colophon is also lacking in this copy, as if the book were a manuscript, individually prepared,
rather than one copy — albeit illuminated on vellum — of a printed edition. See M.B. Winn,
2007, p. 268.
(Fig. 3.1).10 It is tempting to see therein a visual rendition of the political

power shared by mother and son. The young king is represented in full
regalia (hat encircled with a crown, collar of the Order of St. Michael, mantle
adorned with fleurs-de-lis and ermine, coronation gloves, scepter and hand
of Justice), apparel in fact reserved solely for the coronation ceremony.11 The
chamber in which the book is presented also manifests regal splendor in
the raised dais and fleur-de-lis drapery. As for Louise, she appears as usual
in widow’s clothing, which typically consisted of a dark-colored gown,
usually brown or black, adorned only by the ermine or sable lining of her
bombard sleeves. A black headdress, often reinforced with a broad white
band that, like the nun’s bandeau, hides the forehead, falls into long panels
in a style popular in the 1490s. Throughout the period, in text and image,
this apparel identified Louise as an eternal widow, entirely devoted to
her son, now the king.12 After the death of Charles of Angoulême in 1496,
Louise never remarried, a fact that her entourage consistently emphasized.
In the manuscript of the Petit Livret a l’honneur de sainte Anne (after 1518)
addressed to Louise, François Demoulins (c. 1470/1480–1526?) writes that the
apostle says that true and good widows are those who wished to have only
one husband.13 It is notable that in the majority of images, Louise’s attire
is intentionally unadorned. In the frontispiece to the Grandes Chroniques
de Savoie, she wears a simple gold chain that seems to correspond to that
of François’s Order of St. Michael. In other miniatures, while she might
wear a finely worked gold belt, she is almost always dressed with a sobriety
uncustomary for her rank. Her dress only rarely displays shimmering colors,
rich fabrics, or jewels.14 The sources that recount the major ceremonies of
François’s reign, especially coronations and royal entries, likewise take note
of Louise’s sober dress, which distinguished her from other ladies of the
court.15 For the coronation of Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), for example,
Louise’s clothes were ‘without ornament’, while the ‘coifs, corsets, mantles
10 BnF, Rés. Vélins 1173, fol. 1 r. The miniature covers the woodcut of a writer at his desk that
appears in all other copies. See, for example, the copy at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal (4-H-1382),
digitized on Gallica.
11 Chatenet and Lecoq, p. 22.
12 Zvereva, 2015a.
13 ‘l’apoustre dyt que les vrayez et bonnez vefvez, ce sont cellez qui n’ont jamaiz voulu avoir qu’un
/ mari’ (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 4009, fol. 19r–v). In our transcriptions from contemporary
sources, we have expanded abbreviations, altered capitals and punctuation so as to conform
to modern usage, added a cedilla to ç and an accent aigu to final tonic e (parlé, aprés) except
when it is followed by –z.
14 Zvereva, 2015b, pp. 23–24.
15 David-Chapy, 2015, pp. 72–73.
Louise de Savoie 89
Figure 3.1 Symphorien Champier, Les Grandes Chroniques de Savoie
Paris: J. de La Garde, 1516) Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Rés. Vélins 1173, fol. 1r
and surcoats’ of the ladies, duchesses and countesses who accompanied the
queen were ‘adorned with precious stones of such value that the smallest
was estimated at more than 50,000 écus’.16 This deliberate desire to appear
in public, even several decades after the death of her husband, in somber
and sober mourning dress, while she occupied a major position at court,
constituted a political act.
Without doubt, this attire made explicit the role that Louise intended to
play at court. She was neither queen nor dowager queen; she was a widow,
an eternal widow. She was mother of the heir to the throne, then king of
France. She was head of the family, replacing the pater familias, dead 20 years
earlier, founder of a new dynasty, regent, veritable alter rex, entirely devoted
to her son’s destiny, to which she expected to contribute significantly, and
guardian, in the same capacity as other exemplary widows of history, of
the requisite qualities of wisdom, virtue, chastity. If the frontispiece of the
Grandes Chroniques de Savoie insists on the power that mother and son
share, Champier’s text calls special attention to Saint Louis (1212–1270)
who acceded to the throne at age twelve and was therefore left ‘under the
tutelage and protection of his mother named Blanche, who without ceas-
ing took great care and solicitude to instruct and teach him in all virtues
and in the holy catholic faith’.17 Genealogical charts demonstrate how the
noble houses of Valois, Alençon, and Bourbon descend, through male and
female heirs, from Saint Louis. At the end of the Chroniques, Champier is
careful to record that Louise and her brother Philibert II (1480–1504), ‘very
handsome children, sensible and courteous’,18 were born to Duke Philippe
and his first wife, Marguerite de Bourbon (1438–1483). Louise married the
Count of Angoulême and gave birth to François, the very Christian king of
France, first of that name.19 Champier connects François with the Trojan
heroes and aligns Louise with Saint Louis, the very Christian French king,
and with his mother Blanche of Castile (1188–1252). Composed to the honor
and glory of the ‘very high and very excellent princess, my lady Louise de
16 ‘sans aucun enrichissement’, ‘chappeaulx, corsets, manteaulx et surcots’, ‘enrichis de

pierreries de telle valeur que le moindre estoit estimé plus de cinquante mille escus’. Godefroy,
pp. 218–19. For the identification and description of garments of this period, see the copious
documentation and illustration in Van Buren.
17 ‘en la tutelle et protection de sa mere appellee Blanche, laquelle sans descontinuer print une
merveilleuse sollicitude et cusançon [soin] de le bien instruire et enseigner en toutes vertueuses
meurs et en la saincte foy catholicque’, fol. 6r.
18 ‘tresbeaulx enfans, saiges et humains’, fol. 131 r.
19 ‘espousa monseigneur le conte de Angoulesme, de laquelle est venu le roy François, tres
chrestien roy de France, premier de ce nom’, fol. 131 r.
Louise de Savoie 91
Savoie, mother of the very Christian and very excellent king of France’,20
Champier addresses her in the dedication as a ‘very noble and illustrious’
princess. He repeats the same two adjectives to describe the subject of his
Chroniques, namely ‘this very noble and illustrious genealogy’ of the dukes
and princes of Savoy whose history is eminently worthy of record.21
With similar flattery, the Franciscan Jean Thenaud (1474/1484–1542/1543)
dedicates to his ‘superillustrious lady’ le Triumphe des Vertuz, an ensemble
of four treatises on the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and
Temperance.22 Louise commissioned this work for her son, and it offered
ample testimony, both visual and verbal, to the mother–son couple at
the helm of the kingdom. The first volume, dating from 1517, includes the
treatises on Prudence, honoring her daughter, Marguerite d’Angoulême,
and Fortitude, honoring her son, François I.23 The second volume, dating
from about 1519, includes the treatises on Justice, honoring her grandson
François (dauphin from 1518–1536) and Temperance, honoring her daughter-
in-law, Queen Claude (1499–1524).24 The frontispiece of the first volume
depicts the traditional presentation of the book.25 The author, tonsured
and dressed in a hooded habit tied at the waist with the knotted cord of the
Franciscans, kneels before Louise who, as in similar frontispieces for Anne
de Bretagne (1477–1514), sits on a throne surrounded by a female court. We
know that the number of noblewomen at the court of France increased
at the end of the fifteenth century and that these female courts reflected
and enhanced the position of the lady who assembled them around her.26
In the frontispiece, the ladies who surround Louise are attired in coloured
gowns adorned with belts and necklaces while the Duchess herself wears
a rather plain dress, with gold highlights, and a headdress nearly identical
to a nun’s coif. Here again, her apparel distinguishes Louise from the other
ladies represented in the miniature, especially since her dress, as well as
the rosary that she holds in her hand, seem to echo the Franciscan robe.
It is nonetheless an almost-queen who is depicted, as if the mental image
20 ‘treshaulte et tresexcellente princesse, ma dame Loyse de Savoye, mere du treschrestien et

tresexcellent Roy de France, Françoys premier de ce nom’, fol. 132r, colophon.
21 ‘tresnoble et illustre princesse’, fol. b1 r; ‘tresnoble et illustre genealogie’, fol. b1v.
22 On Thenaud, see Pierre. For the editions of the treatises, see Thenaud, with the dedication
to his ‘superillustre dame’ in vol. I, p. 3. About the manuscripts, see Orth, 2015, II, n° 7, pp. 49–56
and n° 8, pp. 56–60.
23 Saint-Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Fr. F. v. XV, I.
24 BnF, ms. fr. 144.
25 For a reproduction, see Voronova and Sterligov, p. 208, pl. 253.
26 Viennot, 2000, pp. 93–96; Zum Kolk.
had superseded historical fact. Louise is seated on steps covered in blue

and gold, the colors of fleur-de-lis fabrics, within an architecture à l’antique
from which hangs a red drapery bearing her arms.27
In the frontispiece to the second volume of the Triumphe des Vertuz, her
imagined status is made manifest: Louise is now crowned.28 Dressed in the
same gown of golden highlights, with a gold belt, she wears a wide crown
and holds in her hands a scepter and rays. She is seated, as on a throne, at the
edge of a fountain bearing her arms. This principal fountain irrigates four
smaller fountains, the first evoking Fortitude, surmounted by a salamander,
with the arms of François I; the second, Justice, with the arms of the dauphin
François; the third Temperance, with the arms of Claude de France; the fourth
Prudence, with the arms of Marguerite d’Angoulême. The Latin inscription
inserted near the kneeling author, Dive Lathone Apollinis et Dyane Matri
Virtutum Fonti Perhempni (‘To the divine Latona, mother of Apollo and Diana,
perennial source of virtues’), associates Louise with one of the most celebrated
mothers of ancient mythology. This assimilation is also found in the second
version of Thenaud’s dedication: ‘You (among the illustrious, renowned, heroic
and superexcellent ladies the greatest), represented by poets as that goddess
Latona, mother and parent of Apollo and Diana, are that living fountain’.29
The first version establishes a Christian parallel between earthly paradise
and the present ‘very Christian realm, which is the monarchic and more than
imperial house of France’ of which Louise is ‘the source and living fountain’,
thus implicitly connecting Louise with the Virgin Mary.30 The frontispiece
moreover subscribes to the tradition of Marian imagery, since it derives from
images associating Mary with the fountain of gardens ( fons hortorum) or
with the well of living water (puteus acquae vivae).31
This masterpiece by Thenaud is not the only one to associate Louise
with the Virgin Mary. The analogy had already been suggested long before
François ascended to the throne in a manuscript offered by the Parisian
publisher Anthoine Vérard (1485–c.1512) to Louise around 1500, the Vie
27 The initials inscribed in the pavement below, ‘L’-‘M’-‘F’, are those of the Angoulême ‘Trinity’:
Louise, her daughter Marguerite, and her son. See Knecht, 2015.
28 BnF, ms. fr. 144, fol. B. Digitized on Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10520631m/
f5.image.r=triomphe%20des%20vertuz (accessed 19 January 2017). See also Lecoq, pp. 338–340.
29 Included in the copy of the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 3358 but not in that of St. Petersburg.
‘Vous (des illustres, renommees, heroes et superexcellentes dames la plus), figuree par les poetes
en celle deesse Lathone, mere et parente de Phebus et Dyane, estes celle fontaine vive’, Thenaud,
I, p. 4.
30 ‘royaulme treschrestien, qui est la monarchalle et plusque imperialle maison de France’,
Thenaud, I, p. 281.
31 Lecoq, p. 340.
Louise de Savoie 93
Nostre Dame, the text of which is taken from the Matines de la Vierge by the
poet Martial d’Auvergne (1420–1508).32 In his dedication, Vérard employs
metaphors for Louise (‘flower of honor’, ‘fruit of virtue’) that imitate those
for the Virgin (‘she is virtue, she is the clear fountain’), thus reinforcing the
parallel between the two mothers that is illustrated by facing miniatures:
the Virgin and Child on fol. 3r, Louise and her young son on fol. 2v.33 If
Mary is ‘our mother, our supreme head’, Louise is the one who holds ‘the
sovereign branch of the lily’.34 This symbolism endured until Louise’s death:
her embalmed heart was buried in Notre-Dame Cathedral, in a casket the
cover of which displayed a crowned lily issuing from a crowned heart.35
Louise’s identification with the Virgin is also noteworthy in the Chants
royaux du Puy de Notre-Dame d’Amiens, a work composed in 1517–18.36 At
the end of May 1517, François, Claude, Louise, and Marguerite undertook
a long voyage in Picardy and Normandy. On 17 June, the court visited the
cathedral in Amiens where a series of paintings in honor of the Virgin was
displayed. Every year, the society of the ‘Puy de Notre-Dame’, dedicated to
the Virgin, organized a poetry contest. At the Feast of the Purification, the
newly elected master of the society would announce the verse or palinode
he had just composed in the Virgin’s honor, which would serve as the refrain
for the competition the upcoming year. At Christmas, he would unveil the
painting that illustrated the verse and would serve that year as the altar
painting for the society. The competition would then be launched. The
collection of paintings and poems that hung in the cathedral of Amiens
impressed Louise de Savoie: she ordered copies, which were then assembled
into a manuscript. Illuminated by the Parisian painter Jean Pichore (fl.
1490–1521) and his workshop, from sketches made by Jacques Plastel of
Amiens, the manuscript reproduces 47 of the paintings executed for the
contests held between 1458 and 1516. All of them show the Virgin and Child,
surrounded by numerous people, in scenes that emphasize the saving grace
of Mary. Kneeling as the donor, the master holds in his hands a phylactery
(or banner) on which is written the verse of the palinode. In the dedication
32 BnF, ms. fr. 985.

33 For reproductions and discussion of these miniatures, see M.B. Winn and Wilson-Chevalier,
p. 239 and pl. XVI, fig. 97.
34 ‘fleur d’honneur’, ‘fruit de vertu’, ‘c’est la vertu, c’est la clere fontaine’, ‘nostre mere, nostre
chef capital’, ‘du liz la branche souveraine’, fols 1 r, 1v.
35 See the reproduction in Crépin-Leblond and Barbier, p. 137.
36 BnF, ms. fr. 145. Digitized on Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426257z?rk=21459;2
(accessed 19 January 2017). Lecoq, pp. 325–35; Zöhl, 2004, pp. 25–42; Zöhl, 2007; Orth, 2015, II,
n° 18, pp. 83–88.
scene, Louise is seated on an elaborate gold chair, its high back sculpted
with her coat of arms.37 She sits in state at the center of the composition,
her feet resting on a green cushion. Dressed in her traditional widow’s
clothing, she is surrounded by numerous ladies of the court. As Anne-Marie
Lecoq and Caroline Zöhl have already noted, the king’s mother occupies the
place reserved for the Virgin in the paintings of the ‘puy’ reproduced in the
manuscript, while the two magistrates (Andrieu de Monsures and Pierre
Louvel) who offer her the book, are represented as the devout worshipers,
kneeling at the feet of Mary and their patron saint.38 Louise’s already regal
posture is thus enhanced with almost-divine authority.
The dedication in the form of a chant royal, analogous to those addressed
to the Virgin, reinforces the connections between Louise and Mary, their
respective maternities, and by extension between François and Christ:
You carried as mother and regent

The royal blood, the honorific body
Of King François who rules the French,
Giving them admirable hope,
For which, while the unsurpassed queen
Mary, virgin in her maternity,
Brought us in person
The hope of the entire world,
So are you too, by another quality,
The frank and humble mother,
For the great hope of France.39
While Mary is unsurpassed as the virgin mother whose son brought hope
to the entire world, Louise nonetheless gave birth to King François, hope
of France, thus becoming mother of the entire realm. Although the text’s
reference to humility alludes to that essential quality of the Virgin at the
moment of the Annunciation, the implicit equation of Louise with Mary asserts
a stature ordained by God himself, granting the king’s mother an authority
37 BnF, ms. fr. 145 fol. 1v; see http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8426257z/f8.image (accessed

19 January 2017).
38 Lecoq, p. 333; Zöhl, 2004, pp. 32–34.
39 ‘Tu as porté comme mere et regente / Le royal sang, le corps honorificque, / Du roy Françoys
qui les Françoys regente, / En leur causant ung espoir admirable, / Dont, quoy que la royne
insuperable, / Marie, vierge en sa maternité, / Nous a porté quant a l’humanité / Totalement du
monde l’esperance, / Aussy es tu, par aultre qualité, / Mere humble et franche / au grand espoir
de France’, BnF, ms. fr. 145, fol. 2r, vv. 13–22.
Louise de Savoie 95
that transcended the terrestrial sphere. Suggested as early as 1500 in Vérard’s

dedication to the Vie Nostre Dame, the identification of Louise, mother of
François, as the temporal equivalent to the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, is
here fully exposed in word and image. This spiritual authority bestowed upon
Louise justifies her political role as the king’s regent, his alter rex.
The Second Regency
On 12 August 1523, as François was preparing for his second Italian campaign,
he once again appointed his mother as regent. 40 In a royal letter the king
justified the need for a regency and for his choice:
We could only provide for such a government and administration the

person of our very dear and very beloved lady and mother, the Duchess
of Angoulême and Anjou, Countess of Maine, as much for the zeal and
singular love and legitimate and natural affection that we know she
bears to us and to our realm, provinces, and dominions, and to our loyal
and obedient subjects thereof, as for the good experience she has in such
matters, as in a similar case, when we left for the conquest of our duchy
and state of Milan and the dominion of Genoa, soon after our accession
to the crown, she exerted and administered while regent and governor
for us in our said realms, provinces, and dominions hitherto, to which
charge she acquitted herself, as is certain and well known, with such virtue
and prudence that she is worthy of praise and singular commendation. 41
The powers granted to Louise were described in more detail than for
François’s first Italian campaign. They concerned all areas of government
40 Levasseur, III, 1521–1523, n° 355, pp. 282–289. See Henry-Bordeaux; Mayer; McCartney,

pp. 131–35; Knecht, 2011, pp. 178–82; Michon, 2015.
41 ‘Nous […] ne pourrions pourvoir a ung tel regime et administration, que de la personne de
nostre treschere et tresamée dame et mere, la duchesse d’Angoumoys et d’Anjou, contesse du
Maine, tant pour le bon zele et singulier amour et affection legitime et naturelle, que savons
certainement qu’elle a porte [sic] a nous, et nosd. royaume, pays et seigneuries, bons loyaulx et
obeïssans subgectz d’iceulx, que pour la bonne experience qu’elle a en telles matieres, que en
cas semblable, que allasmes a la conqueste d’iceulx noz duché et estat de Millan et seigneurie
de Genues, tantost apres nostre advenement a la couronne, elle exercea et administra demorant
regente et gouvernante pour nous en nosd. royaume, pays et seigneuries de deça, en la quelle
charge elle s’aquicta, comme il est certain et notoire, si vertueusement et prudemment, qu’elle
en est digne de louenge et singuliere recommendacion’, Levasseur, III, 1521–1523, n° 355, p. 284.
The text goes on to express the king’s confidence in Louise’s ‘senz, vertuz, prudence et integrité’.
affairs, the convocation of sovereign courts, the execution of sentences

and arrests made by these courts, the security of the realm, commerce,
finances, the right of pardon, and the appointment of officers. The regency
extended through the entire captivity of the king following his defeat at
the Battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525 until March 1526. Louise, residing
at the Abbey of Saint-Just, near Lyons, ruled over an enlarged Council,
presided by the chancellor, Antoine Duprat (1463–1535). When the king was
taken prisoner, the Parlement of Paris sought to reinforce its own power
by limiting that of Louise. It encouraged Charles de Bourbon (1489–1537),
Duke of Vendôme, the closest male relative of the king and member of the
Council, to claim the administration of the government, in place of the
Duchess and Duprat. The Duke, it appears, refused to divide the realm,
then in crisis.
Despite this fragile context, Louise governed successfully, seeking above
all to maintain peace within the realm and to liberate her son. In August
1525, she signed with Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) the Treaty of the
More, which broke the Anglo-Imperial alliance and thus put pressure on
Charles V (1500–1558) to release her son.42 The Traicté de la paix perpetuelle,
published on 22 September 1525, announced on the title page the agree-
ment between the king and ‘Madame, his mother, Regent in France in his
absence’. 43 A woodcut of the royal arms surrounded by the collar of the
Order of St. Michael is printed on the last leaf. Louise also sought support
from the sultan Soliman the Magnificent (1494–1566), an initiative that
would be crowned with a military alliance against the Emperor in the
Mediterranean. Finally, she sent her daughter Marguerite to negotiate
directly with the Emperor. Louise’s efforts were successful in maintaining
peace and securing the release of François I.
For Louise and her entourage, this second regency became the moment
to invoke, as did other elite women of the time, Blanche of Castile. Blanche
— as a woman, mother of the king, widow, in charge of her son’s education
and then as regent — offered several points of comparison with Louise.
The similarity was proclaimed loud and clear in two works that Étienne
Le Blanc (c. 1490–1565) composed for Louise: the Généalogie de Bourbon,
Histoire des accroissements territoriaux des Bourbons, Vie de saint Louis;
and the Gestes de Blanche de Castille.44 The Généalogie, dedicated to Louise
42 Jacqueton.
43 ‘Madame, sa mere, Regente en France en son absence’.
44 BnF, ms. fr. 5719 and BnF, ms. fr. 5715 respectively. Orth, 2015, II, n° 38, pp. 144–46 and n° 37,
pp. 140–43. Etienne Le Blanc succeeded his father Louis as greffier of the Chambre des comptes
Louise de Savoie 97
and commissioned by her, was written at a time when she claimed the
inheritance of her cousin, Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521), heir of the duchy
of Bourbon, instead of Suzanne’s husband, the constable Charles de Bourbon
(1490–1527). The composition is thus placed between 28 April 1521, date
of Suzanne’s death, and 14 November 1522, date of the death of Anne de
France, Suzanne’s mother. In the Généalogie de Bourbon, Le Blanc states
that Suzanne has died without heir, while Anne is still living.45 According
to Elizabeth A.R. Brown, the work was composed before 11 August 1522,
when the Parlement of Paris began to examine the challenge to Suzanne’s
will brought by Louise and François I. 46 The date of the Gestes de Blanche
de Castille is more controversial, although it must have been composed
after Louise’s first regency. 47
Le Blanc begins by explaining his choice of subject for ‘this little book’,
extracted from the histories of France. Louise descended from Saint Louis,
whose mother, Blanche of Castile, had acted as regent for her son, expel-
ling his enemies and governing with virtue and prudence. Blanche was
not, however, the first woman to ‘defend and save’ her people, as Le Blanc
demonstrates by citing the two most famous biblical examples. 48
The good Judith, filled with all beauty and wisdom, being a widow, saved
the people of Jerusalem and of all Judea from the hand of Holofernes,
lieutenant general of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyrians.
So also did Queen Esther, wife of Ahasuerus, king of Persia and Mede,
from the hands of Haman, cruel tyrant. 49
in 1509 and became Louise’s secretary in 1526.

45 ‘de present est decedee sans hoir’, BnF, ms. fr. 5719, fol. 3v.
46 Brown, p. 10, n. 26. An edition and study of the Gestes is in preparation by Elizabeth A.R.
Brown and Mary Beth Winn.
47 Lecoq, pp. 477–78 dates its composition to the first regency. Other scholars propose the second
regency (McCartney, pp. 133–35; Viennot, 2008, pp. 80–81; M.B. Winn and Wilson-Chevalier,
p. 243). Brown and Zale, pp. 236, 252–53, date it to between 1515 and 1521, before Le Blanc had
entered Louise’s service. According to Orth, 2015, II, p. 140, the manuscript dates from c. 1520–1522.
48 BnF, ms. fr. 5715, fol. 1 r: ‘ce petit livre’; fol. 1v: ‘Et n’est pas la premiere dame qui en l’ancienne
et nouvelle loy a deffendu et sauvé le peuple’.
49 ‘La bonne dame Judich, remplye de toute beaulté et sagesse, estant en viduité, sauva le
peuple de Hierusalem et de toute la terre de Judee de la main de Holofarnes, lieutenant general
de l’armee du roy des Assyriens, Nabuchodonosor. Ce que feist aussy la royne Hester, femme de
Assuere, roy de Perse et de Mede, des mains de Aman, cruel tyrant’, fol. 1v.
In line with these illustrious women, Louise, too, had ‘until now guarded
and defended the people of France’.50 This apparent reference to her regency
established a link to those of Blanche of Castile, one during her son’s minority,
between 1226 and 1234, the other beginning in 1248, when the king departed
for the crusade. To such a regency similarly, wrote Le Blanc, ‘has succeeded,
by her great prudence and virtue, the very honorable, powerful and excellent
princess and my very revered lady, Madame Louise’.51 Le Blanc emphasized
elements that established a clear parallel between the two mothers. Blanche
oversaw her son’s education: she was his tutor and engaged the most worthy
and wise counsellors, both religious and lay, that one could find.52 The king
became benevolent (debonnaire) through the advice of his mother who was
compassionate and magnanimous, always striving to do good works and
to treat everyone, great and small alike, with justice.53 Against the nobles
who thought that the government of the realm did not belong to a woman,
the king maintained the contrary, and, fully confident in his mother, he
entrusted her with his kingdom. Le Blanc asserts another argument against
the ‘envious’ who claim that a mother should not hold the government of
her son, namely that natural law grants her this power, witness the proverb
bon sang ne peult mentyr (‘Good blood cannot lie’). Furthermore, virtue
reigns in some women more than in many men, and in such cases, ‘they
deserve not only to be called women, but men’.54 Such statements seem to
hold greater significance for the years 1523–26, when Louise’s authority was
being contested and her regency extended because of her son’s captivity,
than for her first regency.
Moreover, a stylistic analysis of the celebrated frontispiece further
substantiates this later date.55 According to Guy-Michel Leproux, the
frontispiece is closely related to the Rosenwald Hours of 1524.56 A motif of
50 ‘jusques cy gardé et deffendu le peuple de France’, fol. 1v.

51 ‘a laquelle regence a, par sa grande prudence et vertu, succedé treshaulte, trespuissante et
tresexcellente princesse et ma tresredoubtee dame, Madame Loyse’, fol. 21v.
52 ‘Blanche, sa mere, le feist endoctriner et enseigner, car elle l’avoit en garde comme tutrice,
et luy quist gens de conseil, tant clercs comme laiz, les plus preudhommes et les plus sages que
on peut trouver’, fol. 3r.
53 Blanche ‘tousjours s’estudioit a faire bonnes œuvres […] faisant justice tant au grant que
au petit, sans acception de personnes’, fol. 19r.
54 ‘elles meritent non seullement estre appellees femmes, mais hommes’, fol. 7r.
55 Digitized on Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55005969b/f8.image (accessed
12 January 2017).
56 Washington, Library of Congress, Rosenwald Collection, ms. 10, fol. 79v. We thank Guy-Michel
Leproux for this information. The Rosenwald manuscript is digitized at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.
rbc/rosenwald.0014.2 (accessed 12 January 2017). See also Orth, 2015, II, n° 41, pp. 152–56.
Louise de Savoie 99
two superimposed columns surmounted by winged cupids likewise frames

the image of Saint John on Patmos, behind whom rises a similar château built
on a rocky cliff.57 Seated beneath a dais of green velvet, Louise wears her
traditional widow’s clothing. Her face derives from an original portrait by
Jean Clouet (c. 1485–1541), since lost, that was undoubtedly executed around
1516–18, since it appears in the frontispiece to the Petit Livret a l’honneur
de sainte Anne, whose dedication mentions only the royal children born
before 1518.58 She is outfitted with gigantic wings whose significance is
multiple. They are, first, a rebus on the ‘L’ of her name, but also an evocation
of her protective role, first of the dauphin, then of the king. Similarly, the
anonymous author of the Compas du Daulphin, composed around 1505–15,
begged François’s mother to keep him under her wing.59 But these wings
are also borrowed from the Bourbon emblems, thereby reflecting Louise’s
claim to that inheritance.60 In any event, the king’s mother is portrayed as
regent, governing the realm, since she holds with both hands the tiller of a
rudder, plunged into a rectangular pool filled with water. The rudder is of
course the instrument used for directing the country, the traditional symbol
of government. This government extends beyond the walls of the palace to
include the whole realm; the room in which the two figures appear opens
in fact through an Italianate loggia onto a vast landscape. At Madame’s
feet, lying prostrate on a humble bed, the author awaits a commission, as
indicated by the Latin words inscribed on the dais (‘remarkable for piety’)
and on the frame (‘say a word and I shall be cured’).61 The words recall those
of the preface, in which the author hopes to earn Louise’s favor and make
her ‘turn [her] eyes of pity and clemency on [him], which however has not
yet occurred’.62 Le Blanc achieved his goal when Louise named him clerk
and auditor of the Chambre des comptes in May 1525, the terminus ante quem
therefore for the work’s composition. In 1526, he became her secretary and
later that of her daughter Marguerite.63 The Gestes de Blanche de Castille
emphasized Louise’s ability to guide the ship of state in the absence of the
57 Fol. 14v.
58 Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 4009; Zvereva, 2011, p. 203, cat. 4. The portrait by Clouet is
also known from the copy preserved in Knowsley (Derby Collection, inv. W 418, fol. 4, c. 1525)
or fol. 2v of the Livre d’heures de Catherine de Médicis (BnF, ms. nouv. acq. lat. 82, c. 1573).
59 BnF, ms. fr. 2285, fol. 7r, ‘sous [son] aile cherie’.
60 See Lecoq, pp. 470–77; M.B. Winn and Wilson-Chevalier, p. 243; Fagnart and Girault.
61 ‘Insignis Pietate’, ‘Verbo dic t[antu]m et sanabitur’.
62 ‘et faire tourner voz yeulx de pitié et de clemence vers moy, ce que toutesfois ne m’est encores
advenu’, fol. 1 r.
63 Orth, 1999, p. 85.
king, to govern the realm by herself, as had her illustrious predecessor,

regent to Saint Louis.
Le Blanc’s two works are not the only ones to associate Louise de Savoie
with Blanche of Castile, nor was the association with Judith and Esther
unprecedented. Indeed, an emblematic example can be found in the stained-
glass windows of the Sainte Chapelle, that monumental reliquary erected
by Saint Louis to house the relics of the Passion of Christ, including notably
the crown of thorns and the True Cross, bought from the Venetians to whom
the bankrupt Baudouin, Emperor of Constantinople (1217–1273) had pawned
them. Depicting the stories of Judith and Esther, several windows might be
interpreted as an homage to Saint Louis’s mother, who had assumed the
regency during the king’s youth, when most of his vassals were in league to
usurp the government. The heraldic decor is especially elaborate, with the
lily of France, the castles of Castile, or and gules, and the arms of Castile.
The niche reserved for Blanche and her daughter-in-law, Queen Marguerite
de Provence (1221–1295), during the religious offices, was arranged beneath
these windows.64 Contemporary literature paid particular attention to Judith.
She is a model of virtue, piety, and chastity in the 1504 Vies des femmes
célèbres of Antoine Dufour (d. 1509), commissioned by Anne de Bretagne but
surely known to Louise, and in the 1534 Palais des nobles Dames of Jehan du
Pré (d. 1504) dedicated to Marguerite d’Angoulême.65 In the Chants royaux
du Puy de Notre-Dame d’Amiens, prepared for Louise, one refrain focuses
on Esther: ‘Fair Esther, elected by the king of heaven’.66 The author praises
Esther for saving the Jews and thereby prefiguring the Virgin’s intercession
on behalf of humankind. The accompanying miniature depicts, in the right
background, Esther kneeling in supplication before Ahasuerus and, in the
foreground, being crowned, in a gesture parallel to the Virgin’s coronation
by the infant Christ, which occupies the center of the painting.
Blanche, Louise, and Esther were also linked together on 1 May 1517 for the
entry of Queen Claude into Paris, following her coronation at Saint-Denis.
The street celebrations for the occasion were organized by Pierre Gringore
(1475–1538). An abundant documentation, analyzed by Anne-Marie Lecoq and
Cynthia J. Brown, describes the raised platforms on which dramatic stagings
were performed all along the parade route.67 The last play, presented in front
of the Palais Royal where the supper was prepared, showed Saint Louis,
64 Leniaud and Perrot, pp. 158, 169. See also Jordan, pp. 344–46; and Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 26–27.
65 C. Winn, 2003, p. 292; Llewellyn.
66 ‘Plaisant Hester, du roy des cieulx eslute’, BnF, ms. fr. 145, fol. 19r.
67 Lecoq, pp. 377–91; Gringore.
Louise de Savoie 101
crowned and enthroned.68 If one trusts the painter of one of the contemporary
manuscripts depicting these events, the king, holding the scepter and the hand
of Justice, was flanked by the figures of Justice and Louis’s mother, Blanche
of Castile.69 The presence of the arms of François I and Claude de France,
attached to the base of the platform, allows for no doubt: the scene makes
an obvious allusion to the mother of the reigning king, as equal in authority
to Blanche of Castile. The dialogue between the characters does likewise: it
evokes a ruler guided in his decisions by the maternal figure and by Justice.70
Furthermore, Claude’s entry pageant into Paris in 1517 also emphasized the
biblical heroine Esther whom Le Blanc named as predecessor to the French
regents, Blanche of Castile and Louise de Savoie. Esther was represented at
the Saint-Denis gate, on the first raised platform. The scene is depicted in a
manuscript offered to Claude herself, as well as in manuscripts of the Sacre
de Claude de France.71 Centered within the symbolic representation of the
coronation (the basis for the legitimacy of the queen), Claude is crowned by
the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit (an obvious allusion to the Coronation
of the Virgin), surrounded by six heroines of the Bible, each embodying a
virtue of the ideal wife: Sarah for fidelity, Rachel for conjugal amiability,
Rebecca for prudence, Esther for modesty, Helbora for good morals, Lia for
fecundity. Gringore specifies that Esther, despite her humility, found a means
to have her enemy Haman hanged.72 At the foot of the platform stood four
virtues, embodied in four virtuous and venerable widows of France: Prudence,
Louise de Savoie; Justice, Anne de France, Duchess of Bourbon; Magnanim-
ity, Marguerite de Lorraine-Vaudémont, Duchess of Alençon (1463–1521);
and Temperance, Marie of Luxembourg-Saint-Pol, Countess of Vendôme
(1462/72–1547). The order, and indeed the names, of the virtues vary according
to the source but the association of Louise with Prudence is widely attested.
The parallel between Louise and Blanche of Castile was also promoted in
the Dicts sybillins par personnages, an anonymous collection, copied after
1515.73 In the author’s dedication ‘to the very noble of high renown princess
68 Gringore, p. 307.
69 BnF, ms. fr. 5750, fol. 49v. The miniature is viewable at the Banque des Images (http://images.
bnf.fr/jsp/index.jsp); see also Lecoq, p. 389; and Gringore, p. 121.
70 Lecoq, p. 390, who transcribes additional text from Le Moyne, fol. 16.
71 BnF, ms. fr. 5750, fol. 37 v, and ms. 491 de l’École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris
and British Library Cotton Titus A.XVII respectively. Lecoq, pp. 377–380; Gringore, pp. 109, 122.
72 ‘Mais non obstant l’humilité de laditte Hester, trouva moyen de faire pendre son ennemy
au gibet’, Gringore, pp. 163–64.
73 BnF, ms. fr. 2362. Lecoq, p. 582, n. 95; Colin, ‘Louise de Savoie et la musique’, pp. 222–24. The
work contains a mystery play that includes a Noël with music. The manuscript is digitized on
of Angoulême, mother of King François’, Louise was compared to illustrious

mothers, including Blanche of Castile, who have guided (‘conduit’) their
sons. The author acknowledged
the care that you have for the common good to guide wholesomely your
son François, by God’s grace, King of the French, like Saint Monica, Saint
Augustin, Saint Ciline, Saint Remy, Saint Aelidis, Saint Bernard, and other
innumerable saintly mothers, each her child; also like Queen Blanche Saint
Louis, to whom she often said that she would rather see him beheaded
than that he commit a mortal sin.74
This last phrase is encircled in the manuscript with a hand-drawn line,

as if a reader had highlighted its importance. It is worth noting that the
Cimmerian Sibyl is represented wearing a red dress and a headdress that
resembles the one typically worn by Louise, although in her case it is blue.75
The corresponding text refers to her Italian origins and underscores the
fact that she nursed her son, insisting thereby on a mother’s nurturing
character. But when the Sibyl speaks, she praises astrology by which, she
asserts, God insures the correlation between earth (monde inferiore) and
heaven (ciel superior). She declares that while contemplating the heavens
one day, ‘the supreme Regent, Intelligence’ transmitted to her a ‘prophetic
light’ by which she could recognize the influence of the planets and the signs
of the zodiac.76 It is to understand the astrological signs that she carries a
globe and a sextant. The choice of the term ‘regent’ and its identification
with intelligence is surely not fortuitous in a text dedicated to Louise de
Savoie. One other sibyl displays similar attention. The Phrygian Sibyl, who
predicts the Resurrection, carries the victory banner of the risen Christ,
but in contrast to the colors normally used (a red cross on a white field),
here the colors are reversed, so that they are identical to the arms of Savoy:
a white cross on a red field.77
Gallica: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b525016145.r=2362?rk=85837;2 (accessed 16 January

2017).
74 ‘A tresnoble de bonne fame, haulte princesse d’Angoulame, mere du Roy François […] advertiz
aussy du soing que avez pour le bien publicque de conduire salutairement monseigneur vostre
filz François, par la grace de Dieu roy des François, comme saincte Monicque, sainct Augustin,
saincte Ciline, sainct Remy, saincte Aelidis, sainct Bernard, et aultres innumerables sainctes
meres chascune son enfant; comme aussy la royne Blanche sainct Loys, auquel souvent disoit
que myeulx aimeroit le veoir decoller que il commist ung pechié mortel’, fol. 2r.
75 Fol. 19r.
76 ‘la supreme Regente, Intelligence’, ‘lumiere prophetique’, fol. 20r.
77 Fol. 37 v.
Alter Rex: The ‘Ladies’ Peace’
The culmination of Louise’s authority as alter rex manifested itself in 1529

when her negotiations with Margaret of Austria led to the Treaty of Cambrai,
named in consequence the ‘Ladies’ Peace’, a memorable agreement that
brought to an end the second war between François I and Charles V.78 During
the autumn of 1528, when relations between the king and the emperor
had deteriorated, Louise had taken the initiative to contact Margaret of
Austria. The two princesses had long known each other: raised together
at the court of Anne de France, one of the most politically astute women
of the time, they were also sisters-in-law. In 1501 Margaret had married
Louise’s brother, Philibert II, Duke of Savoy. Preliminary discussions led to
a meeting inaugurated on 5 July 1529 at Cambrai. Louise was accompanied
by her daughter, Marguerite de Navarre, and by members of the Council,
including Duprat and the constable Anne de Montmorency (1493–1567).
Margaret of Austria was escorted by members of her Council and her court,
and by deputies from the Estates. An important delegation from England,
led by Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Chancellor to Henry VIII, as well as
representatives from the Italian states, mainly Venice and Tuscany, joined
them. As for the King of France, he was off hunting at La Fère and at Coucy,
while the Emperor, then in Barcelona, had already given his consent to
the most important provisions. To stay in the background, at least for all
appearances, was astute: François and Charles could at any moment reject
the agreement if it did not suit them. Each was represented, however, by
his most faithful adviser: François by his mother, and Charles by his aunt,
formerly his guardian and governor of the Netherlands. Both women had
served as regent of their respective realms, and, empowered by the rul-
ers themselves, their authority was unchallenged. On 29 July, after fierce
discussions, a compromise was reached. The treaty was signed on 3 August.
Two days later, it was celebrated in the cathedral of Cambrai by a Mass, in
the presence of François I, then by three days of festivities in the town. The
detailed account of the meeting, with its negotiations but also its processions,
Masses, banquets, and music, which punctuated the daily meetings, and
analysis of the celebrations, in literature and the arts, that immortalized
the meeting, both immediately and thereafter, is only now being written.79
78 Russell, pp. 94–161; Knecht, 1998, pp. 283–85 / Un prince, pp. 281–83; Hamon.

79 Under the direction of Laure Fagnart, Jonathan Dumont, Pierre-Gilles Girault and Nicolas
Le Roux, a newly-funded project on the ‘Paix des Dames’ is under way at the Université de Liège
Among the various texts in the form of news bulletins that have recorded
the event, the most interesting as well as the longest, at twelve folios, is per-
haps the publication in Antwerp by Guillaume Vorsterman of the Triumphe
de la paix celebree en Cambray, avec la declaration des entrees et yssues des
Dames, Roix, Princes, et Prelatz.80 The author, Jean Thibault, identifies himself
below the title as ‘Astrologer of the Imperial Majesty and of Madame’, and
as such, he was present in Cambrai in 1529.81 A woodcut on the title page
displays three women standing above the prostrate figure of a male warrior
in full armor who, according to the text, represents Mars, the god of war.
Dressed in elaborate gowns and headdresses, the women are identified by
names printed above their heads: Lady Margaret, The Regent, The Queen
of Navarre (Fig. 3.2).82 Margaret and Louise are turned toward each other,
clasping hands. Various astrological symbols appear with each figure, for
Thibault explains the achievement of peace by the movement of the heavens,
understood through philosophy and astrology as God’s order. Libra is the
sign for the year 1529, a feminine sign in opposition to the masculine Aries.
Given the configuration of the stars and planets at that time, he argues
that only the two princesses, Margaret and Louise, could have achieved
peace. It was, moreover, in the natural order of things that women would
bring an end to the war that had lasted so long. After this introduction,
Thibault proceeds to give an eye-witness account of the arrival in Cambrai
of the two principals and their retinues, the discussions leading up to the
agreement, and its signing.83 He then provides a copy of the accord and
describes the ensuing celebrations, with details about the dress, banquets,
and music following the king’s arrival in Cambrai. Thibault concludes with a
discourse on the ‘virtue of ladies’, citing both Judith and Esther as proof that
when God wishes good upon his people, he has it accomplished by women.
He claims that the peace achieved by Margaret and Louise is as great as
that given to the children of Israel, for all of Christendom awaited it. They
deserve as much honor as Judith, for they received from God the grace and
and the Université Paris 13, in collaboration with the Musée royal de Brou (Bourg-en-Bresse). A
volume of papers presented at the conferences held in Liège and Bourg-en-Bresse is in preparation.
80 USTC 54350; copies seen: Paris, ENSBA Masson 1321; BnF Rés. Lb30.144. Three other copies
are known: BnF, Rothschild 2135 (IV.4.73); BnF, Arts du spectacle, 8-RA4-37; Brussels, KBR,
II.28.596A. Mary Beth Winn is completing a critical edition and study of the Triumphe de la
paix.
81 ‘Astrologue de L’imperiale Majesté et de Madame’. A medical astrologer originally from
Antwerp, Jean Thibault was invited to France in 1533 by François I who had met him in Cambrai.
See Servet, pp. 10–12.
82 ‘Madame Marguerite. La Regente. La Royne de Navarre’.
83 Fol. 6r.
Figure 3.2 Jean Thibault, La Triumphe de la paix celebree en Cambray
(Antwerp: G. Vorsterman, 1529) Paris, ENSBA, Masson 1321, title page

gift to bring peace and assurance to the people. Finally he calls on the ‘bad
husbands’ who have abased their wives and considered them foolish to
honor them for having saved lives. Even though women are fragile in body
and tender in complexion, they are often more virile and constant in mind
than many men reputed for their knowledge and judgment.84 Although
Thibault’s astrological explanation for the ‘Ladies’ Peace’ seems to express
a highly personal view, the opposition between a woman’s fragile body and
her strong mind, equated with virility, has a long history, sparking debates
from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.85 To cite only one other
example in reference to Louise, Jean Bouchet (1476–c. 1558), in his Jugement
poetic de l’honneur femenin, published in 1538, praises her as surpassing her
gender and earning ‘virile’ honors, defeating more enemies through peace
than the Roman general Pompey (106–46 bce) ever did in combat.86
In January 1529/30, Jean de Bourdigné (d. 1547) published his Hystoire
agregative des annalles et croniques d’Anjou.87 Printed in Paris by Antoine
Couteau and Galliot du Pré for Charles de Boigne and Clément Alexandre
of Angers, the work is a history of the world with emphasis on events that
occurred in the regions of Maine and Anjou, of which Louise is duchess
and the author a native son. The vellum presentation copy contains an
illuminated frontispiece that proclaims the power of Louise and the im-
portance of her role in politics (Fig. 3.3).88 In a lofty, vaulted chamber, the
author kneels before Louise and presents to her a large volume on which is
inscribed a Latin phrase: ‘A work dedicated to the divine Pallas of Savoy’. 89
Madame, dressed in her widow’s garb, is seated on a high-backed chair,
beneath the arms of Anjou, which are suspended from the arch above.
To her right are seated noblemen, princes of blood or of the sword, who
during the reign of François I dominated the Council.90 In the woodcut
underlying the painting, they are represented wearing armor and the collar
of St. Michael, but the collars have been overpainted with colored tunics
in the miniature. Three of the noblemen have a ducal crown, while the
84 ‘selon leur esperit sont souvent plus viriles et constantes que ne sont plusieurs hommes que
l’on estime de grande science et jugement’, fol. 12r.
85 It would appear that the treatise did not circulate widely: only one edition is known, with
five extant copies. See note 80.
86 ‘honneurs / Non seulement femenins, mais virilles’, Bouchet, p. 227, v. 901; ‘A surmonté par
paix plus d’ennemys, / Que par combatz ne feit onques Pompee (p. 228, vv. 931–32).
87 M.B. Winn, 2007, p. 269; M.B. Winn and Wilson-Chevalier, p. 242; Crépin-Leblond and
Barbier, p. 132.
88 BnF, Rés. Vélins 761, fol. ā4v.
89 ‘Dive Sabaudiensi paladi dicatus labor’, fol. ā4v.
90 Michon, 2011, p. 71.
Figure 3.3 Jean de Bourdigné, Hystoire agregative des annalles et croniques

d’Anjou
Paris: A. Couteau and G. Du Pré for Ch. de Boigne and C. Alexandre of Angers, 1529 [1530]) Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Rés. Vélins 761, fol. ā4v
fourth, who holds a scroll in his hand and whose armor is gold, has a crown
of fleurs-de-lis, identifying him perhaps as the dauphin François. To her left
are seated the clergy, including two bishops and a cardinal. Behind them sit
councillors in long robes, their square hats indicating university degrees.
Facing them are councillors with plumed hats, representing the bourgeoisie
and merchants.91 No longer is this a court of ladies, as in previous dedication
miniatures, but rather a masculine assembly, a group of male councillors
who participate, under Louise’s direction, in the government of the realm
and the appointment of officers. Until her death in 1531 and in addition to
the periods of her regencies, Louise is an alter rex who, as Cédric Michon
has amply demonstrated, controled the Council.92 Completing the scene
are the two biblical heroines earlier cited by both Le Blanc and Thibault:
Judith and Esther. They too participate in Louise’s government. On the side
of the noblemen, Judith, accompanied by the inscription ‘Judith liberator
of the country’, stands beneath the arms of Angoulême; on the side of the
clerics, Esther, beneath the arms of Savoy, is identified as ‘Esther savior of
the people’.93 Both women were celebrated for freeing their people, as the
inscriptions in the frontispiece underscore. As mediators, both were also
considered prefigurations of the Virgin. It is not surprising therefore that
they are among the biblical heroines most often invoked as models by the
queens of France.
If Louise asserted her power by association with a previous female regent
of France, Blanche of Castile, and with the biblical heroines Judith and
Esther, she relied also on astrological signs. The 1529 Peace of Cambrai
was, according to Thibault, achieved because the stars and planets were
aligned under a female sign, enabling the two dominant princesses of the
opposing realms of France and the Empire to bring an end to war. It was
another celestial event that supposedly alerted Louise to her approaching
death. The celebrated memorialist Pierre de Bourdeille, known as Brantôme
(c. 1537–1614), records that three days before her death, Louise saw a comet
from her window and interpreted it as a sign:
91 We thank Cédric Michon, Robert J. Knecht, and David L. Potter for helping to identify this
scene.
92 Michon, 2011, p. 85. The frontispiece is closely related to those of the Second volume de la
premiere partye du blason d’armoiries, a work composed in 1520 by Jean Le Féron (Bibliothèque
de l’Arsenal, ms. 5255, fol. 2r) or the Traité sur l’art de la guerre of Bérault Stuart d’Aubigny,
completed before 1525 (Yale University, Beinecke ms. 695, fol. 2r). For Le Féron’s frontispiece,
see https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55008900v/f5.image (accessed 30 July 2018); for Bérault,
https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3442866 (accessed 30 July 2018).
93 ‘Judie patrie liberatrix’, ‘Hester salvatrix populi’, fol. ā4v.
And suddenly, opening her curtain, she saw a comet that shed light right
on her bed. ‘Ha! she said, there is a sign that does not appear for people
of low estate. God makes it appear for us great men and women. Close
the window again: that is a comet that announces my death […].’ […] And
three days later, leaving the dreams of the world, she died.94
The editor, Maurice Rat, notes that the time in question was three weeks
rather than three days, the comet being visible only from 6 August to 7 Sep-
tember 1531, and Louise’s death occurring on 22 September.95 That did not
prevent contemporary authors from evoking the comet in their epitaphs for
Louise. Jean de Vauzelles (c. 1495–c. 1557) composed a Theatre de françoise
desolation in which he writes that her nobility merited a flamboyant sign in
the heavens to foretell of her death.96 Victor Brodeau (1500?–1540) likewise
asserts that the comet signaled Louise’s importance, equal to that of a great
prince or monarch.97 The various epitaphs, both Latin and French, composed
for her and published soon after her death, do not cite the heroines who had
been referenced during her lifetime, but they praise Louise for having saved
her country and brought peace.98 François himself penned the first poem
included in the collection, and he summarized in a few lines his mother’s
claim to fame. Addressing her, he writes that she has triumphed ‘by saving
[her] honor, country and [her] child’ and by achieving peace.99 As such, she
was the worthy successor to Judith and Esther, and to Blanche of Castile.
‘Daughter of Virtue, Regent of Honor’, Louise de Savoie was the ‘Mother of
the king, of the French and of France’.100
94 ‘Et soudain, faisant ouvrir son rideau, elle vid une comette qui esclairoit ainsi droit sur
son lit. “Ha! dit-elle, voilà un signe qui ne paroist pas pour personnes de basse qualité. Dieu
le fait paroistre pour nous autres grands et grandes. Refermez la fenestre: c’est une comette
qui m’annonce la mort […].” […] Et puis, au bout de trois jours, quittant les songes du monde,
trespassa,’ Bourdeille, p. 282.
95 Bourdeille, p. 503, n. 657. See BnF, ms. it. 1714, missives from Venetian ambassadors concerning
France, fol. 137; Chatenet, p. 155.
96 Theatre de françoise desolation sur le Trespas de la tres auguste Loyse: louable admiration
de Savoye & de feminine gloire: represante d’ung vray zele (Lyons: 10 Nov [1531]); the only known
copy is now at the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville.
97 Brodeau, p. 103.
98 In Lodoicae Regis Matris mortem.
99 ‘[…] avez triumphé du malheur triumphant / En sauvant vostre Honneur, Pays et vostre Enfant,
/ En guerre soustenant avez la Paix reduicte / Par vostre grant vertu et tressaige conduicte’, In
Lodoicae Regis Matris mortem, fol. A4.
100 ‘Fille a dame Vertus, & Regente D’honneur […], Mere du Roy, des François, & de France,
‘Complainte de M.A.D.L.’ (Adrien de Launoy), In Lodoicae Regis Matris mortem, fol. B6, vv. 24, 36.
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de Savoie 1476–1531. Ed. Pascal Brioist, Laure Fagnart, and Cédric Michon. Tours:
Presses universitaires François Rabelais, 2015, pp. 117–41.
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1997–2010.
THIBAULT, Jean. La Triumphe de la paix celebree en Cambray, avec la declaration
des entrees et yssues des Dames, Roix, Princes, et Prelatz. Antwerp: Guillaume
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Morgan Library and Museum, 2011.
VAUZELLES, Jean de. Theatre de françoise desolation sur le Trespas de la tres auguste
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—. ‘Comment contrecarrer la loi salique? Trois commanditaires de livres d’histoire
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— and Kathleen WILSON-CHEVALIER. ‘Louise de Savoie, ses livres, sa bibliothèque’.
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religieux, 2007, pp. 207–23.
ZUM KOLK, Caroline. ‘Les femmes à la cour de France au xvie siècle. La fonction
politique de la maison de Catherine de Médicis (1533–1574)’. Femmes de pouvoir
et pouvoir des femmes dans l’Occident médiéval et moderne. Ed. Armel Nayt-
Dubois and Emmanuelle Santinelli-Foltz. Valenciennes: Presses universitaires
de Valenciennes, 2009, pp.237–58.
ZVEREVA, Alexandra. Portraits dessinés de la cour de Valois: les Clouet de Catherine
de Médicis. Paris: Arthena, 2011.
—. ‘L’Éloquence du deuil: portraits de Louise de Savoie’. Louise de Savoie 1476–1531.
Ed. Pascal Brioist, Laure Fagnart, and Cédric Michon. Tours: Presses universi-
taires François Rabelais, 2015a, pp.19–26.
—. ‘Madame la Régente et la Prudence personnifiée: Louise de Savoie par Jean
Clouet’. Une reine sans couronne? Louise de Savoie, mère de François Ier: catalogue
de l’exposition, Musée national de la Renaissance, château d’Écouen, 14 octobre
2015–1er février 2016. Ed. Thierry Crépin-Leblond and Muriel Barbier. Paris: Édi-
tions de la réunion des musées nationaux, 2015b, pp. 22–25.
About the authors
Laure Fagnart holds a PhD in History of Art from François Rabelais Uni-
versity in Tours, and is now a research associate with the Fund of scientific
research of Belgium and lecturer at the University of Liège. Her research
concerns the taste for Italian art north of the Alps, a subject she contemplates
through the prism of the emulation of collections of Italian objects and works
of art in France and the old Netherlands. She published a book about the
interest French kings and collectors had in the paintings of Leonardo de
Vinci (Léonard de Vinci en France: collections et collectionneurs: XVe-XVIIe
siècles, Rome, 2009) before editing, with Jonathan Dumont, the collective
work Georges Ier d’Amboise (1460–1510): une figure plurielle de la Renaissance
(Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013). Laure Fagnart then focused on
the figure of Louise of Savoy and the role that the influential mother of
Francis I played in French artistic and cultural life in the first thirty years
of the sixteenth century. Along with Pascal Brioist and Cédric Michon, she
edited the book Louise de Savoie, 1476–1531 (Presses universitaires François
Rabelais de Tours, 2015). Since 2017, in collaboration with Jonathan Dumont,
Pierre-Gilles Girault, and Nicolas Le Roux, she has been studying the meeting
between Louise of Savoy and Margaret of Austria in Cambrai, in 1529, during
which the treaty known as the ‘Ladies’ Peace’ was negotiated.
Mary Beth Winn is Research Professor emerita of French Studies at the

University at Albany, SUNY. Her research has focused on early French
printing, especially on editions by Vérard, with related issues of patron-
age, text/image relations, transitions between manuscript and print, and
collections of poetry. Major publications include Anthoine Vérard, Parisian
Publisher, 1485–1512: Prologues, Poems, and Presentations (Droz, 1997) and
the seven-volume set of chansons in Thomas Crecquillon: Opera Omnia
(American Institute of Musicology, 1998–2011) for which she served as text
editor, with musicologists Barton Hudson and Laura Youens. The edition
received the Claude V. Palisca Prize from the American Musicological
Society in 2012. Her studies of the patronage of Louise of Savoy, especially
with respect to her manuscripts and printed books, have appeared in the
Bulletin du Bibliophile, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, and other
collections. Her critical editions of Vérard’s editio princeps of Le Roman de
Tristan (Classiques Garnier) and of Les Loups ravissans by Robert Gobin are
in progress. In collaboration with Louis-Gabriel Bonicoli, she is preparing
a database of Vérard’s 300 editions and manuscripts.
Part II
Centers and Peripheries of Power
4. Literary Lessons in Queenship and
Power
Mary Tudor Brandon and the Authority of the Ambassador-
Queen
Erin A. Sadlack
Abstract
Mary Tudor Brandon, Henry VIII’s sister, married Louis XII to cement an
Anglo-French alliance. As an ambassador-queen, she knew that typical
political maneuvering would be exacerbated by the possibility that she
might give Louis an heir. Her letters reveal the setbacks she faced in
crafting alliances and the ways she attempted to leverage power. Mary’s
reading, especially works by Christine de Pizan, provided multiple models
of queenship, rhetorical strategies women might employ to exercise politi-
cal power, and a sense of the value of female alliances and wisdom, as well
as the limits of queenly authority and the importance of relationships. This
essay explores Mary’s attempts to negotiate stronger agency, positioning
herself to exercise power in both French and English courts.
Keywords: Mary Tudor Brandon, diplomacy, queenship, cultural patronage,

letters
The proper role of a good, wise queen or princess is to maintain peace and
concord and to avoid wars and their resulting disasters. Women particularly
should concern themselves with peace because men by nature are more
foolhardy and headstrong.
— Christine de Pizan1
1 Pizan, Book of Three Virtues, as translated by Willard (p. 86): hereafter Pizan, 1989b. ‘le
droit office de sage et bonne royne et princepce d’estre moyenne de paix et de concorde, et de
travaillier que guerre soit eschivee pour les inconveniens qui avenir en peut. Et ad ce doivent
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch04
118 Erin A. Sadl ack
In her 1405 conduct book for women, The Book of Three Virtues, Christine
de Pizan (c. 1364–c. 1430) argued that a queen’s primary duty was to act
as peacemaker. Given the combination of women’s innate gentleness and
foresight to see the inevitable dangers of war, a good queen would help her
husband govern well, keeping his subjects happy, or tactfully soothe quarrels
at court, especially between her husband and any fractious nobles. Should
another realm attack, she would do all she honorably could to forestall the
war. The subjects of a realm blessed with such a queen, Christine argues,
will see her ‘not only as their mistress but almost as the goddess on earth
in whom they have infinite hope and confidence’.2 Given longstanding
Anglo-French conflict and the turmoil exacerbated by the intermittent
bouts of madness of Charles VI (1368–1422) and resulting power struggles
between his relatives, Christine’s estimation of the value of a queen who
could mediate effectively is understandable.
In Three Virtues, Christine had clearly designed both a practical handbook
and a pointed commentary on the immediate political situation in France.3
Yet how long and in what ways did her influence persist in the courts of
Europe? One case study may be found in the brief tenure of Mary Tudor
Brandon (1496–1533), younger sister of Henry VIII (1491–1547), as queen of
France. Examining Mary’s connection to Christine’s works and her actions at
the French court reveals that Christine’s advice remained realistic, accessible,
and applicable into the sixteenth century.
The poetry celebrating Mary’s marriage to Louis XII (1462–1515) echoes
Christine’s rhetoric in elevating a peace-making queen to quasi-divine
status. When she entered France, Mary was welcomed by a series of
pageants, the most elaborate in Paris, where the fountains were made
to spout wine and stages were constructed to hold ships with singers
in the rigging lauding Mary. The poet Pierre Gringore (c. 1475–c. 1538)
proclaimed:
As the peace between God and mankind

By the means of the Virgin Mary
Was already made, so now are
aviser principaulment les dames, car les hommes sont par nature plus courageux et plus chaulx’,
Pizan, 1989a, p. 35.
2 Pizan, 1989b, p. 87; ‘non mie seulement comme a leur maistresse, mais ce semble a leur
deesse en terre, en qui ilz ont souveraine esperance et fiance’, Pizan, 1989a, p. 36.
3 Adams contends that Christine intended several works, including Three Virtues, to serve
as arguments that Isabeau of Bavaria (1370–1475) should be regent for her husband Charles IV
(1368–1422).
Liter ary Lessons in Queenship and Power 119
We French relieved of our burdens

For Mary is married among us again. 4
Accompanied by two thousand English nobles and greeted by French

spectacle and cheering crowds, Mary was the living symbol of the peace
between the two countries, which had been at war once again.
This particular Anglo-French conflict arose within the context of general
sixteenth-century jockeying for primacy in Europe. Henry, with Ferdinand
II of Spain (1452–1516) and Emperor Maximilian I (1459–1519), had joined
the Holy League of the Pope Julius II (1441–1513) in an effort to check Louis’s
territorial ambitions in Italy. At the time, Mary was betrothed to Charles,
Prince of Castile (1500–1558), a match arranged as part of a campaign to
create a strong alliance between England, Spain, and the Low Countries. By
1513, Henry had had success in battle, capturing the towns of Thérouanne and
Tournai in the north of France while English troops triumphed against the
Scots at Flodden. Maximilian, impressed with England’s resources, agreed
to hold Mary and his grandson Charles’s wedding in May 1515. However,
Louis opened secret negotiations with Ferdinand and Maximilian, who
delayed the marriage once more. In disgust at his allies’ underhanded
dealings, Henry reversed course and made peace with Louis, offering his
eighteen-year-old sister Mary to the recently-widowed fifty-two-year-old
French king as part of the alliance.
Yet Mary was no mere symbol. She was a woman facing the sobering
reality of such a role. England’s peace with France was new and fragile,
with negotiations over French hostages captured in battle still to be ar-
ranged. England’s existing ties were with Spain, through Henry’s marriage
to Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), and, since age eleven, Mary had been
preparing to become the bride of a Spanish Habsburg prince. Now she
had to alter her mindset to accommodate French fashion, culture, and a
potentially hostile French court. In particular, Mary knew that if she bore
Louis a son, he would supplant the current dauphin, François d’Angoulême
(1494–1547), Louis’s cousin and son-in-law, who, together with his mother
Louise de Savoie (1476–1531) and sister Marguerite (1492–1549), represented a
powerful faction in the French nobility. On a personal level, she confronted
the prospect of marriage to an old husband who was reportedly ill with
gout. Through her close relationship with Catherine of Aragon, who was
4 ‘Comme la paix entre dieu & les hommes / Par le moyen de la vierge marie, / Fus jadis faicte
ainsi a present sommes / Bourgoys francoys desrangez de nos sommes / Car marie avec nous se
marie’, Baskervill, p. 15.
welcomed enthusiastically to England as bride of Prince Arthur (1486–1502),

then largely ignored as his widow, only to rise to power again as Henry’s
queen, Mary would have understood the precariousness of her position in
the French court.
Nonetheless, Mary had been groomed by her father and grandmother,
Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509), to meet such challenges; she had been im-
mersed in the rhetoric of chivalric spectacle from an early age and knew
how to wield its tools to her own advantage.5 She was well educated; her
tutor would publish a book outlining the precepts he had used with her,
including a program of reading a wide range of medieval French and English
literature. In particular, Mary would have known the works of Christine
de Pizan, especially the Epistle of Othea and Book of the City of Ladies and
almost certainly the Book of the Three Virtues.
Mary’s reading would have provided her with multiple models of queen-
ship and the rhetorical strategies women might employ. However, her books
would also have taught the limits of queenly authority, and how much
her influence rested on the strength of her relationships with Henry and
Louis. Mary was a unique figure on whom both courts could call for favors,
effectively making her an ambassador-queen occupying the liminal space
between realms. Therefore she had to foster quickly the appearance of
a loving marriage and devise close ties with her new courtiers, all while
sustaining her familial connection with Henry.
With regard to politics, Mary understood the importance of her role as a
symbol of peace. Hers was a society that valued rhetorical spectacle, and she
was prepared to play her part by writing letters grounded in the rhetoric of
affection and by engaging in behaviors that would paint an image of a close
familial bond between Henry and Louis. The warmer their relationship, the
more likely it was that they would honor one another’s calls for military
aid or diplomacy. For this reason Mary, Henry, and Louis take great pains
in their letters to emphasize their love for one another and thereby project
the impression of a firm alliance to other European kingdoms.
At the same time, the Tudor princess also understood that her role as
peace-making queen was more than symbolic. Indeed, when renouncing her
betrothal to the Spanish prince Charles, Mary claimed she did so because
Charles’s advisers had poisoned his opinion of Henry and that she would
be unable to marry a man so alienated from her brother.6 She preferred to
5 For Mary’s education in epistolary rhetoric and spectacle, see Sadlack, which includes an
edition of Mary’s letters. Spelling of Mary’s letters modernized in this essay.
6 Sadlack, pp. 51–52; Rymer, p. 63.
marry where she could serve both Henry and her spouse. Mary’s actions
as French queen underscore the seriousness of her desire to be an effective
intermediary; from the outset she worked to foster the growth of a genuinely
close working relationship between her husband and brother by facilitating
the exchange of favors between the two courts. Mary’s example demonstrates
how an early modern queen, as sister to one monarch and wife to another,
had a unique power to strengthen alliances between countries.
By establishing her value to Louis politically and through her personal
attentions to him, Mary could increase her influence on him and in turn,
increase her authority, whether to obtain patronage for her favorites, to
achieve personal ends, or to intercede on behalf of her subjects. Intercession
was yet another traditional queenly role, as Mary was reminded when
her coronation ceremonies invoked the example of the biblical Queen
Esther persuading her husband the king to grant her people mercy.7 Records
demonstrate that during Mary’s short stay in France, she sought the release
of prisoners in England and France, and preferment for various individuals.8
Such actions would both earn gratitude and enhance her reputation as a
benevolent queen. In an age where rhetorical spectacle both symbolized
and enhanced one’s power, Mary recognized the value of such a reputation.
Mary’s reading and experience at the English and French courts taught
her that her status, reputation, political allies, and influence were conduits
for the power necessary to safeguard her future. Maintaining warm, loving
relationships with her husband and brother, while garnering additional
friends at court, would help ensure that Mary was well treated during Louis’s
life and protect her after his death. Should she give Louis a son, Mary would
likely play an influential role in French affairs for some time, perhaps even
by acting as regent during the dauphin’s minority. In that event, she would
need support from French nobles to navigate the factions at court. If Louis
died without a son, Mary wanted leverage so that Henry would keep the
secret bargain she had made with him: she would marry Louis in exchange
for the freedom to choose her second husband. Ultimately, the more allies
Mary made, the greater her ability to control her own fate.
Studying the records of Mary’s brief tenure as queen of France, especially
her letters, therefore gives new insight into how and why a woman might
attempt to negotiate her agency in order to accomplish both political and
personal ends. Moreover, Mary’s example also teaches how a queen might seek
7 Dewick, pp. 45, 48.

8 In addition to examples discussed below, Mary exercised her right to free prisoners while
traveling to the capital for her coronation; see Green, p. 53.
to learn from other women. Whether through her familiarity with the works of
Christine de Pizan, her observations of the experiences of other female royalty,
especially Catherine of Aragon, or advice received from English mentors and
French noblewomen, Mary understood that to wield power in France, she
would need to draw on as many sources of authority as she could, whether
through her rhetorical skill, reputation, status, or the influence that came
from building a network of support through the economy of courtly favor.
Visiting the City: Mary’s Familiarity with Christine de Pizan
When Catherine of Aragon came to England, her father-in-law Henry VII

(1457–1509) invited her and her ladies to his library, where they found ‘many
goodly pleasant books of works full delightful, sage, merry, and also right
cunning, both in Latin and in English’.9 This detail is from The Receyt of the
Ladie Kateryne, a work designed to record the magnificence of Catherine’s
welcome to England. It suggests that Henry was proud of his library and
that he thought reading an appropriate pastime for his daughter-in-law
and her women. It is reasonable to conclude that he would have felt his
library a similarly appropriate venue for his daughter, Mary, who was close
to Catherine and traveled with her regularly.10
Through her father and grandmother’s libraries, Mary would have been
immersed in French literary culture. Catalogues of Henry’s holdings show
that the king’s library included a range of histories, classical and religious
tomes, romances, and works by notable writers of the day, particularly French
authors.11 Henry and Elizabeth of York (1466–1503) took pains to ensure
their daughter was educated in French; when Mary was two years old, a
‘French maiden’ was engaged to converse with her, and in 1512 the humanist
John Palsgrave (c. 1480–1554) was hired to give her formal tuition in the
language.12 Palsgrave’s record of his teaching of Mary, Lesclaircissement de
la langue francoyse, includes frequent quotations from a French translation
of Ovid’s Heroides, as well as excerpts from popular French writers such as
Jean Lemaire de Belges (1473–c. 1524), Alain Chartier (c. 1385–c. 1430), and
Jean de Meun (1235/40–1305).13
9 Kipling, 1990, p. 77 (I have modernized the spelling).

10 Sadlack, pp. 21–28.
11 Kipling, 1981, notes the surprising predominance of French texts, p. 124.
12 Sadlack, p. 21.
It is likely that Mary would have known Christine’s works in particular.

Her father, Henry VII, certainly knew Christine’s writing; he had asked
William Caxton (1415/24–1491/92) to print a translation of Christine’s Book
of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry and there were two copies of the Epistle of
Othea in his library.14 Mary could also have read the Othea in the library of
her grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, who engaged in a small community
of female readers. She exchanged books regularly with her mother-in-law,
Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham (d. 1480), and sister-in-law, Anne
Vere (1446–1472), who left Margaret her copy of the Othea in her will.15 Since
Margaret was a noted patron of scholars who urged her granddaughter-
in-law, Catherine of Aragon, to learn French, it is easy to imagine that she
would have shared a work about women’s wisdom written by a famous
Frenchwoman, given to her by a woman friend, with her granddaughter
Mary.16
As is perhaps fitting, Mary had connections to Christine’s work through
her maternal heritage too. The Tudor royal libraries included a manuscript
copy of the City of Ladies that probably belonged to Richard, Duke of York
(1411–1460), Mary’s great-grandfather.17 Anthony Woodville (1442–1483), her
great-uncle, owned the magnificently illuminated collection of Christine’s
works, Harley 4431, and translated her Moral Proverbs.18 In 1521, Woodville’s
nephew, the printer Henry Pepwell (d. 1539/40) would publish the transla-
tion by Bryan Anslay (d. 1536) of the City of Ladies, perhaps to attract the
patronage of Catherine of Aragon, who was actively planning an education
for her daughter that would prepare her to become queen after Henry VIII.19
Cristina Malcolmson observes that ‘such details make it probable that,
among the older members of the Tudor and Woodville families, Christine
was well known’.20 That certainly could have included Mary, the future
French queen.
14 Malcolmson, p. 19.
15 Krug speculates the bequest stemmed from affection, family ties, and an assumption that
Margaret would enjoy Othea (p. 78).
16 Dowling notes that Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York suggested Catherine learn
French (p. 17).
17 Royal MS 19 A.xix; Malcolmson, p. 19.
18 Summit, p. 83.
19 Either Royal MS 19 A.xix or Harley 4431 was likely Ansley’s source (Long, p. 525). For Pepwell,
see Malcolmson, p. 20.
20 Malcolmson, p. 19. Knowledge of Christine as author of the City may have started to fade,
especially outside the court. Summit traces the gradual erasure of Christine as author from her
works in England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and notes that Ansley’s translation
makes no mention of Christine de Pizan (pp. 61–108).
Mary may also have encountered the City of Ladies through her potential
marriage to Charles of Castile. While preparing for the match, Mary wrote
to his aunt and regent, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), thanking her for
some clothing patterns, noting that she was relieved the fashions suited
her and that she was ‘greatly contented with them’.21 Partly a rhetorical
move showcasing her willingness to be guided by Margaret of Austria, the
letter also reveals that Mary was attuned to the fashions of the Burgundian
court and anxious to be sure she was familiar with its culture.22 That likely
included reading habits, and Margaret of Austria owned several works by
Christine, including two copies of the City of Ladies, one purchased in 1511,
by which time Mary had been betrothed to Margaret’s nephew for four
years.23 Had Margaret mentioned the work, or had an ambassador alluded
to its popularity, it would have been a natural choice for Mary to read the
copy in her brother’s library in her efforts to remain au courant.
There is another strong connection between Mary, Margaret of Austria,
and Christine de Pizan’s City. In 1513, as Henry VIII was closely allied with
Margaret’s father, Maximilian, Margaret came to Tournai to celebrate
Henry’s victory there. As part of the festivities, the city gave Margaret a
six-panel set of tapestries illustrating scenes from the City of Ladies.24 While
Henry was in Tournai, a city known for the quality of its tapestry produc-
tion, he purchased a set of tapestries for Mary, the subject of which has
not been recorded. Yet a catalogue of his tapestries made at his death in
1547 includes a six-panel set of City of Ladies tapestries among the items in
‘Lady Elizabeth[’s] Guarderobe’.25 In her quest to identify the City of Ladies
tapestries that made their way into Henry’s possession, Susan Groag Bell
speculates that perhaps Henry bought them for Mary as a wedding present,
but concluded it was unlikely since such tapestries would have been passed
to Mary’s daughter Frances (1517–1599) and thence to her granddaughter, Jane
Grey (1537–1554), not Mary’s niece Elizabeth (1558–1603).26 However, if the
tapestries Henry bought for Mary did depict the City of Ladies, it is entirely
possible that they would have returned to Henry’s possession after Mary’s
second (scandalous) marriage to Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk (c.
1484–1545). Henry was so outraged at Mary’s secret wedding to the English
duke that she ultimately wound up ceding to Henry a significant portion
21 Sadlack, Letter I, p. 164. ‘Je me contente moult fort deulx’.

23 Bell, p. 87.
24 Bell, p. 42.
25 Bell, p. 2.
26 Bell, p. 141.
of her French dower income, as well as the gold plate and his choice of
the jewels she received from Louis during her time in France.27 The first
indenture Mary signed promised Henry 1000 pounds every six months
until she had repaid 24,000 pounds. She was consistently behind on the
payments and constantly begged Henry’s forbearance, often sending gifts
with the requests. For instance, in 1516, Brandon wrote Henry asking for an
extension and inquiring when Mary might come to court; accompanying
the letter was a goshawk and several jewels. The final indenture signed in
1526 promised Henry any of the remaining jewels or plate from Louis upon
Mary’s death. It is entirely possible that Mary gave Henry other goods, such
as a set of tapestries, against her debts.
Mary may well have seen other examples of the City of Ladies tapestries in
France. Her predecessor, Louis’s second wife, Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514),
owned another six-panel tapestry with a City of Ladies theme, which she
brought to France upon her marriage to Louis.28 Anne’s hangings remained in
France after her death, since a 1533 inventory of the French royal collection
includes them. It is plausible that they either adorned the rooms of the next
French queen, Mary, who arrived in France only nine months after Anne’s
death, or that they were passed to Anne’s daughter Claude (1499–1524),
the dauphin’s wife. Bell also traces another eight-panel set of City of Ladies
tapestries in the French court, likely belonging to Louise de Savoie, the
dauphin’s mother.29
The City of Ladies remained a popular work among the French nobility.30
For instance, Christine’s Lady Reason influenced the works of Katherine
d’Amboise (c. 1481–1550), the wife of François I’s chancellor, and of Gabrielle
de Bourbon (c. 1460–1516), daughter of the Count of Montpensier.31 Maureen
Curnow observes that copies ‘were to be found in the royal library, as well
as in the libraries of the noblemen and noblewomen of the houses of Berry,
Burgundy, Orleans, Bourbon, and Savoy’.32 Given period practices of com-
munal reading, even if Mary missed reading the City in England, it is highly
likely she would have encountered it in France.
Another of Christine’s works that remained influential was The Book of
Three Virtues. The patron for the first three printed French editions of the
27 Sadlack, pp. 114–15, 120–22.

28 Bell, p. 109.
29 Bell, pp. 113–14.
30 Long, p. 526.
31 Broomhall, p. 161.
32 Curnow, p. 118.
work was Anne de Bretagne.33 Manuscript copies belonged to Margaret of

Austria, her niece Mary of Hungary (1457–1482), Louise de Savoie, Diane
de Poitiers (1499–1566), and Anne de France (c. 1460–1522), who drew upon
Christine’s wisdom in writing a book of advice for her daughter, Suzanne
(1491–1521).34 Anne, who had served as regent of France during the minority
of her brother Charles VIII (1470–1498), also oversaw the education of many
of the next generation of noblewomen, including Margaret of Austria and
Louise de Savoie.35 So trusted was Anne that Louis turned to her to guide his
new English bride in the ‘modes and fashions of France’.36 Whether Anne gave
Mary the Book of Three Virtues to read is unknown, but certainly lessons from
Christine’s book would have been employed as part of Mary’s instruction.
If Mary did read all three works, Othea, City of Ladies, and Three Virtues,
she would have derived an understanding of various models of queenship,
a respect for the influence women could wield, especially at court, and yet
a keen awareness of the difficulties she might face as Louis’s queen. Amid
dozens of stories about wives in the City of Ladies, Christine includes the
tale of Antonia, whose ‘advice, intelligence, and bravery’ twice enabled her
husband Belisarius to survive the machinations of court politics and earned
him the favor of the emperor Justinian.37 Christine frequently illustrates how
a woman might use her influence on a loved one to bring about desired ends,
such as Veturia persuading her son Coriolanus to spare Rome or Clotilda
convincing Clovis to convert to Christianity.38 The men who ignore women’s
advice do so at their peril; Hector’s failure to heed Andromache’s warning
leads to the destruction of Troy, as Christine emphasizes in both the City and
the Othea.39 In none of these particular stories do women possess absolute
rule, yet each of them wields enormous influence on family, influence that
in turn affects the whole country.
Nor were the women in Christine’s works all taken from history or classi-
cal mythology; in the dialogues with Ladies Reason, Rectitude, and Justice,
Christine emphasizes that she knows women who illustrate the lessons the
33 Pizan, 1989b, p. 43.

34 Willard, p. 59.
35 Willard, p. 62.
36 ‘modes et façons de France’, Pradel, p. 197.
37 For a French edition, see Pizan, 1975; for English, Pizan, 1998. ‘par le conseil, scens, et vaillance
de sa femme’, Pizan, 1998, pp. 140–41; Pizan, 1975, p. 854.
38 Pizan, 1998, pp. 150–52; Pizan, 1975, pp. 870–71.
39 Hindman observes that the heart of Christine’s political allegory in Othea — her plea that
the leaders of France listen to her and make peace — rests on her portrayal of Andromache and
Hector (pp. 55–60).
allegorical figures teach her. For instance, in a subject that Mary would find
most relevant, Christine addresses the subject of young wives of much older
men. Lady Rectitude tells stories of Julia, wife of Pompey, Tertia Aemilia, wife
of Scipio Africanus, Xanthippe, wife of Socrates, and Pompeia Paulina, wife
of Seneca.40 The Christine-narrator responds with her own story of Jeanne de
Laval, wife of Constable Bertrand de Guesclin: ‘although he had a very ugly body
and was old, while she was in the flower of her youth, she paid more attention
to the worthiness of his virtues rather than to the manner of his person and
loved him with such devotion that she mourned his death for the rest of her
life’.41 In the process, Christine encourages her readers to understand the City
of Ladies as an exemplar, effectively creating a conduct book for ladies before
writing Three Virtues, one that encourages readers to see themselves within the
broader context of women’s herstory. For a queen in Mary’s position, reading
about such women would confirm the enormity of the task ahead.
Reading Christine: Mary’s Literary Lessons
One of the most troubling stories in the City of Ladies is that of the Sabine
women, who were abducted and forcibly married by Romulus and the
Romans. After a five-year war between the Romans and Sabines, the Sabine
queen calls her ladies together to say that they can only lose in this conflict:
the death of husbands, fathers, or brothers. Therefore she leads the women
and their children onto the battlefield between the warring armies and begs
them to make peace. These actions move both groups to pity as the Romans
miraculously transform into loving sons-in-law who honor their fathers. 42
Christine is clear that the remarkable courage of the Sabine ladies ‘forced’
the men to make peace; however, that peace required their disturbing
self-sacrifice, remaining married to their rapists. 43 Throughout her works,
Christine consistently places the onus of domestic harmony on the wife;
for instance, in Three Virtues, Lady Prudence’s first precept for a princess
desiring honor is that she ‘must love her husband and live with him in peace.
40 Pizan, 1998, pp. 128–31; Pizan, 1975, pp. 833–38.

41 Pizan, 1998, p.131; ‘nonobstant fust il tres lait de corps et viel, celle noble dame estant en la
fleur de sa jeunesse, qui plus regarda au grant pris de ses vertus que a la façon de la personne,
l’ama de tres grant amour tant qu’elle a plainte toute sa vie la mort de luy’, Pizan, 1975, p. 839.
42 Pizan, 1998, pp. 147–50; Pizan, 1975, pp. 863–68.
43 Pizan, 1998, p. 149; ‘Ilz furent contrains a gitter just leurs armes d’ambedeux pars […] et
de faire paix,’ Pizan, 1975, pp. 867–68. Christine’s Sabine queen explicitly calls it ‘rape’; ‘le
ravissement qui fut fait de nous de nos maris’, Pizan, 1998, p. 148; Pizan, 1975, p. 866.
Otherwise she has already encountered the torments of Hell, where storms
rage perpetually’. 44 Such works give insight into the pressures medieval
society placed on women to subjugate themselves for patriarchal needs.
That pressure remained steady in the sixteenth century; Mary knew
well that she was expected to sacrifice her own desires on the marriage
altar to make peace. After Louis’s death, she reminded Henry, ‘your grace
knoweth well that I did marry for your pleasure at this time’. 45 Moreover,
this behavior was required of women. Naomi Miller and Naomi Yavneh
note that sisters ‘were often constructed as their brothers’ “treasures”,
both because they could be married off and because they look out for their
brothers’ interests, monetarily, socially, or even emotionally’. 46 Yet Mary
possessed a weapon in the rhetoric that obliged Henry to protect his sister
to maintain his reputation as a good chivalric king. Therefore, she agreed to
marry Louis to establish the ‘great weal of peace which should ensue of the
same, though I understood that [Louis] was very aged and sickly, yet for the
helping forth of good peace, I was contented’; however, she added a clause
to the deal: ‘if I should fortune to overlive the said late king, I might with
your good will freely choose and dispose myself to any other marriage at
my liberty’.47 With Henry’s consent, Mary prepared for marriage, accepting
the burdens of a much older husband in ill health, the factions of the French
court, and the duty of creating bridges between England and France in
exchange for a tenuous grasp at personal agency later.
After a proxy wedding, Mary’s first action was to establish an epistolary
relationship with her new husband. Her letters project the image of the
virtuous wife Christine outlines: loving, obedient, and eager to please. Each
of the three letters that survive opens with professions of humility and love:
‘very humbly I recommend myself unto your good grace’. 48 Thanking him
for the affectionate letters he has sent, Mary assures Louis that:
the thing I most desire and wish for today is to hear good news of you,
your health and prosperity […]. It will please you moreover, my lord, to
send for me and command your good and agreeable pleasures in order for
44 Pizan, 1989b, p. 98; ‘il apertient que elle aime son mary et vive en paix avec lui, ou autrement
elle a ja trouvéz les tourmens d’enfer, ou n’a fors toute tempeste’, Pizan, 1989a, p. 52. Rouillard
notes that Christine gives no such precepts to men (pp. 162–63).
45 Sadlack, Letter 14, p. 174.
46 Miller and Yavneh, p. 12.
48 Sadlack, Letters 2, 3, and 4, pp. 164–66. ‘bien humblement a votre bonne grace je me
recommende’.
me to obey and please you in this by the help of God, who keep you, my
lord, in good life and long, by the hand of your very humble wife, Mary. 49
Christine might have used such a letter as an exemplar. Since letters in the
sixteenth century were routinely often read aloud and shared with others,
regardless of personal feelings, Mary needed to craft a specific rhetorical
picture for Louis and the French court.50 To this end she emphasizes that
she writes with her own hand, which would have been seen as a sign of
her investment in the marriage. It also made the letter a more tangible
connection between the sender and recipient.51 For his part, Louis responded
positively to Mary’s overtures and wrote enthusiastically to Henry’s adviser,
Archbishop Thomas Wolsey (1471–1530), about his delight in Mary and
commitment to the Anglo-French alliance.52
The marriage proceeded smoothly initially; chroniclers recorded the
charm and beauty of the new queen, one of them even remarking on Mary’s
love for the king, while English ambassadors reported how dutifully Mary
cared for Louis when he fell ill and how generously Louis responded with
extravagant praise and jewels.53 However, in the midst of the apparent
harmony, Louis abruptly dismissed most of Mary’s retinue, including her
adviser Lady Jane Guildford (c. 1463–1538), causing a flurry in both courts.
Mary wrote letters of protest to Henry and Wolsey. Given that Louis had
approved the list of Mary’s proposed attendants, his actions seem sudden and
inexplicable. For her part, Mary’s anxious rhetoric seems overly dramatic.54
Yet examining the incident through the lens of Christine’s Three Virtues
gives new insight into the situation and Mary’s forceful response.
49 Sadlack, Letter 3, pp. 165–66. ‘la chose que plus je desire & souhaite pour le jourdhuy sest
dentendre de voz bonnes nouvelles, sante et bonne prosperite […] il plaira au surplies Monsieur
me mander et comandez voz bons & agreables plaisirs pour vous obeir et complaire par laide
de Dieu qui Monsieur vous doint bon vie et longue. De la main de votre bien humble compagne
Marie’.
51 Literary depictions of letter-writing urge writers to embed themselves in the letter — ideally
by weeping on it, see Sadlack, pp. 60–61.
52 September 1514. Rymer, p. 81.
53 Jean de Treul wrote of Mary: ‘et est une aussi belle dame que jamais dame natur créa; et
l’ayme tant le Roy’ (in Garnier, p. 263). For the ambassadors, see Worcester and West’s letter
(Ellis, pp. 239–43).
54 For list, see British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius C.XI, fol. 155r. For Louis’s care regarding
attendants, see Worcester’s letter to Henry explaining that Louis had forbidden Jane Popincourt,
Mary’s French companion from childhood, when he discovered that Popincourt had become
Longueville’s mistress (Ellis, p. 236).
After outlining the virtuous behavior of a queen in Three Virtues, Christine

describes in detail the ideal governess to care for the young royal after her mar-
riage. Such a woman will be wise, prudent, and loving, maintaining a balance
of gentle instruction and companionship with cautious guardianship.55 She
will foster a good relationship between the lady and her husband, guiding the
lady’s affections towards him. In particular, Christine warns, she will protect
her princess from gossip, court machinations, or any attempts to sully her
virtue. Therefore, the governess-adviser will observe her lady’s behavior at all
times, as well as those who surround her, and act quickly to neutralize any
threats; ‘she will keep such close watch that nobody will have the opportunity
to speak to her mistress alone’.56 Yet Christine’s wisdom irritated Louis. The
English ambassador Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester (c. 1460–1526),
wrote to Wolsey that Louis complained that Guildford ‘began to take upon
her not only to rule the Queen, but also that [Mary] should not come to him
but [Guildford] should be with her; nor that no Lady nor Lord should speak
with her but she should hear it’.57 By operating under Christine’s model of
counsel, Guildford must have seemed overly interfering to a king largely
preoccupied with securing an heir and being entertained by his young bride.
For her part, Mary wrote anxiously but cautiously to Henry and Wolsey
about Guildford’s dismissal. Her letters were lengthy, indicating the extent
of her distress. She writes to Henry that the only women left to her are
maidens ‘such as never had experience nor knowledge how to advertise
or give me counsel in any time of need, which is to be feared more shortly
than your grace thought at the time of my departing’.58 Mary appeals to
Henry’s self-interest, arguing that she requires advice that will be to Henry’s
‘pleasure’ and her own ‘profit’. To Wolsey, Mary warily makes similar plaints,
observing that she anticipates needing Guildford’s counsel soon but will
let Guildford relate the details. Both letters close with a postscript asking
Henry and Wolsey ‘to give credence to my mother Guildford’.59 In this
fashion, Mary endorses the truth of Guildford’s speech while remaining
discreet about any problems in the French court. Given how public a letter
might be, this prudent diplomacy accords with Christine’s warnings about
the consequences of injudicious speech; a queen ‘must be mistress of her
tongue, for if she should say any equivocal word behind [her enemies’] backs
55 Pizan, 1989b, pp. 125–29; Pizan, 1989a, pp. 90–96.

56 Pizan, 1989b, p. 133; ‘si pres s’en prendre garde que personne n’aura loisir de lui faire aucun
raport’, Pizan, 1989a, p. 101.
57 6 November 1514. Ellis, p. 244 (I have modernized the spelling).
which could be repeated back to them, it would indeed be very dangerous’.60

Mary weighs carefully what she commits to writing.
It is difficult therefore to ascertain exactly what situation troubled Mary
so greatly, but logically, it would have concerned her relationship with the
dauphin, François, his wife and Mary’s new step-daughter, Claude, and his
mother, Louise. The French court gossiped that François was overly attracted
to his new stepmother-in-law, while his mother was so threatened by the
prospect of an heir that she ordered Claude to watch Mary during the day
and a lady-in-waiting to do so at night.61 On 22 September, Louise wrote
scornfully of the aged king, that he was ‘exceedingly old and weak’, going
to meet his ‘young wife’, and then anxiously recorded on 9 October that
the king and Mary had wed and gone to bed together.62 Others mocked the
disparity in Mary and Louis’s age; law clerks sniped that Henry had sent
Louis a ‘hackney’ — vulgarly signifying ‘prostitute’ — to ‘carry him swiftly
and more gently to hell or heaven’.63 The opposition and gossip must have
helped Louis realise that Mary needed some French allies, since he sent
for his cousin, Anne de France, one-time regent of France (and reader of
Christine’s works), to give Mary advice. Pierre Pradel speculates that Louis
even anticipated a possible regency for Anne again should he have a son
with Mary but die, leaving an infant dauphin.64
While Louis would die without siring a son, there can be no doubt that
Mary knew the king was hoping for the birth of an heir and, furthermore, the
challenges that a widowed queen with a young child might face. Christine
supplies many examples in the City of Ladies, including the French queens
Fredegund, who protected her son against ambitious barons, and Blanche,
who ruled so well in her son’s minority that she remained head of his Council
ever after.65 She also mentions Zenobia, who fought wars beside her husband
and defied his jealous relatives to keep the throne for her children after the
king’s murder. She ruled well, Christine notes, partly by ruling wisely, but
also by ensuring peace through her generous gifts and surrounding herself
60 Pizan, 1989b, p. 106; ‘elle soit maistresse de sa bouche, car se aucun mot disoit d’eulx en
derriere contraire a ses semblans qui fust raporté [ce seroit peril]’, Pizan, 1989a, p. 64.
61 Brantôme reports that Louise had to caution her son not to disinherit himself (p. 640). After
Louis’s death Mary complained to Henry of ‘the extreme pain and annoyance I was in by reason
of such suit as the king made unto me not according with my honour’, Sadlack, Letter 15, p. 175.
For Louise, see Fleuranges, p. 44.
62 ‘fort antique et débile’; ‘sa jeune fille’, Savoie, p. 89.
63 ‘une hacquenée pour le porter bientost et plus doucement en enfer ou en paradis’, Fleuranges,
p. 45.
64 Pradel, p. 197.
65 Pizan, 1998, pp. 33–34; Pizan, 1975, pp. 668–69.
with virtuous and chivalrous retainers.66 Christine also addresses such

issues in Three Virtues; her second and fourth teachings — how a princess
should treat the king’s relatives and deal with enemies at court — both have
great resonance for Mary’s situation. In the second rule, Christine advises
a princess to treat her new family kindly, making every effort to praise
them (even if they do not deserve such magnanimity), and to ensure peace
between them.67 Her fourth rule is more startling; Christine counsels the
princess to deceive her enemies by acting warmly towards them.68 While a
wise princess will anticipate the difficulty of hiding her feelings, pretending
disingenuousness in the face of attack, and remaining constantly vigilant,
she may be confident that such dissimulation is virtuous because it preserves
the kingdom’s peace. Moreover, her friendliness may eventually win them
as allies; at worst, the kind reputation she develops will defend her against
any detractors’ lies.69
Whether she read Christine directly or had Christine’s wisdom transmit-
ted through Anne de France, Mary seems to have attended to such advice
and to have worked to charm everyone she met. Merchants meeting her in
London after her marriage report that Mary made a point of speaking some
words to them in French.70 Like Zenobia, she bestowed gifts; for instance,
at a banquet which Mary attended with the dauphin and his wife, Claude,
she was given boxes of expensive spices, and chroniclers noted that she
graciously ordered six boxes be sent to her step-daughter Renée (1510–1574),
Claude’s sister, at Vincennes.71 Her efforts were noticed; the chronicler at
Abbeville described her as ‘beautiful, honest, and joyous, and takes pleasure
in all entertainments […]. I think that this will be a lady of boldness, because
she is not afraid of anything, and here rules wisely her people as one could
wish to have’.72 The connection the chronicler makes between Mary’s
behavior and his prediction that she will rule well, suggests the wisdom of
Christine’s advice. Through her enthusiasm and warmth, Mary was winning
allies wherever she could.
66 Pizan, 1998, pp. 53–55; Pizan, 1975, pp. 701–06.

67 Pizan, 1989b, p. 101; Pizan, 1989a, pp. 57–58.
68 Denery observes that Christine challenges theologians such as Augustine who maintained
lying was always a sin.
70 Sanudo, p. 167.
71 Bonnardot, p. 219.
72 ‘La dicte dame est tres belle honneste & joyeuse & est pour prendre Plaisir en tous esbatemens.
[…] Je croy que se sera une dame daudasse, car elle ne seffraye de rien, & cy commande sagement
a ses gens se quelle vault avoir’, Cocheris, p. 7.
Mary also took pains to ensure her alliances at home with England
remained strong. She wrote frequently to Henry; if she did not have a
particular favor to ask, she expressed her love and gratitude for his letters
and counsel, thus maintaining the epistolary and emotional connection.
She also praised the ambassadors who had worked on her behalf; by offering
them public recognition, she rewarded them with the implicit suggestion
that they were worthy of Henry’s continued favor.73 At the same time, she
deepened her relationship with Wolsey. Throughout her stay in France, the
only person besides Henry from whom she asks patronage for her servants is
Wolsey.74 During the Guildford affair, she suggests that she prefers Wolsey to
a rival, Thomas Howard (1473–1554), the Duke of Norfolk. Where her letter
to Henry simply expresses dismay that Norfolk so easily acceded to Louis’s
wishes, to Wolsey she condemns the Duke’s behavior, saying that ‘he has
neither dealed best with me nor yet with [Guildford] at this time’ and wishes
for Wolsey’s presence in Norfolk’s stead.75 Here Mary clearly, yet delicately,
aligns herself with Wolsey in the factions of the English court. The two
were starting to establish a partnership of mutual benefit that would only
deepen after Mary secretly wedded Charles Brandon after Louis’s death.
Wolsey mediated between the couple and a wrathful Henry.
Mary understood well the courtly economy and how the exchange of
favors increased her status, and enhanced her authority and security. Before
she left for France, Louis d’Orléans, the Duke of Longueville (1480–1516),
asked her to intercede with Henry on behalf of a merchant named Jehan
Cavalcanty in return for any service that might please her.76 This accords
with Christine’s fifth teaching in Three Virtues: a princess should cultivate
the favor of clerics, nobles, lawyers, knights, and the people, whose rever-
ence will provide protection.77 When Mary arrived in France, she almost
immediately started accumulating socio-political capital. Only nine days
after her wedding, she wrote to Henry asking him to arrange a low ransom
for François Descars, a Frenchman captured at Thérouanne who was a
friend of both the dauphin and Longueville. She explicitly tells Henry that
‘I would that my lord the king and the two dukes to whom I am much bound
should think he should be the more favoured for my sake’.78 Such rhetoric
illustrates Mary’s awareness of the economy of influence, and her desire
73 Sadlack, Letter 10, pp. 170–71.

74 Sadlack, Letters 9, 17, 22, pp. 169–170, 177–78, 181.
76 Longueville.
78 Sadlack, Letter 7, pp. 168–69.
to establish herself as a power worth courting. On another occasion, Mary

would practice public piety by writing to Henry on behalf of the priest
Vincent Knight, who was captured at Tournai and held in England for nearly
a year. Calling on familial ties, she reminds Henry that Knight had done great
service for their father, then asks that he be released and recompensed for
his losses, receiving in exchange only the prayers he would offer for them
both.79 Mary also took care to preserve her ties back in England, remaining
active on behalf of the retainers released from her service by seeking Henry
and Wolsey’s patronage for them.80 In each instance, she acts as Christine
says a great lady should, cultivating the good will of her people. Each savvy
rhetorical move was designed to enhance her reputation as a virtuous and
gracious ruler and to increase her influence by demonstrating the depth
of her connection to Henry.
Because a princess should particularly court the king’s advisers, writes
Christine, ‘from time to time she will have them come before her, receive
them honorably, speak to them eloquently, and make an effort to like them
as much as possible’.81 Taking such advice to heart, Mary used flattery to
create allies at the French court. For instance, Brandon wrote to Wolsey that
Mary told him and the other English ambassador ‘diverse things the which
we will show you at our coming whereby we perceive that she had need of
some good friends about the king’.82 Therefore, they arranged a meeting with
Mary and some of the king’s advisers, including Longueville, already an ally
of Mary’s, together with the treasurer Florimond Robertet (1459–1527) and
the receiver-general of Normandy, Sir Thomas Bohier (1460–1524). There,
Brandon explained to them that Mary asked:
on her behalf and in the name of the king our master that they would be
good and loving to her and that they would give her counsel from time
to time how she might best order herself to content the king whereof she
was most desirous and in her should lack no good will. And because she
knew well they were the men that the king loved and trusted and knew
best his mind therefore she was utterly determined to love them and
trust them and to be ordered by their counsel.83

80 Sadlack, Letters 5, 6, 9, 16, 17, and 22, pp. 167–68, 170, 176–78, 181.
81 Pizan, 1989b, p. 109; ‘ordonnera que ilz viennent vers elle aucunes fois, les recevra hon-
nourablement, parlera a eulx par sages paroles, et le plus qu’elle pourra les tendra en amour’,
Pizan, 1989a, p. 68.
82 Brandon.
83 Brandon.
The speech follows Christine’s proscriptions precisely; it is a blend of flattery,

humility, and gentleness calculated to demonstrate her loyalty to Louis and
win his advisers’ favor. According to Brandon, it worked; moved by her plea,
the men promised to report her ‘honorable and loving request’ to the king. In
this fashion, Mary would gain the benefit of their wisdom in navigating court
politics, and their protection against any machinations, which, as Christine
notes, meant that people would praise her shrewdness.84 By enlisting both
English and French advisers to help in this fashion, Mary demonstrates her
political acuity and creates a formidable defence against any difficulty with
the dauphin or his family. While history shows that Mary was not destined to
remain in France much longer, she was nonetheless establishing a foundation
for power in the event that Louis’s continued life meant her longer rule, or
even, should they produce a son, a regency in France.
Louis died on New Year’s Day, 1515; the Anglo-French marital alliance,
which lasted less than five months altogether, was over. Mary was not
pregnant with Louis’s son, so a new king, François I, was crowned. Mean-
while, hearing rumors that Henry sought another alliance, Mary seized
the initiative and told Charles Brandon that he had four days to marry her
or else give up the idea forever. The couple wed in secret and continued
to negotiate the terms of Mary’s return to England; when fears of a false
pregnancy led them to confess, Mary took full responsibility for the match
and used a combination of rhetorical wiles and promises of money to win
Henry’s forgiveness.85 The move ensured that she would remain ‘Mary the
French queen’ and, as dowager queen, serve the rest of her life as both a
conduit for favors and a symbol of amity between the two courts.
Although brief, Mary’s tenure as queen of France nonetheless reveals the
continuing influence of Christine de Pizan’s works on the noblewomen of
Europe. Moreover, it serves as a case study illustrating the practicality of
Christine’s advice and how well it applied to the machinations of real court
politics whether the stakes were personal or political. Christine’s writing was
a primer for women in positions of authority, emphasizing that status and
influence were conduits to power that a woman could wield just as effectively
as men. Through her sage logic and copious examples of literary, historical,
and biblical queens, Christine demonstrated how vital it was for a princess
to establish a network of allies at court and how potent was the rhetorical
power of the reputation of a virtuous and loving queen. Christine’s works
also taught the dangers a woman might face and the limitations of queenly
84 Pizan, 1989b, p. 109; Pizan, 1989a, p. 68.

85 Sadlack, pp. 91–117.
power, particularly with regard to the ways that a woman’s relationship

with her husband and kin would generally determine how much agency
she possessed over her own life and the extent of her ability to accomplish
any political goal she might have.
Examining Mary’s life reveals how a sixteenth-century princess might
become familiar with Christine de Pizan’s works, whether through their
enduring popularity at the English and French courts, tapestries or other
visual depictions, or female mentors who could have shared Christine’s works
to supplement her education. Mary’s letters also demonstrate the impact
of such reading on her political choices, how she used the literary lessons
Christine provided to develop strategies to strengthen her relationship with
Louis and position at court, and by extension, to foster a genuine alliance
between England and France. Studying the ways Mary worked to gain
influence as a foreign princess in the French court thus adds new insight
into the avenues of power open to such an ambassador-queen.
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et à Paris. Lyons: Louis Perrin, 1859.
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Christine de Pisan’s Le livre de la cite des dames’. Les Bonnes Feuilles, 3.2, 1974,
pp. 116–37.
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in The Book of The Three Virtues’. Viator, 39.1, 2008, pp. 229–47.
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Sons, 1899.
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ELLIS, Henry, ed. Original Letters. 2nd ser. Vol. 1. Reprint. New York: AMS, 1970.
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and Jean-Joseph-François Poujoulat. Paris: Guyot, 1838, pp. 3–86.
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Relations in the Early Modern Period’. Sibling Relations and Gender in the Early
Modern World: Sisters, Brothers and Others. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006, pp. 1–14.
PIZAN, Christine de. ‘The Livre de la cité des dames of Christine de Pisan: A Critical
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—. Le Livre des Trois Vertus. Ed. Charity Cannon Willard and Eric Hicks. Paris:
Champion, 1989a.
—. A Medieval Woman’s Mirror of Honor: The Treasury of the City of Ladies. New
York: Persea, 1989b.
—. Book of the City of Ladies. Trans. Earl Jeffrey Richards. New York: Persea, 1998.
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ROUILLARD, Linda Marie. ‘Couples Counseling: Christine de Pizan’s Advice to

Young Royal Spouses’. Medieval Perspectives, 27, 2012, pp. 155–72.
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Neaulme, 1739–41.
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of Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
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1887–1902.
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About the author
Erin A. Sadlack is Associate Professor of English in the Department of

English and Foreign Languages at Marywood University in Scranton,
Pennsylvania. Her book on Mary Tudor, the French queen, and women’s
letter-writing, titled The French Queen’s Letters: Mary Tudor Brandon and the
Politics of Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Europe, was published by Palgrave
Macmillan in 2011 as part of its Queenship and Power series. She is currently
editing Romeo and Juliet for the Internet Shakespeare Editions and working
on her next project, a study of Elizabethan petition letters.
5. Claude de France and the Spaces of
Agency of a Marginalized Queen
Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier
Abstract
The power of Queen Claude de France, who gave birth to seven children
and died at the age of twenty-four, was objectively curbed by “the Royal
Trinity” of François I, Louise de Savoie and Marguerite de Navarre. This
essay examines texts, ambassadorial accounts and artworks that nonethe-
less point to Claude’s role as an active promoter of religious reform and
prove that she functioned as a discrete magnet for political opposition to
the contested policies of François and Louise. Were Claude’s image, stature
and popularity feared by Louise and François? Was it not the religious
tolerance not only of Marguerite de Navarre but also of Claude’s own
court that was transmitted to her sister Renée and daughter Marguerite
de France?
Keywords: Claude de France, religious patronage, cultural patronage,

religious reform, queenship
Does Claude de France (1499–1524) deserve her place in historiography’s

unwritten list of disempowered queens? A dispatch penned by a Venetian
ambassador on 21 September 1518 has contributed to the widespread percep-
tion of Claude as inconsequential. On a visit to the ‘most serene Queen’,
Antonio Giustinian (1466?–1524) spoke ‘in generalities’ because ‘with her
one does not deal with issues of State’.1 She is discussed only tangentially in
Les Conseillers de François Ier, a fine collective study of the political advisers
to Claude’s famed spouse François I (1494–1547), wherein a single citation
1 ‘Serenissima Raina’, ‘verba generalia’, ‘con lei non si trata cose di Stato’, Sanudo, XXVI,
col. 114. Unless otherwise specified, the translations are mine.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch05
140 K athleen Wilson- Chevalier
(dated 1517) from Antonio de Beatis disqualifies her in passing: Louise de

Savoie (1476–1531) ‘always accompanied her son and Claude, over whom
her power was absolute’.2 Yet this appraisal embraces both François and
his spouse, suggesting a cautionary approach. Claude, after all, was the
sole French queen who bore the exceptional prestige of having descended
from a French king, Louis XII (1462–1515), and a French queen, Anne de
Bretagne (1476–1514), an ever-more-studied queen/sovereign duchess, now
recognized as exceptionally strong. Wilfully, her parents made her the
universal heiress to their personal possessions, including the County of Blois
(then the seat of government), the Duchy of Brittany, and the fleeting but
politically potent Duchy of Milan, as well as Anne’s exceptional personal
library.3 Claude’s sister Renée (1510–1575), for decades Duchess Renata di
Francia at the Ferrarese court, has shared an eerily similar historiographical
fate. A recent study has confirmed Renée’s pivotal position at the center
of a vast network of religious dissidents in Italy. Yet Claude’s sister-in-law
Marguerite d’Alençon/de Navarre (1492–1549) is cast as an omniscient
leader, Claude as ‘young, weak, ill, politically inept’, Renée’s cognitive
and speculative capacities deemed ‘modest’, her ignorance manifest. 4
These sisters’ reputations, I argue instead, have suffered unfairly from the
objective marginalization to which their political marriages confined them
both.5 A royal consort did not sit on the King’s Council and hence could
not rule in the full sense of the term. In pageantry, however, her queenship
positioned her symbolically directly after the king. She possessed territories
and wielded certain forms of power in her own right — especially in the
traditional queenly domains of justice, peace, piety, and culture.6 In her
subjects’ eyes, Claude’s physical proximity to her spouse, no matter how
fraught with difficulty, enabled her potentiality as a mediator on both a
national and an international plane. What then were the physical and
conceptual spaces of agency that a resisting Claude managed to carve out
for herself?
2 Knecht, 2011, p. 178, citing the French translation: ‘Elle accompagne toujours son fils et la
reine Claude sur lesquels elle exerce un pouvoir absolu’.
3 Chevalier, p. 108; C.J. Brown, 2011.
4 Belligni, pp. 8, 387.
5 Zum Kolk.
6 Cosandey; Gaude-Ferragu.
Cl aude de Fr ance and the Spaces of Agenc y of a Marginalized Queen 141
From Lauded Pupil to Judicious Queen
Anne de Bretagne gave birth to ten children, of whom only Claude and
Renée survived into adulthood.7 Although a volume of Les Remèdes de l’une
et l’autre Fortune lamented (probably around 1503) that Claude was only a
girl, numerous signs prove that the king and the queen invested carefully
in the tutoring of their royal daughter(s), who would be marketed from
birth to marry high.8 Eleven years separated Claude and Renée, but their
superior educations overlapped in multiple ways. Already in the year of
her birth (1499), Claude had five officers in her service. Her high-ranking,
experienced governess was Jeanne de Polignac (d. 1509), wife of Anne’s first
knight of honor Jacques II de Tournon (d. 1525), mother of both the future
cardinal and political adviser to François I, François de Tournon (1489–1562),
and his sister Blanche (c.1490–c.1538), future lady of honor to Marguerite
d’Angoulême/de Navarre.9 One of the ageing de Polignac’s daughters held
the child during the visit of Archduke Philip of Austria (1478–1506) and
Archduchess Juana of Castile (1479–1590) to Blois in 1501.10 Did Georgette de
Montchenu, Madame du Bouchage (d. 1511), play an important role in Claude’s
upbringing as well?11 She and her husband Imbert de Batarnay (1438–1523)
had already served Anne’s ill-fated son Charles-Orland (1492–1495), and at
Renée’s baptism in 1510, du Bouchage was both governess and godmother
to Claude’s sister.12 After his spouse’s death, Batarnay was still overseeing
the expenditures of Claude and François’s children in 1519.13 The successful
rearing of the only viable royal child in three long decades was crucial to
the networking at court of the Tournon/Polignac and probably also the du
Bouchage clans.
7 E.A.R. Brown, p. 193, Appendix, The Children of Anne de Bretagne (25 [26] Jan. 1477–9 Jan.
1514).
8 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), ms. fr. 225, after Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374);
C.J. Brown, 2011, pp. 1–3; Zöhl.
9 Minois, pp. 439–40; Matarasso, 2001, pp. 184, 223–34, 247, 261; Michon and Nawrocki,
pp. 507–08.
10 Chatenet and Girault, pp. 47 and 170–71.
11 Leroux de Lincy, III, associates a series of Anne’s letters to both Madame and Monsieur du
Bouchage with Claude; Matarasso, 1996, and Matarasso, 2011, pp. 71–74, argues that they relate
to Renée. Batarnay (who took his ‘du Bouchage’ title from a territory transmitted by Georgette)
was Claude’s governor and maintained his position officiously for the children of Claude and
François (Philippe Hamon within Michon, 2011b, pp. 89–91). Madame’s beautiful gisant (1513–1522)
survives in Saint-Jean-Baptiste at Montrésor (Noblet, pp. 272–73; Corvisier, pp. 455–58).
12 Minois, pp. 434–35; Baumgartner, p. 52.
13 Hamon, 1994, p. 124.
While Louis and Anne monitored Claude’s progress carefully, so did

Anne’s wardrobe mistress (dame d’atour) and closest adviser, Michelle
de Saubonne (d. 1549), Madame de Soubise from 1507, Renée’s governess
following Madame du Bouchage’s death in 1511, and the evangelical adviser
who would accompany Claude’s sister to Ferrara in 1528.14 In 1505, when Anne
retreated to her duchy of Brittany during her open dispute with Louis XII
over Claude’s forthcoming engagement to François d’Angoulême (1506), a
series of 23 letters shed light on Saubonne’s crucial position in the queen’s
entourage.15 Financier Jacques de Beaune/‘Semblancay’ (c. 1445–1527), who
remained a close ally of Monsieur du Bouchage into the reign of Claude and
François, Cardinal Georges d’Amboise (1460–1510), and Louise de Savoie
proactively sought Saubonne out to convince the headstrong queen to return
to court.16 The intellectual profile of Anne’s dame d’atour was particularly
high. In his Epistre à Madame de Soubise, the poet Clément Marot (1496–1544)
credited her ‘Anne’s best beloved’, for having introduced his father, the writer
Jean Marot (c. 1450–c. 1526), at court. He praised her love of literature and
knowledge, while the humanist Guillaume Budé (1467–1540) lauded her
wisdom; and her penchants spilled over onto her daughters, especially Anne
(d. 1555) and Renée de Parthenay-l’Archevêque.17 The link between Renée
de France and her life-long governess was deep. Yet Anne de Bretagne’s
confidence in Michelle de Saubonne, thought to have entered the queen’s
service shortly before Claude’s birth, following the death of Anne’s own alter
ego governess Françoise de Dinan (c. 1436–1499), must provide an important
key to understanding the nature of Claude’s excellent education as well.18
In Claude’s formative years, education and religion perforce went hand in
hand. Page two of her luxurious Primer transmits the alphabet, intertwined
with the Instruments of the Passion and coupled with a Pater Noster prayer,
with which she learned her letters.19 Yet conceived more broadly, a pious
education was a route to empowerment; and empowerment was clearly one
of Queen Anne’s major concerns. Prior to Claude’s engagement to François
d’Angoulême (an alliance that her mother opposed in the name of Breton
14 Giraud-Mangin justifies this designation, p. 70 (but is it anachronistic?). Minois, pp. 433–34,

attributes a proactive role in Claude’s education to this ‘femme remarquable’; Belligni, p. 5, also
thinks she oversaw the education of both daughters.
15 Matarasso, 1997, pp. 354–55; and Matarasso, 2011, pp. 71–74.
16 Hamon in Michon, 2011b, p. 90.
17 ‘la mieulx aimée d’Anne’ Ségalen, p. 103; Belligni, pp. 94–95ff.; Gorris, 1997, pp. 341–42;
Gorris, 2001; Gorris, 2007; Marot, 1969, III, pp. 388–90; Marot, 1993, I, v, xxvii, cxxix.
18 Giraud-Mangin, pp. 69–70.
19 The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MS 159. Wieck, C.J. Brown, and König.
independence and probably out of distrust of Louise de Savoie and her son),20
Anne commissioned the Vies des femmes célèbres from the Dominican
Antoine Dufour (d. 1509), with the collaboration of the Parisian illuminator
Jean Pichore (documented between 1502 and 1521).21 While of interest to
the queen and her ladies-in-waiting, three of whom are represented with
Anne on the dedicatory page, her royal daughter was surely a conscious
target of this vernacular manuscript, too.
What were some of the major issues that Dufour’s text and Pichore’s
illustrations set out to address? Then, how exactly would these issues play
themselves out in Claude’s short life? Like the Tuscan Giovanni Boccaccio
(1313–1375) before him, Dufour credited a woman, Nicostrata (depicted on
fol. 21v), with the invention of the very alphabet that Claude was acquiring
via her Primer. Pichore’s images also align women who read (the Empress
Mamaea, fol. 61r, the Virgin Mary, fol. 2r); women who write letters (Medea,
fol. 18v) and books (the Erythraean Sibyl, fol. 17r, Sappho, fol. 28v, Amalthea,
fol. 29v, Blæsilla, fol. 61v); and women who are the recipients of books (Theode-
linda of Lombardy, fol. 69v), as was so often the bibliophile Anne. Both Sappho
(fol. 28v) and Hortensia (fol. 44r) model the notion that public speaking — to
men — is an important skill. And interestingly, one of the letters Jacques
de Beaune sent to Michelle de Saubonne in 1505, when the princess was not
quite six, confirms Claude’s actual empowerment through education: ‘You
would never believe how much she has learnt since you left and how she has
grown in strength and confidence’.22 Later, her judgment and epistolary skills
were praised in a rare mother-to-daughter epistle, written perhaps in 1513: ‘I
assure you my daughter that you will find me a good mother, for you oblige
me more and more with the gracious letters you write me’.23 Ambassadorial
reports confirm these allusions to Claude’s successful tutelage. Much is made
of Claude’s ‘strange corpulence’, yet according to a Venetian ‘orator’, ‘grace
in speaking greatly made up for her want of beauty’. Similarly, de Beatis
remarked that ‘though small in stature and badly lame in both hips, [the
young Queen] is said to be very cultivated, generous and pious’.24
Objective proof of Claude’s genuine erudition lies in the extraordinary
marginalia of her Book of Hours, produced subsequent to her 1515 accession to
20 Knecht, pp. 12–14; Matarasso, 2001, pp. 168–69, 211–30.

21 Musée Dobrée, Nantes, ms. 17. Cassagnes-Brouquet; C.J. Brown, 2011, pp. 144–66.
22 Matarasso, 1997, p. 354, for the translation: ‘Vous ne croiriez empresse depuis le partement
et la seurte et bonne contenance quelle a, cest une chouse singulliere’.
23 ‘vous asurenst ma fille q[ue] me trouverés bonne mere, car vous m’y obliges de plus en p[l]
us veu les grassieusses lestres q[ue] m’escripvés’, Matarasso, 2011, pp. 183–85 and translation.
24 Translations from Knecht, 1994, pp. 17, 114.
the throne, and perhaps about four years after her mother’s aforementioned
letter of praise.25 The daughter is often cast as merely a weak shadow of her
mother; and the Latin devices shown on fols. 87 v and 88, non mudera (‘I
will not waver’) and firmitas eternitatis spem duplicat (‘constancy [of
faith] doubles the hope for eternal life’), were effectively — like Claude’s
ubiquitous cordelière (knotted cord) — inherited from Anne.26 Yet the second
device appears not only in Latin, as her mother’s, but also in Greek; and both
accompany Claude’s personal emblem of an armillary sphere while framing
a page written in a beautiful, ‘modern’, humanistic script. These changes
suggest that Claude was already in contact with the evangelical circle of
Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (1450?–1536), as her younger sister Renée would
be.27 This pattern of learning is also shared with Michelle de Saubonne’s
highly cultivated daughters, Anne and Renée, who in their childhood were
exposed to both Latin and Greek.28 Clément Marot informs us that his father,
Saubonne’s protégé, was writing an epistle to Queen Claude at the moment
of his death; and Clément launched into his own courtly career as ‘Facteur
de la Royne’ (poet of the queen).29 An early link to his mistress’s sister is his
Epithalame de Renée de France (1528), in which he imitates the humanist
Desiderius Erasmus (1467?–1536); and when he later became Renée’s protégé
in Ferrara, the ‘noble ladies of Soubise’ figured amongst the recipients of
his epistles and epigrams.30 Under the direction of an ever-present team of
ladies closely collaborating with the queen, and in the company of privileged
demoiselles, Claude (and her sister) mastered the critical thinking skills
essential for confronting the perils of power, which for both proved great.
Trial by Fire at Court
The poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais (1468–1502) completed in 1489 his au-

tobiographical Séjour d’honneur, warning of the dangers of court life after
his sojourn at the court of Charles VIII (1470–1498), shortly prior to Anne’s
25 Switzerland, Heribert Tenschert collection. König.

26 See C.J. Brown, 2010, pp. 101–21, for multiple examples of the ‘shared ownership’ of mother
and daughter.
27 Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a, pp. 109–10; Wilson-Chevalier, 2016. On Renée: Belligni; Gorris
Camos.
28 See n. 17 above.
29 Cornilliat, p. 178, n. 3; McKinley, p. 621.
30 Céard, p. 111, n. 1; Marot, 1993, II, pp. 94–100, 280–81.
arrival in 1491.31 A comparable but female-inflected goal inspired Anne

de France, Duchess of Bourbon (1461–1522), when during Claude’s infancy,
sometime between 1503 and 1505, she addressed her famed Enseignements
to her daughter Suzanne.32 Therein, she instructed ladies on how to bear
themselves with the dignity appropriate to their rank, but also on how to
compose an inscrutable mask. The court was a figurative minefield for
both sexes, and princesses were ideally groomed to conceal an iron will.
In Dufour’s almost contemporaneous Vies des femmes célèbres, saints are
martyred; Pharoah sexually assaults Sarah (fol. 8v); Herod has Mariamne’s
head chopped off for adultery (fol. 45); Deborah plants a nail in Sisera’s temple
(fol. 17 v); Medea writes with the blood of the son she has killed (fol. 18v); the
sword with which Judith decapitated Holophernes is huge (fol. 30); Athaliah
massacres four of her children (fol. 27 v); men murder Agrippina and slice
open her womb (fol. 47 v); Amalasuntha knocks her son down with a blow
(fol. 68). The world is no place for the feeble at heart, and no fewer than ten
heroines, many of them queens, don armoured suits. Fol. 13r surely illustrates
Anne de Bretagne’s aspiration for her daughter(s): in a palatial setting,
the supreme goddess Juno (despite Dufour’s rather negative description)
addresses ‘king’ Jupiter seated on his throne, proactively counselling her
husband the king (Fig. 5.1). Yet in this courtly universe where malicious
factions were constantly at war, how did ‘the good queen Claude’ fare?
When Claude and François ascended the throne in 1515, the king promptly
appointed to his Privy Council his formidable mother Louise; and there she
remained, serving twice as regent, until her death in 1531. Mother and son
constituted a remarkably tight governing team.33 Louise, 23 years older than
the queen, was deploying her savvy political skills with Jacques de Beaune
and Michelle de Saubonne when Claude was but five; and she outlived her
daughter-in-law by six years. Claude’s will to wield power was also up against
unfavorable numerical odds: two, or even three against one, since the king’s
brilliant older sister Marguerite proved to be a major political protagonist too.
The possibility that the fifteen-year-old queen would be able to hold her own,
no matter how well groomed for her role, was extremely slim. Yet, while the
Valois-Angoulême trio was adept in promoting its image as a ‘royal trinity’,
as in their staging on the oft-reproduced fol. 2 of the Orationes devotissime
manuscript, the concrete situation was actually much more complex.34
31 Saint-Gelais.
32 See Anne de France; Chatenet; and Cynthia J. Brown’s chapter herein.
33 For Michon, Louise is a true ‘alter rex’, 2011a, p. 85.
34 BnF, ms. NAL 83; Lecoq, pp. 393–433.
Figure 5.1 Jean Pichore, Juno and Jupiter
In Antoine Dufour, Vies des femmes célèbres, Nantes, Musée Dobrée, ms. 17, fol. 13r (© H. Neveu-
Dérotrie / Musée Dobrée – Grand Patrimoine de Loire-Atlantique)
‘The Very Christian King, Very Serene Queen, and Very Illustrious
Madame Mother’
Further reports expedited by Venetian ambassadors in France during the

nine and a half years of Claude’s reign (1515–1524) suggest a rather different
configuration, their trinity being most often that of the king, the queen,
and ‘Madame Mother’.35 While there can be no doubt whatsoever that
Louise and François were in command, Claude’s physical presence at court
proved dogged. Perhaps she learnt a lesson during the first year of her reign,
when she was absent from the anointing ceremony in Rheims, although the
delivery of her first child was over six months away.36 As the years passed,
her body bore the brunt of seven pregnancies. Nevertheless, she made a
point of asserting her majestic rank, following her overbearing spouse, but
preceding her overbearing mother-in-law. The king and his mother probably
wished to keep an eye on the queen, too. Early in the reign, in Paris, the law
clerks’ organization known as the Basoche choreographed satirical plays
that denounced the rapacity of Louise and François, openly taxing the son
with debauchery. Les Povres deables and the Troys pelerins et malice may
have been directed against Louise, the preferred focus of popular criticism,
cast as a plundering ‘Mère Sotte’ (Mother Folly).37 Shortly after his rise to
the throne, Monsieur Cruche castigated the king as an adulterer who had
had an affair with the wife of Parlement councillor Jacques Dishomme, then
rapaciously confiscated the parlementarian’s great wealth.38 Claude’s image
rose in moral authority instead.
François I’s reputation as a womanizer was such that in September
1518 a Venetian ambassador in Milan relayed the rumor that the king had
impregnated one of the daughters of ‘the lord Galeazzo Visconti’, headed
to the French court.39 The previous year, the king’s former tutor, royal
almoner François Desmoulins de Rochefort (d. 1526), had offered Louise the
magnificent Vie de la Magdalene, with an alignment of tiny roundels that
foreground the lascivious comportment of Mary Magdalen and her lovers. 40
Fol. 10r (Fig. 5.2) shows the future saint leaving for the hunt, falcon in hand,
35 Almost without exception listed according to rank: ‘Il Cristianissimo Re, serenissima Regina,
et Illustrissima Madama madre’, Sanudo, XXIX, col. 386.
36 Sanudo, XX, cols. 22–34; Knecht, 1994, p. 45.
37 Arden, p. 85.
38 Lalanne, pp. 13–14; Rousse, pp. 189–91.
39 Sanudo, XXVIII, col. 59.
40 BnF, ms. fr. 24955. Johnston; Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a, pp. 111–15; Wilson-Chevalier, 2016,
pp. 129–36.
Figure 5.2 Godefroy le Batave, Mary Magdalen Going off to Hunt (for Pleasure)
From François Desmoulins de Rochefort, La Vie de la belle et clere Magdalene, Paris, BnF,
ms. fr. 24955, fol. 10r (©BnF)
her horse led forth by a groom with an emphasized codpiece as a heavily

plumed accompanying knight (foregrounded on fols. 9r and 11r) stares from
behind her with glee. The Latin inscription on the frame — ‘without dignity
one must not hunt for pleasure’ — proffers an admonition, mirroring a
leitmotiv of the Venetian ambassadors: ‘the king went to the hunt indulging
in his usual pleasures’. 41 Rochefort’s volume concludes with a prayer to the
sinner-saint, whom Louise should implore to lead her son towards salvation
and to help him distinguish between good and bad advice, so that his sins
41 ‘il Re andò a la caza ai soliti soi piaceri’, Antonio Giustinian; here, January 20, 1519; Sanudo,
XXVI, col. 449.
do not cause suffering to others. The birth of a male heir to Claude and a
child to Marguerite, but also the harmony of the royal family and of the
commonweal itself hinge on this moral rectification. 42
Claude’s spectacular entry into Paris in May 1517 affords proof that public
opinion held the queen in high esteem. 43 The scaffold of the Trinité cast her
as an advocate for her people — an intercessory task for which she had
been programmed in childhood, as page thirteen of her Primer attests.
The first scene of this early vellum sheet is devoted to the Annunciation to
the lowly shepherds; the second, set above Anne de Bretagne’s arms, shows
a Virgin Mary receiving her subjects, amongst whom she singles out the
shepherds, the humblest of them all. The third, set under the prayer to the
right, concludes the entire pictorial cycle by presenting the Virgin Mother of
Peace, not Christ, descending into Limbo to save poor souls.44 At this entry
celebrating Claude’s coronation, the first scaffold at the Porte Saint-Denis
associated the queen with six virtuous biblical heroines. 45 Thanks to trick
machinery, an apple appeared, descending and multiplying until it became
a dove with a crown in its beak, which it then placed upon the head of
the queen. The manuscript narrative of the playwright Pierre Gringore
(1475?–1538) tendered a warning: ‘her humility makes her dreaded just as
prowess makes princes dreaded’. 46 At the aforementioned scaffold of the
Trinité — illustrated on fol. 40v of Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 5750 — an enthroned
queen was seated on the heraldic right of her royal consort (Fig. 5.3). By the
king’s side stood Good Counsel and Good Will, by the queen’s Prudence
and Knowledge, represented not as a single widow (Louise/Prudence),
but rather two (plausibly alluding to the former regent Anne de France,
henceforth serving the Bourbon cause). Below stand Prowess (resembling
one of Dufour’s armoured heroines), holding what Gringore calls a ‘club of
union’, and Labor, identified as ‘the French People’, who turns to Concord
42 That the king ‘ayt esprit pour se saulver, & pour congnoistre bon & mauvaiz conseil affin
que par luy seul plusieurs personnez ne soient en souffrance’ (fol. 105v); that Louise’s ‘fille Claude
soit grosse dung fils’ and that her ‘fille Margarite pareillement’. Louise should ask that her desire
be accorded ‘pour le bien de la chose publicque […] affin que [elle] puysse vivre en amour fiable
avecquez [ses] enfans’, fols. 106r, 106v.
43 Gringore.
44 Wieck, 2012, p. 162; with translations of the accompanying inscriptions: ‘Fear not, Amen’;
‘How the shepherds came’ (not signifying though that all the figures surrounding the Virgin
are shepherds); ‘O mother of God, remember me’; the prayer to ‘Lord God of hosts’ invokes peace
(p. 137). Wilson-Chevalier, 2015b, pp. 250–59.
45 For what follows, Hochner, pp. 266–74; and Wilson-Chevalier, 2015b, pp. 264–71.
46 ‘son humilité la fait redoubter tout ainsi que proesse fait redoubter les princes’, Gringore,
pp. 163, l. 194–95.
Figure 5.3 The King, the Queen, Good Counsel and Good Will, Prudence and
Knowledge, Prowess Labor and Concord (Parisian scaffold)
From Pierre Gringore, Le Sacre, couronnement et entrée de Madame Claude Royne de France, Paris,
BnF, ms. fr. 5750, fol. 40v (©BnF)
with her victory club. For Nicole Hochner, the staging aligns political wisdom
with the queen, in order to redirect the king’s energy away from military
endeavors like Marignan, towards peace and his people. 47 Furthermore,
the royal canopy reads ‘vive le roy et tous ces amys’ (‘Long live the king
and all his friends’), emphasizing the ability of the queen, aided by (her
own) Prowess and two mighty but counterbalancing great ladies, to foster
a harmonious State. Religious and civic dignitaries thus acknowledge the
queen’s moral probity and her power to intercede.
Unpacking the Pageantry of the Queen
Month after month, year after year, Queen Claude and the ‘very illustri-
ous’ Louise appeared side by side, with or without Marguerite. Just before
Christmas 1518, the Venetian Antonio Giustinian paid a visit to the queen,
then in Paris with her mother-in-law. The following morning, he and other
ambassadors attended Mass, where Claude performed a public acceptance
of the political engagement of the ten-month-old François (1518–1536) to
Mary (1516–1558), daughter of Henry VIII (1491–1547) and Catherine of Aragon
(1485–1536). 48 The queen was six months pregnant at the time. Two and a
half months before the birth of the future Henri II (31 March 1519), she was
still in Paris alongside her mother-in-law when chests of spices gifted by
the Venetians were opened in Louise’s chamber. 49 On 10 March the ambas-
sador announced that François had gone off to hunt as Claude and Louise
proceeded to Saint-Germain, where the second royal son would be born. The
ambassadors accompanied not the king but the queen and the royal mother,
‘wishing to follow the court’ — a remarkable conflation of the court and its
female protagonists.50 When the news of the birth reached Rome, the Venetian
ambassador to the Holy See congratulated Denis Briçonnet (1479–1535),
French ambassador to the pope and an episcopal ally of the queen.51
Approximately a year later, 29 February 1520, in the presence of the
ambassadors of Rome, Spain, England, Venice, Ferrara, and Mantua, Louise
organized a grand entry into the symbolic Valois-Angoulême seat of Cognac
in honor of Claude. The glory of her queenship surely radiated upon the royal
47 Hochner, p. 271.
48 Sanudo, XXVI, col. 331.
49 Sanudo, XXVI, cols. 419–20.
50 Sanudo, XXVI, col. 449 and Sanudo, XXVII, col. 97: ‘volendo seguir la corte’.
51 Sanudo, XXVI, col. 184; Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a.
mother as they rode forth in a black and crimson litter while ancient gods
and goddesses emerged to pay homage to the queen, escorted by three carts
full of her demoiselles.52 Claude was once again pregnant. Yet she traversed
France to assume a major role in the astounding Field of Cloth of Gold (June
1520),53 a ceremonial encounter that ended less than two months prior to the
delivery of Madeleine (10 August 1520). The previous November the queen’s
secretary had conveyed to the royal princess of England Claude’s gift of a
cross of gold and jewels, along with a portrait (by Jean Clouet?) of her infant
fiancé, the dauphin.54 The date of the famous Franco-English encounter
had been negotiated in function of her pregnancy;55 and Claude regally
presided over a banquet honoring Henry VIII and sat on the heraldic right
of Catherine of Aragon when the jousting began.56 The French queen was
obviously determined that her power to produce heirs no longer deprive
her of the symbolic power of public space.
On 22 May 1521, in a climate of rising fear of an Imperial threat to the
Duchy of Milan (transmitted via the queen), Claude and Louise ceremoni-
ously entered Dijon together, as they were wont to do.57 Then most unusually,
on 28 May, the Venetian ambassador Brizio Giustiniani delivered a present to
the ‘Very Serene Queen’ and her wet nurses (‘nutrice’), alone, in the presence
of the grand chancellor and admiral: two coffers containing a jewel, spices,
gold cloth, crimson silk, and so forth.58 On 2 July, Ambassador Giovanni
Badoer (1465–1535) paid a first visit to the king, assuring his majesty that
Venice supported the conservation of his State. He then went to the queen,
who rose to greet him as her consort had done, and likewise thanked the
Republic for its support of the king’s State and for its gifts. She reported
on Madeleine (1520–1537), whom Badoer had had the honor to hold at the
baptismal font almost a year before in the name of Venice and its doge.59 Only
then did the ambassador visit the king’s mother. The ceremonies surrounding
the royal children were at the very core of the politics of the age; and since
the secretary of the children’s household was Gilles de Commacre, one of
52 Sanudo, XXVIII, cols. 342–51.

53 Russell.
56 Sanudo, XXIX, cols. 22–23, 30.
57 Sanudo, XXX, col. 297.
58 Sanudo, XXX, col. 359.
59 Sanudo, XXX, col. 48, XXIX, col. 139.
her many Breton officers, Claude’s power over her progeny was real, not
merely symbolic.60 In 1521, the Venetians were courting her.
The Italians cultivated the queen at important conjunctions, particularly
it would seem when religious issues were at stake; and when useful, they
flattered her artistic taste. In 1518 Pope Leo X (1475–1521) was seeking support
for a crusade against the Turks, and he offered paintings by the sought-
after Raphael (1483–1520), not to Louise but rather to the atypical trinity
of François, Claude, and Marguerite d’Alençon/de Navarre, the latter two
linked by their sustained interest in religious issues. The queen’s present,
Raphael’s Grande Sainte Famille (Paris, Louvre), honors the birth of the
dauphin. Yet Joseph, set at the top of a diagonal that runs from the Christ
Child through the Virgin Mary/Claude, dons papal colors, suggesting that
Leo had an especial interest in engaging the queen to put pressure on the
king.61 When the Venetians decided to commission ‘a Visitation of St. Mary
and St. Elizabeth’ to ‘hang perpetually in the chamber of the Very Christian
Queen of France’, they turned to their own most famous artist in Rome,
Sebastiano del Piombo, whom they classified amongst the outstanding
painters just after Michelangelo and Raphael.62 Their Roman ambassador
followed the development of the work from at least 4 May 1519 — the very
day that Marcantonio Michiel wrote of St. Francis of Paola’s canonization
and expedited a copy of the Divi Francisci Paulii apotheosis which credited
the event to the French king and queen.63 On the feast of Corpus Christi,
the Venetian Cardinal Cornaro exhibited Claude’s future painting in front
of his residence on an altar in the streets of Rome.
Venetian ambassadors are renowned for observing the European political
scene with an eagle eye. When in June 1520 a French and an Italian pilgrim
were murdered en route to St. Anthony of Padua, Claude and the king, ‘our
very dear confederates’ in the ambassadorial transcription, addressed letters
calling for justice to the Venetian government.64 Antonio Giustinian later
listed amongst the great expenditures of ‘His Majesty’, the court of ‘the
Majesty of the Queen, of his mother, of the children’.65 Then on 12 September
60 Le Page, pp. 656–57.
61 Cox-Rearick, pp. 191–214; Wilson-Chevalier, 2010, p. 131. Also, Henry and Joannides, nos. 14,
16, and 21.
62 ‘la visitatione di Santa Maria e Santa Elisabetta, dono destinato a la Cristianissma regina
di Franza, et che averà a stare sempre ne la sua camera’, Sanudo, XXVII, col. 470.
63 Sanudo, XXX, cols. 272–77.
64 ‘nostri carissimi confederati’ Sanudo, XXVIII, col. 628.
65 ‘come per spexe in la corte di la Maestà di la Regina, di Madama sua madre, di fioli’, Sanudo,
XXVIII, col. 628.
1520, when the king was tending to his customary pleasures of the hunt,
Giustinian’s compatriot Badoer went to Saint-Germain to transmit letters to
‘the mother’ but also to speak to the queen separately to invite her to Venice.66
Thanks to a report from the secretary Alvise Marin, penned on 2 January
1521, we finally learn, six years after Claude rose to the throne, that she had
a political agenda of her own. Odet de Foix, Lord of Lautrec (1485–1528),
Marin relates, was not pleased that the queen was ‘in the power’ of the
Constable; in other words, she was countering the politics of François and
Louise.67 On 16 January, Badoer reported that a political battle of benefices
was underway: the French king had given the ‘abazia di Ras’ (Saint-Vaast
d’Arras) to the queen’s confessor, surely Louis Chantereau (d. 1531), while
Charles V (1500–1558) had bestowed it upon one of his allies.68 Was the
king not trying to neutralize the queen, whose critical spirit made her a
potential magnet for an alternative faction at court? Claude — her mother’s
daughter — was an active participant in the patronage game, both on the
giving and on the receiving end. Her power helped make saints and distribute
ecclesiastical charges. She could also wield it to defy the politics of the king.
The Power of Gift-giving and Discrete Alliances at Court
Although politically marginalized, Claude’s marginalization was never abso-

lute. Documents and artefacts prove that she made a valiant effort to occupy
political spaces shortly after her queenship commenced. Her 1524 testament
lists the territories that continued to fall under her legal jurisdiction: the Duchy
of Brittany, which supplied a number of her officers and covered the major
part of her expenses in 1523; the Counties of Blois, Montfort, Étampes, Soissons
and Vertus; the seigneurie of Coucy.69 At the beginning of François’s reign
the court was centered in her dynastic castle of Blois where, as countess, she
rendered justice throughout her life. The king immediately began construction
to leave his mark thereupon, relying on the services of Jacques Sourdeau
(d. 1521/1522), a master mason formerly in her parents’ employ.70 While the
king planted his salamanders triumphantly on the new corps-de-logis and
66 Sanudo, XXVIII, cols. 276–77.

67 ‘disse non li piacer la Raina sia in poter dil Contestabile’, Sanudo, XXVIII, col. 540.
69 Hamon, p. 6. Le Page, in addition to Gilles de Commacre, mentions Philibert Tissart, Jean-
François Cardonne, her treasurer Clérembaut Leclerc, and Yves Le Flo, pp. 24, 310, 469, 472–73,
639, 649–50.
70 Lesueur, pp. 99–100.
the grand staircase, the balustrade above sports the cordelière the couple
shared; it however wraps itself around Claude’s C, topped by a high crown,
while the crown of François’s monogram hovers below at the middle of his
F. The queen’s donation of land to Sourdeau offers proof of her agency on the
construction site in 1516; and building at Blois came to a halt upon her death.71
The preceding year, when Claude and her consort of lesser rank took
the throne, she had twice made gifts of lands from her territories to the
major secretary of state Florimond Robertet (c. 1465–1527), for the ‘eminent
services’ he had rendered to her parents.72 In the name of the king and herself,
she wrote to ‘Monseigneur de Lafayette’, Governor of Boulogne, charged
with overseeing the borders to the north.73 She intervened to support the
successful bid of her almoner Antoine de Levis-Châteaumorand (d. 1565) to
become a canon of the chapter of Saint-Jean of Lyons. Yet did such acts play
in her favor. The powerful Robertet, serving kings since Louis XI (1423–1483),
quickly aligned himself with François and Louise, slipping seamlessly into
François’s Privy Council and remaining there until his death in 1527.74 In 1522,
his wife Michelle Gaillard was a lady-in-waiting not to Claude but to Louise.75
Nothing, however, precluded the couple’s continued bonding with the queen.
Robertet had recourse to Greek devices, like Claude. Both contributed to
reviving ruinous religious edifices in Blois; and Gérard Defaux argues that
the royal officer was a protector of the evangelical cause.76 In 1523, Étienne
Poncher (1446–1525), Archbishop of Sens, solicited Claude alongside Robertet
when he sought to place a Parisian parlementary councillor in a vacant slot
at the Parlement of her Breton duchy.77
Early in her reign Claude had intervened to support the reform of the
religious house of Yerres, effected by the same (then reforming Bishop of
Paris) Poncher.78 As for her almoner Levis-Châteaumorand (still recorded in
that function in 1520), facets of his ecclesiastical career dovetail neatly with
Claude’s links to religious reform. In 1516 the recently appointed canon of
Lyons was promoted Bishop of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. When ten years
later he became Archbishop of Embrun, his bishopric was given to none other
71 Lesueur, pp. 95, 100.

72 Mayer and Bentley-Cranch, pp. 65, 157; Castelain, p. 39.
73 Castelain, p. 37 (BnF, ms fr. 2934, fol. 45).
74 Chevalier, pp. 99–116.
75 I thank Aubrée David-Chapy for this information.
76 Taburet-Delahaye; Mayer and Bentley-Cranch, p. 16 (including his sons Claude and François’s
knowledge of Greek); Bernier, p. 52 (for his renovation of Saint-Honoré); Marot, 1993, I, pp. 609–21.
77 Hamon, pp. 389–91.
78 Le Gall, p. 99; Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a, p. 99.
than Michel d’Arande (d. 1539), who had begun his controversial preaching
of the evangelical gospel at court in 1522.79 Linked to the circle of Meaux,
d’Arande is most famous as a protégé of Claude’s sister-in-law Marguerite.
This suggestive transfer of a bishopric marks but one instance when the
religious sensitivities of Claude and Marguerite crisscrossed. Their complicity
had begun no later than 1515, when the queen and her sister-in-law each
wrote to the Parlement of Paris to promote monastic reform.80
The Power of Education and the Promotion of Church Reform
The minuscule girdle book that Claude de France wore around her waist
is her most personal gift to posterity. 81 Exquisitely illuminated by the
master who bears Claude’s name, it reveals the nature of the queen’s piety
and the discerning power of her fine aesthetic eye. Its 102 illuminated pages
include the queen’s arms three different times (fols. 5r, 15v, 18v); her cordelière
encircles all of the other sheets minus two, which defer to a model king and a
model pope. The first exception highlights a rainbow-golden Trinity framed
by the king’s cordelière of Savoy (fol. 24v).82 The second depicts the Mass of
St. Gregory (fol. 50v), an open book on the altar, the raised host projecting
a pure explosion of golden light. On the opposite folio (51r), Pope Gregory
the Great (c. 540–604), seconded by a cardinal, composes instructions for
a kneeling bishop, the threesome dutifully administering an exemplary
Church. The page bearing the king’s cordelière succeeds, however, a very
first burst of divine rainbow-golden light: that of the Coronation of the
Virgin (fol. 24r), an allusion to the queen’s 1517 coronation at Saint-Denis.83
Hence Mary/the queen introduces the light of pure faith, in stride with the
Eucharistic beliefs of Lefèvre d’Étaples.84
The folios of the prayer book address popular evangelical themes, in-
cluding the imminence of the end of the world (fol. 1r, John the Evangelist
composing his Apocalyptic text) and four scenes of resurrection (fols. 1v, an
79 Longeon, p. 68, n. 142.

80 Renaudet, pp. 586–87; Le Gall, pp. 82, 515–16. Reid, I, p. 106, cites a letter from Marguerite to
Parlement regarding the reformed Dominicans in Le Mans, dated August 23 1515, so predating
the queen’s two September interventions related to Jarcy.
81 The Morgan Library and Museum, ms. M 1166; http://www.themorgan.org/collection/
Prayer-Book-of-Claude-de-France. Wieck and C.J. Brown; Wieck, 2012, 2014.
82 Wieck and C.J. Brown, pp. 257–58.
83 Wieck and C.J. Brown, p. 175, dates the manuscript to shortly before.
84 For these, see Hughes, p. 87.
unanticipated Drusiana; 15r, Christ; 36r and 39v). Saints Claude and René,
the model bishop-patrons of the queen and her sibling, enact the latter two.
The task of resurrecting not only suffering souls but also a suffering Church,
I contend, was placed in the royal daughters’ hands at birth. Sometime
between 1503 and 1505, in a letter addressed to Ferdinand (1452–1516) and
Isabella of Spain (1451–1504), Anne de Bretagne expressed her explicit con-
cern that bishops reside in their seats.85 Anne (in synchrony with Michelle
de Saubonne?) deliberately transmitted a dynastic responsibility that both
Claude and Renée embraced.
The suffrages begin unexpectedly with a prayer to the Holy Face. Two
pages are correspondingly devoted to St. Veronica (fols. 27r and 27v), who no
less unexpectedly intervenes with her husband Amadour, forming a couple
united to convert a disbelieving crowd — an expression of the queen’s con-
jugal dream?86 Claude shouldered her task of spiritual renovation earnestly,
overseeing the reconstruction of the parish church of Saint-Solenne (today
the cathedral of Blois)87 and, in 1521, rebuilding the Augustinian convent
of Saint-Jean of Blois for the nuns known as the ‘Véroniques’, who special-
ized in ‘the good education they give to their boarders’.88 Books abound in
illustrations throughout her prayer book, often in women’s hands. A grand
double-page representation (fols. 46v and 47r) is accorded to St. Ursula, dear
to Claude and her mother as a saint from their sovereign duchy (Fig. 5.4). A
renowned protectress of female education, she is depicted enthroned in front
of a (Breton) maritime scene like a queen with a vast court of demoiselles,
one deploying a large open book on her knees. Education had empowered
Claude, and transmitting its power was high on her agenda, whether sacred
or profane.
The exemplary Pope Gregory intervenes just before the final illumination
of the Exposition of the Eucharist (fol. 52r), signaling Claude’s full assump-
tion of her active role in the promotion of an exemplary Gallican Church.
St. Claude first appears at his consecration, kneeling at an altar with an
open book (fol. 35v). On the single page of the suffrage to St. René (fol. 39v),
the main scene depicts Bishop Maurilius resuscitating the infant René
with the help of the open Scriptures.89 The adult René stands nearby in a
85 Anne requested that they withdraw their candidate in favor of her almoner, ‘en considerant
que c’est une seulle église catedralle ou royaume de Navarre, & qu’il est besoing que leur preslat
demeure continuellement sur les lieux’, Leroux de Lincy, III, p. 34.
86 Wieck and C.J. Brown, pp. 218–19, and 258–59 on the crowd.
87 Sauvage, p. 28.
88 ‘la bonne éducation qu’elles donnent à leurs Pensionnaires’, Bernier, p. 61.
89 Wieck and C.J. Brown, p. 268.
Figure 5.4 Master of Claude de France, St. Ursula and Her Maidens
Prayer Book of Claude de France, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.1166,
fols. 46v and 47r (© The Morgan Library and Museum. Ms M. 1166. Gift of Mrs. Alexandre
P. Rosenberg in memory of her husband Alexandre Paul Rosenberg, 2008)
gold-ground insert with his bishop’s staff and a closed book containing the
word to be diffused. Six of Claude’s prayers are to bishop saints; but St. Julian
(fol. 39r), an early Christian bishop of Le Mans, is the only one (like St. Anne
educating her daughter, fol. 42r; St. Martha, fol. 43r; the royal Augustinian
St. Genevieve, fol. 46r) with open book in hand. As early as 1493, Philippe
du Luxembourg (1445–1519), Cardinal-Bishop of Le Mans, had emerged as a
major actor of Church reform.90 It was he who on 15 February 1514 officiated
at the funeral ceremony of Anne de Bretagne celebrated at Notre-Dame of
Paris, he who on 10 May 1517 crowned Claude at Saint-Denis.91 That same
year, this ‘great connoisseur of the Italian milieu’, then serving as papal
legate too, led the reform of Jumièges.92 At the Council of Pisa in 1510, the
Cardinal-Bishop had worked hand in hand with Anne to reconcile Louis
XII and the Pope; and there he had labored alongside the Briçonnet father
and sons reforming team.
90 Pierre, p. 143; Le Gall, pp. 101–02; Lestocquoy, 1949, pp. 81–82 for the Bishop and Arras.
91 Girault, p. 24.
92 Le Gall, pp. 450, 454.
Claude’s documented connections are not to Guillaume Briçonnet

(1470–1534) but rather to his lesser-known brother Denis (1473–1535), the
‘enlightened’ Bishop of Saint-Malo who, also, was highly familiar with
the Italian scene.93 For several years, Arcangela Panigarola (1468–1525),
mother superior of the Augustinian convent of Santa Marta in Milan and
head of a circle laboring for Church reform, identified Denis Briçonnet as
the evangelical pastor destined to renew a decadent papacy. Moving in
Panigarola’s orbit was a Dominican theologian, Isidoro Isolani (c. 1480–1528?),
who favored the French presence in Milan. In 1517, Isolani dedicated his De
imperio militantis Ecclesiae to Denis; in 1518, the dedication of his Latin life of
the blessed Veronica da Binasco (1445–1497), a humble nun of Santa Marta,
targeted ‘the invincible Lords of Milan’, François I and Claude de France.
The tale of Veronica’s miraculous literacy is an important theme in Isolani’s
narrative and woodcuts, bisecting Claude’s support of the ‘Véroniques’.
Louis Chantereau, Claude’s Augustinian royal confessor and a(nother)
monastic reformer, translated Isolani’s text into French for the ‘very honored
lady and Queen of France’, confirming that she, not the king, was the key
dedicatee.94 In keeping with the spirit of Lefèvre d’Étaples and of the prayer
book that Claude had fabricated for her young sister Renée,95 never does
a priest intervene in Veronica da Binasco’s personal religious experience.
Christ himself feeds Veronica a host, and the nun learns to compose her
own text — much as the Virgin, or Mary Magdalen, writes alongside the
Apostles in the volume crafted around the same time for the young Renée.96
Like Denis Briçonnet and many an evangelical, Claude seems to have
advanced cautiously. Yet her religious sensitivities were such that Jean
Daniel (documented 1518–1544), a priest based in Nantes at the time of
her entry into her Breton capital in 1518, could offer her subsequently a
bitterly satirical manuscript, Les Obfuscations du monde.97 Daniel summons
rich prelates to take humility as their patron and denounces the ‘rich and
powerful’ King Pharaoh, who unleashed the wrath of God ‘for his oppression
93 Veissière, p. 105; Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a. His brother Nicolas (d. 1529) was Anne and Claude’s
‘contrôleur et général des finances’ for Brittany (Le Page, p. 248).
94 The king’s and the queen’s (more elaborate) vellum copies are BnF, Rés. Vélins 2744 and
BnF, Rés. Vélins 2743.
95 Formerly Modena, Biblioteca Estense (stolen).
96 See Cynthia J. Brown’s text herein, identified as the Virgin passing the Credo down to the
Apostles; Wilson-Chevalier, 2015a, for the hypothesis that this youthful figure may be the Apostle
Mary Magdalen.
97 Copenhagen, Det Kongelige Bibliothek, NKS 165. Deuffic. See Chardon; Wilson-Chevalier,
2017.
of the poor’.98 Since charity enables salvation,99 Jean Daniel necessarily

approved when the humble and respectful Queen Claude, during her entry,
gave back to the Nantais their mandatory gift. Moreover, at the beginning
of his text, he praised Anne de Bretagne’s religious stance, complimenting
his dedicatee’s mother for having appointed pastors who illuminated the
Gallican Church.100 However humble, Claude insisted on her rank in both
pageantry and her prayer book. She (and later her sister), in her mother’s
stead, used the power of rank to promote Church reform.
Perfect Friendship: The Power of a Pious and Equitable Queen
On 19 September 1519, Sebastiano (1459–1543) and Antonio Giustinian

characterized the eloquent Claude de France as ‘a woman of few words’; 101
and when about a year later Antonio described Marguerite d’Alençon/de
Navarre as someone who knew all the secrets but ‘spoke little’,102 he unwit-
tingly placed the sisters-in-law side by side in the same ever-more-prudent
Church-reforming circle. Although most often linked to Marguerite, the
future queen of England Anne Boleyn (c. 1501–1536) had actually spent
almost seven years at Queen Claude’s court.103 A ‘convinced evangelical’,
Boleyn borrowed stylistic elements from Claude’s manuscripts and, like the
queen, invoked the celestial armillary sphere.104 Today Boleyn is credited
with having shaped religious change in England; and the extant volumes
from her library include Lefèvre d’Étaples’s French Bible and his Epistres et
evangiles des cinquante et deux sepmaines de l’an.
Another of Claude’s remarkable ladies-in-waiting with evangelical ties
was the author Anne de Graville (c. 1490?–after 1540), learned enough
to offer the queen her translation of Boccaccio’s Theseida around 1521.
The Arsenal copy of her Beau romant des deux amans Palamon et Arcita,
thought to have belonged to Claude, contains a dedicatory illumination
98 ‘Riches prelats situez au hault trosne […]. Humilite recepvez pour patrosne’, fol. 15r; ‘Pharaon
etoit roy riche et puissant’, ‘pour l’oppression qu’il fist au pouvre peuple’, fol. 25v.
99 ‘The good you have done to the poor […] you have done it for me [Jesus] and my affairs’; ‘Ce
que avez faict de bien aux pouvres gens […]. Vous lavez faict pour moy et mes affaires’, fols. 72r,
72v.
100 ‘toute l’eglise gallicane en est enluminee’, fols. 6v–7r.
101 ‘di poche parole’, Sanudo, XXVII, col. 610.
102 Sanudo, XXIX, col. 167: ‘Disse che […] madame di Lanson sapeva tutti li secreti, ma parlava
poco’.
103 Reid, I, pp. 61–62, n. 57; Ives, pp. 24–33.
104 Ives, p. 30; Starkey, p. 8; and Carley, fig. 118.
(fol. 1v) with an outstanding image of the queen.105 Seated on her throne
under a Franco-Breton canopy, she receives from her lady-in-waiting the
tale of the Amazon queen Hippolyta and her sister Emilia that Graville
rewrote. The preceding folio (1r) casts the ‘sovereign dame’, patron of the
translation, as ‘the site of all knowledge’, ‘in all said to be without vice’.106
Graville’s artist depicts the curtain of Claude’s impressive canopy extending
out to embrace three ladies-in-waiting, two of them pictured in active
debate. The text refers explicitly to the Field of Cloth of Gold, and the male
heroes Palamon and Arcita, cousins who fight to the death for Emilia’s
love but are ultimately reconciled, have been equated with François I and
Henry VIII. Hence, when Hippolyta and Emilia appear side by side as the
central spectators of a tournament (fol. 36r), Queens Claude and Catherine
of Aragon, who together on 11 June watched the kings joust and then gave
each other’s consort a ring,107 must have come to the contemporary viewer’s
mind. In the final image (fol. 68r), the main female protagonist, standing
on the heraldic right with two courtly ladies dressed in ermine like the
queen, commands over four rather contrite looking men. The text directly
below proffers a commentary on perfect love — ‘I mean loving as perfect
friendship / Not today’s counterfeit love’ — which reads as Graville and
Claude’s main point.108 The author/translator was boldly formulating the
power of women to redefine the parameters of Renaissance love: her own
right to marry the man of her choice against her father’s will, Claude’s right
to object to a philandering husband.
There is a political sub-text, too. In the first narrative image (fol. 2r),
Hippolyta and Emilia stand between the enthroned king (Theseus) and a
knight with upright sword (Fig. 5.5). At the Field of Cloth of Gold, on 8 June,
Constable Charles de Bourbon (1490–1527) rode by François’s side ‘with the
naked sword in hand which he held point up’— the emblem of the charge
bestowed on Bourbon in 1515.109 Queen Hippolyta/Claude’s gesture is that of
an intercessor recommending a wary Constable to a troubled king. The tale
of fratricide has become Claude’s plea to François to mitigate his hostility to
Bourbon, aggravated in December 1519 when Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521)
105 Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, ms. 5116; dated 1521–1524 by Orth, II, p. 102, n°25; Müller,
2003; Müller, 2004; Reno; L’Estrange. Six manuscripts survive.
106 ‘ma souveraine dame’, ‘la ou gist tout sçavoir’, ‘en tout dicte sans vice’, Arsenal, ms. 5116,
fol. 1v.
107 Sanudo, XXIX, cols. 45–46.
108 ‘J’entens aymant d’ung amytié par faicte / Non pas de celle aujourd’huy contrefaicte’.
109 ‘lo illustrissimo ducha di Barbon gran contestabele de Franza […] havea in mano una spada
nuda qual teniva cum la ponta in suso’, Sanudo, XXIX, col. 78.
Figure 5.5 Queen Hippolyta, Emilia, King Theseus and a Mounted Knight
From Anne de Graville, Romant de Palamon et Arcita, Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 5116,
fol. 2r (©BnF)
bequeathed her vast territories to her spouse.110 Graville reinterprets Lautrec’s

recent claim that Claude was ‘in the power of the Constable’ by presenting
the queen as fostering reconciliation and attempting to counter François’s
intractable stance. Nevertheless, following Suzanne’s death in April 1521,
François I and his mother opened aggressive parlementary suits to claim
Bourbon territories for the crown. It was almost two years later, on 23 March
1523, that Charles de Bourbon made his final appearance at the French
court, then at the Louvre. According to an ambassadorial letter dispatched
to Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (d. 1530), the king and the queen were dining
separately when the king learned of Bourbon’s presence in the chamber of
his spouse. It was therein that he castigated the Constable’s dealings with
Emperor Charles V, therein that the tone mounted for the very last time
between the acrimonious rivals.111 Claude called upon Graville’s literary
talents to voice her discordant view; and while this political battle over
inheritance tarnished the reputation of François and Louise permanently,
it surely enhanced Claude’s image as a just queen.
An inscription runs up the curtain of Claude’s regal canopy on Graville’s
dedicatory page: deum time pauperes sustine memen(to finis) (‘Fear
God, support the poor, remember the end’).112 Hence, even this profane
work includes a socio-religious edge, recalling Jean Daniel’s concern with
charity and the oppression of the poor. The inscription appears in the St.
Roch chapel in the hospice of Issoudun, under construction during the
first decade of Claude’s life; and three of her prayer book illuminations are
dedicated to the saints who protected from the plague, Sebastian (33v and
34r) and Roch (34v). While Sebastian is shot with arrows and uncharitably
clubbed to death, an angel intervenes delicately to dress the ailing Roch’s
wound. Claude remained proactive until the end of her life. Even after the
birth of her seventh child Marguerite (1523–1574), when still following the
court, she subsidized the church of Saint-Honoré in a suburb of Blois, to
help build a cemetery for plague victims.113 Yes, the king and his mother
intentionally thwarted Claude’s will to rule. Nonetheless, her political and
religious agendas were oft attuned to the demands of her age. In the name of
charity and justice, a number of her subjects — including the second most
powerful in the realm — reached out to build alliances with the queen.
110 Crouzet, pp. 298–301.

111 La Mure, p. 585, n.
112 The beginning transcribed by Orth, II, p. 102. The whole inscription figured at Issoudun
(see Péricard-Méa).
113 Néret, p. 185, n. 1 cites a document in the Archives of Alençon.
Conclusion
Claude de France did not live to see François’s humiliating capture at Pavia,
nor the ensuing exchange of the dauphin François and the future Henri II as
hostages in Spain. This twist of fate may explain why the sons destined to rule
escaped the responsibility of shouldering evangelical Church reform, unlike
the other viable royal children whose tutoring, logically, fell to Claude’s
sister soul Marguerite d’Angoulême/de Navarre at the queen’s death.114
Guillaume Briçonnet wrote one of his longest letters to Marguerite after
his brother Denis had gone to Blois to see the dying Claude, after she had
received extreme unction from her confessor/translator Louis Chantereau.115
The ‘very high, very powerful and very excellent dame Claude’ left it up to
her ‘very dear, well-loved lord and spouse’ to elect the site of her sepulcher
and the arrangements of her funeral rites.116 She did not choose to bequeath
her personal possessions to her consort, though, but rather to her sons, by
order of birth, with a provision for her daughters where custom allowed. If
the power she had expected to wield at her husband’s side had been sorely
constrained, the power of her image as a queen who interceded for her people
remained intact. The writer Guillaume Michel of Tours (fl. 1540s) claimed
in an elegy that the torrent of tears of the inhabitants of Blois, Tours, and
Amboise caused the waters of the Loire to rise after Claude’s death.117 Their
queen provided sepulchers for her humblest subjects, victims of the plague,
and conversely refused to bend to the will of her spouse and his powerful
mother as they toppled the highest feudal lord of their realm. She helped
make saints and simultaneously worked to renew a dangerously corrupt
Church. She distributed lands and charges, and yet her moral authority
remained unblemished. In the realm of culture, foreign powers sought her
support through artistic gifts, and she herself commissioned books ‘fit for
a queen’. Power is not singular but plural; and the short-lived ‘good queen
Claude’ demonstrated that the powers of a marginalized queen could indeed
instil respectful dread.
114 Wilson-Chevalier, 2017.

115 Briçonnet, II, p. 144; Ferguson and McKinley, p. 5.
116 ‘très haute, très puissante et très-excellente’, ‘son très cher, très aimé seigneur et époux’,
cited in Néret, pp. 191–92.
117 ‘ung torrent voluntaire’, ‘jusqu’à faire croistre [L]oire’, Michel, n.p.
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Manuscripts and Early Printed Books. Ed. Rosalind Brown-Grant, Anne D. Hede-
man, and Bernard Ribémont. Farnham: Ashgate, 2015b, pp. 241–72.
—. ‘Trinités royales et “quadrangle d’amour”: Claude de France, Marguerite de
Navarre, François Ier, Louise de Savoie et la réforme fabriste de l’Église’. ‘La dame
de cœur’: Patronage et mécénat religieux des femmes de pouvoir dans l’Europe
des xive–xviie siècles. Ed. Murielle Gaude-Ferrague and Cécile Vincent-Cassy.
—. ‘From Dissent to Heresy. Queen Claude of France and her Entourage: Images
of Religious Complaint and Evangelical Reform’. Representing Heresy in Early
Modern France. Ed. Gabriella Scarlatta and Lidia Radi. Toronto: Centre for
Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2017, pp. 93–121.
ZÖHL, Caroline. ‘Pétrarque, Les remèdes de l’une et l’autre fortune, traduction
française anonyme, Paris vers 1503–1505’. France 1550: entre Moyen Âge et Renais-
sance. Ed. Béatrice de Chancel-Bardelot. Paris: RMN, 2010, n° 140, p. 284.
ZUM KOLK, Caroline. ‘Les diff icultés des mariages internationaux: Renée de
France et Hercule d’Este’. Femmes et pouvoir politique: les princesses d’Europe
xve–xviiie siècle. Ed. Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub. Paris: Éditions
Bréal, 2007, pp. 102–18.
About the author
Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, Emerita Professor of Art History at The Ameri-

can University of Paris, wrote her dissertation on Père Dan’s 1642 guidebook
to Fontainebleau (Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne). Her research interests
henceforth focus on female patronage in sixteenth-century France. She
has edited, with Éliane Viennot, Royaume de fémynie. Pouvoirs, contraintes,
espaces de liberté des femmes, de la Renaissance à la Fronde (Champion, 1999)
and in collaboration with Eugénie Pascal, Patronnes et mécènes en France à
la Renaissance (Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2007). Other
publications deal with: the Castle of Fontainebleau (including the Gallery of
King Francis I and the Chamber of the Duchess of Étampes); Queen Eleanor
of Austria; Madeleine de Savoie (in Bâtir au féminin? Traditions et stratégies
en Europe et dans l’empire ottoman, ed. S. Frommel and J. Dumas, Picard,
2013), and Das Porträt als kulturelle Praxis, E. Krems and S. Ruby, De Gruyter,
2016); and dedications of Ovid’s Heroides to sixteenth-century women of
rank in Text/Image Relations in Late Medieval French and Burgundian

Culture: Fourteenth–Sixteenth Centuries, ed. Rosalind Brown-Grant and
Rebecca Dixon, Brepols, 2015). Her most recent work examines manuscripts
and printed works addressed to Queen Claude de France (in, for instance,
Seizième Siècle, 11 (2015)) and Representing Heresy in Early Modern France,
ed. G. Scarlatta and Lidia Radi, Centre for Reformations and Renaissance
Studies, 2017).
6. Portraits of Eleanor of Austria
From Invisible to Inimitable French Queen Consort
Lisa Mansfield
Abstract
This essay critically reexamines Eleanor of Austria’s status as a passive
marital pawn subject to Habsburg marital ideology through her performative
practice of portraiture. Eleanor’s brief marriage to the king of Portugal and
hostile union with the king of France curbed her ability to exercise traditional
forms of feminine political power and governance as a queen consort and
regent. However, her elevated pedigree, merging Burgundian, Habsburg,
and Spanish bloodlines, upbringing at Margaret of Austria’s famed court
in Mechelen, and position as the eldest sibling of Charles V, Holy Roman
Emperor, endowed her with a protective dynastic identity that would emerge
in portraits executed during her most challenging tenure at the French court.
Keywords: Eleanor of Austria, cultural patronage, Habsburgs, queenship,

dynastic image-making, Margaret of Austria, self-representation
Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558) holds a tenuously defined status as a Renais-

sance woman of power. Despite having been twice queen consort in the
kingdoms of Portugal and France, her significance is comparatively elusive
when juxtaposed against other women of political and cultural power in
the Habsburg dynasty and Valois court during the first half of the sixteenth
century. Her paternal aunt and guardian, Margaret of Austria (1480–1530),
was not only regent of the Netherlands from 1509 to 1515, and 1519 until her
death, but matched her competence in managing international affairs with
discerning patronage of the visual arts, music, and architecture.1 Eleanor
1 Margaret of Austria was appointed Governor-General of the Burgundian Netherlands

in 1507 before her promotion to Regent. On her exceptional quality and quantity of artistic,
architectural, and musical patronage, see Eichberger, 2005b, pp. 48–55; Eichberger, 2005a,
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch06
174 Lisa Mansfield
of Austria’s younger sisters were also entrusted with regencies. In 1520,

Isabella of Austria (1501–1526), the short-lived queen consort of Christian II
(1481–1559), King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, was regent of Denmark.
In turn, Mary of Hungary (1505–1558) succeeded her aunt as regent of the
Netherlands in 1531, following the death of her husband, Louis II (1506–26),
King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. Likewise, the youngest Habsburg
sister, Catherine of Austria (1507–1578), married to the king of Portugal,
John III (1502–1577) from 1525 to 1557, served as regent for the Portuguese
realm from 1557 to 1562. The three Habsburg regents were also active and
innovative in their patronage of music and art, particularly Mary and
Catherine.2 Conversely, Eleanor of Austria was not charged with formal
responsibilities for governance or administration, and her cultural activities
remain somewhat indistinct due to relatively limited primary sources.3 Her
example not only demonstrates the limits of political power experienced by
some queen consorts, but also highlights complexities and contradictions
concerning fundamental conceptualizations of gender and power.
Eleanor of Austria’s illustrious Burgundian-Habsburg lineage, incorporat-
ing the Spanish royal bloodlines of Aragon and Castile, marked her as an elite
woman of social access and cultural privilege. However, in her subjection
to the diffusion of hierarchical power emanating from the central source
of Habsburg dynastic rule that directed the conditions of her private and
public lives, like many seemingly powerful Renaissance women, she was
authoritatively powerless. Although the power of a ruler was usually only
disrupted or usurped by coercive political interventions intended to affect
change, the dynamics of sixteenth-century courtly society still afforded
opportunities for men and women to wield personal influence or embody
forms of ‘agency’ as ‘the capacity to act for oneself and by oneself’. 4 For
Renaissance women like Eleanor of Austria, agency was commonly expressed
through modes of cultural patronage, such as portraiture.5 Portraits were
affective communicative instruments of Renaissance court culture that
could manipulate the perception of the viewer by shaping the contours of
gender identity and amplifying visibility. As Stephen Orgel observes, ‘the
pp. 287–95; Eichberger, 2003, pp. 239–59; Eichberger, 2000, pp. 4–24; Eichberger and Beaven,
pp. 225–48; Gelfland, 2007, pp. 193–202; Gelfland, 2003a, pp. 203–25; Gelfland, 2003b, pp. 145–59;
Houdoy, pp. 515–18.
2 Koenigsberger, pp. 123–51; Doyle, pp. 349–60; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2583, ns. 16–17, 20;
Jordan, pp. 173–94; Jordan Gschwend, 2012.
3 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2571.
4 McKee, p. 180.
5 See Pearson.
Portr aits of Eleanor of Austria 175
crucial pictures in Renaissance collections are the portraits of the patrons,

those specific manifestations of their view of themselves’.6 The ensuing
discussion contextualizes and analyzes Eleanor of Austria’s representation
in portraits produced before, and during, her second marriage to the French
king, François I (1494–1547), one of the most frequently portrayed rulers
of the first half of the sixteenth century.7 It moves beyond her reputed
passiveness as a ‘valuable’ pawn exploited by Habsburg marital policy and
neglected Valois queen consort, by calling attention to her active image-
making practice at the French Renaissance court.8
Marrying and Making the Queen Consort
The precise social function and relative power, influence, or agency of a

queen consort was dependent on a complex web of personal, cultural, and
political factors. While there was no definitive position description to fit
the circumstances of all queen consorts, there was a general expectation
for the reproduction of legitimate offspring and provision of an heir to the
throne. If not called on to exercise direct political authority independently
or as a co-ruler, a queen consort would typically perform various practical
and symbolic tasks from overseeing the education of her children to evoking
the honor of the king through her exemplary feminine demeanor (with
moral virtue having been equated with physical beauty).9 Nevertheless,
according to Theresa Earenfight, the role of queen consort was inherently
political regardless of the way power was directly or indirectly exercised.
This form of self-creation was:
an incessant daily project, a daily act of reconstruction and interpreta-

tion situated in a zone of multiple and overlapping cultures, in which
personality and temperament have some degree of influence over a
queen’s ultimate expression of her own unique practice of queenship.10
Despite the brevity of Eleanor of Austria’s first marriage in 1518 to Manuel I

(1469–1521), King of Portugal, she not only gave birth to her only surviving
6 Orgel, p. 266.
7 Mansfield, 2016, pp. 1–16.
8 Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 474–75; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2569, 2572; Knecht, pp. 289, 544.
9 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2573; Earenfight, pp. 1–9; Rodrigues, p. 2; Goffen, p. 64.
10 Earenfight, p. 14.
176 Lisa Mansfield
child, Maria (1521–1577), Duchess of Viseu, but also amassed a veritable

treasure trove of precious gems and exotic objects gifted by her husband
who was 30 years her senior.11 The queen consort’s strategic placement at
the Portuguese court at the age of nineteen, originally to marry Manuel I’s
son and successor, John III, was instigated by her powerful brother, Charles V
(1500–1558), Holy Roman Emperor, to safeguard the Iberian Peninsula by
uniting the Habsburg and Avis dynasties. 12 In turn, Charles V further
strengthened the bond between these two prestigious royal houses in 1526 by
wedding Manuel I’s daughter, Isabel of Portugal (1503–1539), in the same year
that Eleanor of Austria was betrothed by proxy to François I.13 The emperor
also entrusted the empress with the regency of Spain in 1527 and 1535.14
Carefully calculated negotiations years in advance were not unusual for
planning Renaissance royal marriages, especially for Habsburg brides and
grooms destined to absorb foreign realms in service of the dynasty’s motto:
Bella gerant alii: tu, felix Austria, nube! (‘Let others make war: you,
happy Austria, marry!’).15 Thrice married, Margaret of Austria had been
subject to the matrimonial machinations of her imperial father, Maximilian
I (1459–1519), who had himself been placed in a politically arranged marriage
by his father, Frederick III (1415–1593), Holy Roman Emperor.16 Eleanor of
Austria was the oldest sibling, and last of Charles V’s sisters, to wed. Her
eligibility on the international marriage market was played out during
her youth in a series of unresolved betrothals with powerful monarchs.17
The Flemish princess was portrayed as young girl on the right panel of a
triptych, displaying Charles in the middle panel, with Isabella on his left
side. Whereas the smallest child, Isabella, holds a doll, Eleanor clasps a small
11 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2572–73, 2593–98; Rodrigues, p. 10; Jansen, p. 94. Manuel I had
previously been married to Eleanor of Austria’s aunts, Isabella (1470–1498) and Maria (1482–1517)
of Aragon-Castile.
12 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2572; Elbl, pp. 87–111.
13 Knecht, pp. 247. An intimate double portrait commemorating the marriage of the imperial
couple, an alabaster relief sculpture attributed to the Master of Metz (Jean Mone), dated to 1526,
is held in Gaasbeek Castle, Brussels; see Lipinska, pp. 58–59.
14 Jansen, p. 105.
15 Patrouch, pp. 25–26; Fitchner, pp. 243–56.
16 Johnson, p. 61; Willard, p. 350. On Margaret of Austria’s betrothals and marriages, see Jansen,
pp. 83–84, 86, 92; Tamussino, pp. 25–123; de Boom, pp. 1–63; Tremayne, pp. 3–5, 17, 25, 61–63.
17 Rodríguez-Salgado, pp. 42, 50, 90–91. Potential husbands included Henry VIII (1491–1547),
King of England, Sigismund I (1467–1548), King of Poland, Louis XII (1462–1515), King of France,
Antoine, Duke of Lorraine (1489–1544), and Christian II of Denmark. The youngest brother,
Ferdinand (1503–1564) would accede to the post of Holy Roman Emperor in 1558, following the
abdication of his brother, Charles V, in 1556.
‘pink’ (marriage flower) symbolizing her value as a future royal spouse.18

In turn, Charles V obliged his older sister to make a personal sacrif ice
beyond the acceptance of a short-lived elderly husband and accumulation
of wealth and independence by relinquishing her daughter Maria to the
Portuguese court in 1523.19 The separation of mother and daughter, when
the infanta was not yet three years old, was due to Maria’s ‘rich fortune’,
which was controlled by the new king of Portugal, John III.20 The strength
of the Habsburg sibling bond, enmeshing the personal with the political,
ensured that Eleanor of Austria would willingly forfeit her own desires to
meet Charles V’s vision of universal empire with her second marriage and
relocation to France in 1530.21
Conjugal Discord at the French Renaissance Court
Having performed her role as queen consort to the king of Portugal admi-
rably, Eleanor of Austria’s arrival at the Valois court as a 31-year-old widow
was beset with a challenging set of adverse historical, political, and personal
conditions that complicated her experience as a mature queen consort. On
the death of François I’s first queen consort, Claude de France (1499–1524),
he was left with five of seven legitimate offspring, including the dauphin,
François III (1518–1536), Duke of Brittany, and his two brothers, the future
king of France, Henri II (1519–1559), and Charles II of Orleans (1522–1545).22
While a pregnancy was possible for Eleanor of Austria, the line of succession
to the French throne was secure without expectations of auxiliary royal
reproduction. François I, at 35 years, was, moreover, ensconced with his
powerful mistress, Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes (1508–1580),
whom an imperial envoy described as ‘the real president of the king’s most
private and intimate council’.23 His mother, Louise de Savoie, and sister,
18 Attributed to the Master of the Guild of Saint George, 1502, oil on panel, 38 × 61 cm (each
panel), Schloss Ambras, Sammlungen Kunsthistorisches Museum, Innsbruck, inv. no. GG 4452.
Jordan Gschwend, 2010 p. 2572; Lorentz, p. 117.
20 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2588, n. 125. Also see Serrão.
21 On Eleanor of Austria’s love match in 1517 with one of Charles V’s courtiers, Frederick II
(1482–1556), Count Palatine of the Rhine, see Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2572; Moeller, pp. 198–218,
324–28.
22 The four daughters of François I and Claude de France were: Louise (1515–1517), Charlotte
(1516–1536), Madeleine (1520–1537), and Marguerite (1523–1574).
23 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, VI.1, p. 117: ‘Con Mma d’Etampes, que es cabeza del Consejo
mas privado’.
178 Lisa Mansfield
Marguerite d’Angoulême (1492–1549), were also loyal women of political

acuity entrusted with political authority.24 The power of François I’s three
closest female companions was manifest in their ability to individually and
collectively transform personal influence into political change at both the
French court and within international affairs.25 Their relationship with
the king was also characterized by familial or romantic forms of intimacy.
In short, Eleanor of Austria entered a rival court where her ‘power […]
was curtailed’.26 The French court was marked by a distinctive gendered
culture under the direction of a king who was criticized for the perceived
permissiveness of his relations with women that stemmed from his close
connection to his mother and sister as much the royal mistresses.27 On his
sojourn in France in 1517, Antonio de Beatis (dates unknown), secretary of
Cardinal Luigi d’Aragona (1474-1519), recorded that:
The Queen [Claude de France] is young, and though small in stature,

plain and badly lame in both hips, is said to be very cultivated, generous
and pious. And though the King her husband is a great womanizer and
readily breaks into others’ gardens and drinks at many sources, there it
is a matter of common report that he holds his wife the Queen in such
honour and respect that when in France and with her he has never failed
to sleep with her each night.28
The signif icance of this observation resonates with François I’s future
conduct with Eleanor of Austria, whom he was reportedly reluctant to
embrace in the royal bedchamber, and is elaborated on shortly.
François I appointed his mother as regent of France on two occasions
to cover his absence during military campaigns in the ongoing Italian
Wars.29 The Habsburg–Valois marital alliance of 1530, a consequence of
the Treaty of Cambrai or Ladies’ Peace in 1529, was an outcome of a pivotal
turn of events in François I’s pursuit of the Duchy of Milan from 1521 to
24 Levin and Meyer, pp. 347–48; Lindquist, pp. 197–221.

25 Knecht, pp. 290, 395–96.
27 For an insightful summary of François I’s contemporary and later reputation with women,
see Knecht, pp. 112–14, 249, 483, 549.
28 Beatis, The Travel Journal, pp. 76, 107. Antonio de Beatis, secretary of Luigi d’Aragona
(1474–1519), penned his account of the cardinal’s journey throughout northern Europe and Italy
from May 1517 to March 1518.
29 McCartney, pp. 117–41.
1526.30 Negotiated through the diplomatic collaboration between Margaret

of Austria and Louise de Savoie, the institution of marriage was used as a
peaceful compromise in the aftermath of François I’s disastrous defeat by
imperial troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525, and subsequent incarceration in
Spain.31 The traumatic nature of the loss extended to the dauphin, François,
and his brother, Henri, who were held as imperial hostages in Spain for
four years in exchange for the release of François I as part of the Treaty
of Madrid in 1526.32 Congenial relations between the French king and his
Habsburg queen consort were also marred by the clashing dynastic claims
over Burgundy and Italy that continued the enduring Habsburg–Valois
tussle for European dominance.33 Further hostility stemmed from the
competitive enmity between François I and Charles V, on account of the
French king’s failed candidature in the imperial election of 1519 following
the death of Maximilian I.34 For the Habsburg dynasty, the union between
Eleanor of Austria and François I was equally profound and went some
way towards avenging Margaret of Austria’s thwarted marital destiny as
queen of France in 1491, when at the age of eleven she was repudiated by
Charles VIII (1470–1498) for the hand of Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514).35
The ceremonial festivities interwoven with traditional allegorical refer-
ences to peace that honored Eleanor of Austria’s coronation at Saint-Denis
and her royal entry into Paris in 1531 were hardly able to offset the barbed
personal and political reverberations that contextualized her experience
of the French Renaissance court in words and portraits (Fig. 6.1).36 In his
eyewitness reportage of the pageantry penned for Henry VIII on 23 March
1531, the Tudor ambassador, Sir Francis Bryan (1490–1550), noted that
François I ‘rode to a house where Hely [Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess d’Étampes]
was, and set her before him in an open window, talking two hours with
her in sight of all the people, which was not a little marvelled at of the
beholders’.37 Marguerite de Navarre confirmed the absence of connubial
affection between the royal couple in a conversation with Thomas Howard,
30 Mallett and Shaw, pp. 139–73; Russell, 1992, pp. 94–152.

31 Mallett and Shaw, p. 172.
32 Knecht, pp. 246–47.
33 Knecht, p. 66.
34 Knecht, pp. 165–70.
35 Jansen, pp. 83–84; Willard, pp. 351–53; de Jongh, p. 79; Tremayne, pp. 21–22, 212–13.
36 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2576. Also see the primary accounts compiled in two booklets by
François I’s secretary Guillaume Bochetel (d. 1558) in 1531, Bochetel. On the anonymous satirical
double portrait of the royal couple, see Mansfield, 2016, p. 122.
37 State Papers of Henry VIII, VII, 891.
180 Lisa Mansfield
Figure 6.1 Anonymous artist (French School?), François I with Eleanor, Queen of

France, c. 1530–40
Oil on panel, 70.8 × 56.4 cm. RCIN 403371, Royal Collection Trust (© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2017)
Duke of Norfolk (1473–1554), which disparaged her Habsburg sister-in-law.

The exchange was translated in Howard’s report sent to Henry VIII in 1533:
[Marguerite] told me also that no man can be worse content with his
wife than her brother is, ‘so that these seven months he neither lay with
her, not yet meddled with her’. I asked her the cause why; and she said,
‘because he does not find her pleasing to his appetite’; ‘nor when he doth
lie with her, he cannot sleep; and when he lieth from her, no man sleepeth
better’. I said ‘Madam, what should be the cause?’ She said, ‘She is very
hot in bed, and desireth to be too much embraced’; and therewith she
fell upon great laughter saying, ‘I would [not] for all the good in Paris
that the king of Navarre were [no be]tter pleased to be in my bed than
my brother is to be [in hers]’.38
While sexual allure for strategy or pleasure was a political asset and potential
instrument of power typically in the remit of royal mistresses, it was possible
for the queen consort to wield influence over the king beyond the need to
breed. However, for Eleanor of Austria, intimacy with the French king, let
alone maternity and eroticism, were blocked as pathways for achieving
significant personal influence or wielding political power that would affect
a profound change in Valois–Habsburg relations because of François I’s
incentive to prevent any convergence between the Habsburg and Valois
bloodlines that would threaten the future of the French throne.
The Agency of the Habsburg Queen Consort
Eleanor of Austria’s position between two of the most powerful rulers in

sixteenth-century Europe makes it unlikely that she aspired to real political
power, not only because of her independent wealth, but also the corporate
framework that supported the collective mission of the Habsburg dynasty.39
However, scholarship has drawn attention to the queen consort’s agency at
the French court in two key areas, notwithstanding burgeoning evidence
of her patronage and collecting activities. 40 The first area highlights her
assertive use of Spanish-style clothing to proclaim her imperial allegiance.41
According to Ruth Matilda Anderson, wearing the foreign attire of a rival
kingdom in a royal entry was ‘less than gracious in a new queen.’42 However,
under adverse circumstances, it was just as likely to have been a protective
38 Letters and Papers, VI, 692. On her second marriage in 1526, Marguerite became queen
consort to Henry II of Navarre (1503–1555).
39 Rodríguez-Salgado, pp. 27–111.
40 Wilson-Chevalier, p. 506; Jordan Gschwend, 2006, pp. 111–20; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2584,
n. 40.
41 Anderson, 1981, pp. 215–22; Wilson-Chevalier, p. 507; Cox-Rearick, 2009, pp. 39–51; Jordan
Gschwend, 2010, p. 2577.
42 Anderson, 1981, p. 216.
182 Lisa Mansfield
mechanism and statement of dynastic pride and loyalty. The custom of

changing apparel to indicate (private or public) cordiality or displeasure was
an enduring political tactic for the women of Eleanor of Austria’s exalted
pedigree. 43 She had previously experienced the convivial impact of this
performative display in Portugal, when Manuel I and his courtiers dressed
in the Flemish style to honor the Habsburg queen consort’s foreign cultural
heritage on her arrival at the court of Lisbon.44 In the unreceptive environ-
ment of the French court, Eleanor of Austria inverted this sartorial device in
both her costumes and portraits. Wearing imperial garb interrupted François
I’s practice of dressing his female courtiers (mistresses and other favorites)
as a form of control that merged his renowned aesthetic discernment for
feminine pulchritude with the politics of courtly display. 45 In the first year
of his reign, François I had requested fashion dolls and cosmetics from the
Italian Renaissance authority on sartorial style, Isabella d’Este, marchesa
of Mantua (1474–1549), in a letter written by her son (and ‘hostage’ of the
French king), Federico II Gonzaga (1500–1540).46 Six years before her marriage
into the Valois monarchy, Eleanor of Austria’s ladies-in-waiting had also
entreated with the marchesa in 1524, but did so directly by way of Federico’s
brother, Ferrante Gonzaga (1507-1557), then a page to Charles V, asking for
‘a mannequin doll with the latest dress of the Gonzaga court’ to be sent to
the Spanish court in Valladolid. 47 Yassana Croizat makes the astute point
that ‘the request for a doll came from the women who would be wearing
the fashions, rather than from the ruler whose court they graced.’48
Eleanor of Austria’s interest in cultivating fashion not only demonstrated
her agency in acting for herself independently without masculine guidance
before her marriage to François I, but also suggests an element of cultural
compatibility — if not intimacy — aligned with the French king’s contem-
porary prominence as a patron and collector of precocious visual literacy.49
The queen had received an exceptional education at Margaret of Austria’s
43 Russell, 1969, p. 132; Anderson, 1979, p. 144; Anderson, 1981, pp. 216, 222; Matthews, 2005,
p. 150; Cruz, 2013, p. 16.
45 Croizat, pp. 115–16, 118–19, 120, 122–24, 125.
46 Croizat, pp. 95–97. The future duke of Gonzaga was located at the French court as the king’s
hostage following François I’s military triumph at the Battle of Marignano in 1515.
47 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2587, n. 103, cites a letter from Pandolfo Pico della Mirandola to
Isabella d’Este (1524) in Tamalio, p. 203, n. 35: ‘Io sono importunate d’alchune damiselle dela
Signora Regina che gli fazzi venire de Italia una puva [bambola] vestita in tuto del modo se
accostuma li’. On Eleanor’s love of fashion, also see Moeller, pp. 196-7.
48 Croizat, p. 101.
49 Mansfield, 2016, pp. 24–27; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2577; Cox-Rearick, 1996.
court in Mechelen.50 Domestic skills were complemented with tutelage in

the visual arts, literature, dancing, and music, with the Habsburg princess
having developed an aptitude for playing the clavichord.51 Eleanor of Austria
and François I not only shared French as their arterial language, but were
equally privileged beneficiaries of formative cultural influences that blended
aesthetic sensibility with political nous in the realm of image-making.52
Moreover, as a consequence of her tenure in Lisbon, Eleanor of Austria’s
acquisition of New World luxury objects procured from India, Turkey, and
China, was complemented by her contacts with dealers and agents working
at the Portuguese court. Her cultural capital was an asset for François I’s
expansion of exotic objets d’art stored in the cabinets of curiosities at the
châteaux of Fontainebleau and the Louvre.53
The second area of Eleanor of Austria’s influence concerns the informal
diplomacy she exercised during her tenure as queen of France. Her in-
stalment at the French court was as inherently political as the pragmatic
foundation of her second royal marriage. It not only equipped her with a
sanctioned directive to diffuse tensions between François I and Charles V,
but also to nurture the communicative network of the widely dispersed
Habsburg dynasty.54 As the division between private and public spheres
in Renaissance diplomatic culture was indistinguishable, various forms of
inter-courtly exchange mingled personal sentiment with political intent.
Eleanor of Austria’s selfless dedication to the welfare of her brothers and
sisters replenished the emotional space left open by the demise of family’s
surrogate matriarch, Margaret of Austria, in 1530.55 The queen consort’s
exchange of letters and gifts with her Habsburg siblings not only kindled
emotional bonds, but also functioned as a discreet conduit for integrating
diverse personal, political, and cultural snippets of information about
François I and his court.56 Informal diplomacy was, then, conjoined with
formal efforts in (moderately successful) conciliation between the Valois
king and his imperial archenemy and brother-in-law.57 Charles V’s quest
50 Cartwright, p. 6; de Boom, pp. 19–22; Tamussino, pp. 147–94; Blockmans and Prevenier,

p. 230; Eichberger, 2005b, pp. 49–50; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2571–72.
51 Haverkamp-Begeman, pp. 174–99; Brauchli, pp. 33, 77, 79–80; Cazaux, p. 59, n. 58.
52 Mansfield, 2016, pp. 18–25.
53 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2576–77. On Margaret of Austria’s collection of New World
rarities and curiosities, see Vandenbroeck, pp. 99–119; Eichberger, 1998, pp. 24–25.
54 Rodríguez-Salgado, p. 83; Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 490–92, 498–99, n. 37; Jordan Gschwend,
2010, p. 2584, n. 39.
55 Wilson-Chevalier, p. 483; Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2570.
56 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2569, 2570, 2584, n. 39.
184 Lisa Mansfield
to expand his empire was, nonetheless, dependent on more than familial

devotion and feminine loyalty; it required the unequivocal commitment and
cooperation of his kin. The condition of service demanding obsequiousness
and cooperation between Habsburg siblings had been inculcated since
childhood at the court of Mechelen in narratives of Joseph and his brethren,
and tales of virtuous models of feminine chastity and patience, such as
Lucretia and Griselda.58
With only a brief interval as a widow after the death of Manuel I, and
scant opportunity to operate as a conventional queen consort to François I,
it made sense for Eleanor of Austria to maintain her lifelong dedication to
Charles V during seventeen years of marriage to François I. She appears to
have absorbed the virtuous ideal of a widow’s husbandly devotion advocated
by the Spanish humanist, Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540), and exemplified by
Margaret of Austria, in a revised mode redirected towards the steadfast
support of the emperor.59 However, in line with her title of French queen
consort and a powerful living foreign husband, the richly embellished
costumes displayed in Eleanor of Austria’s portraits executed in the 1530s are
juxtaposed against the subdued simplicity of the widow’s weeds commonly
sported by her aunt and worn by the queen dowager after she returned to
Flanders in 1548 following the death of François I. The fundamental political
foundation of Eleanor of Austria’s complicated role at the French court
not only explains the absence of maternal symbolism in her portraits and
personal imagery, but also correlates with her desire to connect with her
only daughter.60 Maria of Portugal’s immense inheritance not only impeded
Eleanor of Austria’s determination to recover her, but also explains why the
infanta remained an ‘eternal bride’ despite her eligibility.61 There was perhaps
no stronger nor more poignant evidence of the queen consort’s powerlessness
and devotion to her powerful brother than the forced estrangement that
occurred between mother and child.
Instead, Charles V conducted himself as a paternal f igure with his
sisters, following the model set by Maximilian I, and Eleanor of Austria
dutifully adopted an affectionate and affective sisterly role predicated
on the obsequiousness of her first-born status in the family.62 The queen
consort’s unstinting commitment to mediate between Charles V and François
58 Cartwright, p. 6.
59 Vives, Book III, pp. 309–26; Eichberger and Beaven, p. 241, n. 120.
61 Frade, pp. 52–53.
62 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, pp. 2570, 2584, n. 27.
I prompted Ghislaine de Boom’s reference to Eleanor of Austria as having

the ‘patience of Penelope’.63 However, her sibling obeisance is even more
evocative of Octavia the Younger (c. 69/66 bce–c. 11/9 bce), an ancient
archetype of sisterly virtue. Octavia was the loyal older sister of the first
Roman emperor, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus (63 bce–14 ce),
and long-suffering wife of his political rival, Mark Antony (c. 83/2 bce–30
bce).64 Octavia not only competed with her husband’s notoriously seduc-
tive mistress, Cleopatra (69 bce–30 bce), but also worked to broker peace
between the two most powerful men of ancient Rome during the Second
Triumvirate (43–32 bce).65 On her repudiation by Mark Antony, she was
honored in Rome with a spate of commemorative portraits in coinage and
sculpture that rewarded her self-effacing brand of femininity and devotion
to her imperial brother.66 While Eleanor of Austria appears to have exercised
her agency by commissioning her own portraits at the French Renaissance
court, it is clear that she possessed a sophisticated understanding of the
ancient theoretical dynamism of the genre of portraiture for shaping and
impressing her image and identity in the collective Habsburg and Valois
memory.
Habsburg Practices of Portraiture
Eleanor of Austria was empowered with both the motivation and opportunity
to draw on her knowledge of the dynastic portrait tradition established by
Maximilian I and augmented by Margaret of Austria as part of her image-
making enterprise at the French court. Her paternal grandfather’s active
approach to the genre was demonstrated by his f inesse in supervising
representations of his ancestors and tweaking portraits of himself executed
by his court artists with his own hand to help meet his desired likeness.67
The emperor also treated his portraits with communicative flexibility,
promoting his ducal versus imperial image and identity for different regional
audiences.68 In addition, Margaret of Austria’s comprehensive portrait
63 De Boom, pp. 7–8.
64 On Augustus and Charles V, see Tanner, p. 113.
65 Ancient literary sources for Octavia include Plutarch, Appian, and Dio Cassius, and to a lesser
extent Suetonius. See Wood, pp. 30–35. On women in the period of the Second Triumvirate, see
Cluett, pp. 67–84; Kleiner, pp. 357–67.
66 Erhart, pp. 117–28.
67 See Silver.
68 Eichberger, 2014, pp. 100–14.
186 Lisa Mansfield
collection in Mechelen, which functioned as an instructive image-making

repository for Eleanor of Austria and her siblings, was complemented by the
regent’s fabrication of her image and identity in portraits as a chaste, pious,
and prudent widow devoted to the Habsburg dynasty.69 Margaret of Austria’s
second appointment as regent in 1519 provided her with an opportune
juncture to disseminate at least nine copies of her official portrait in widow’s
weeds over the next two years in a series of paintings attributed to her court
artist, Bernard van Orley (c. 1492–1541/42), his workshop and followers.70
Likewise, the state portrait of Eleanor of Austria (Fig. 6.2) executed by Joos
van Cleve (c. 1485–1540/41) was replicated in at least nine variations by the
Flemish artist’s workshop, reflecting the Habsburg practice for disseminating
multiple likenesses as family or diplomatic gifts.71
Well before Eleanor of Austria’s sojourn at the French court, both van
Orley and Jan Gossart (c. 1478–1532) had executed betrothal portraits of her
around 1515, which touted her youthful marriageability in the years shortly
before her relocation to Lisbon as the queen consort of Manuel I.72 Before her
arrival at the French court in 1530, all of Eleanor’s portraits appear to have
been commissioned by other members of her family, such as her brother,
Charles, who made a payment to Gossart in April 1516 for two paintings
made from life of his ‘dear and beloved sister’.73 The precise identification
of the specified works remains unknown. However, a half-length panel
attributed to the workshop of van Orley (Fig. 6.3), dated to after 1516, presents
a young courtly lady (probably a poor copy of the artist’s original portrait) in
front of a neutral background as a demure Flemish princess with her hands
resting on a parapet.74 While the finely attenuated fingers of her left hand
display several rings set with gems, she delicately pinches a ring between
69 Eichberger and Beaven, pp. 225–48.

70 Wauters, col. 265; Baudson, pp. 16–17; Eichberger and Beaven, p. 228; Eichberger, 2005a,
p. 287. On the representation of widowhood, see Welzel, pp. 103–13.
71 Hand, pp. 168–70; Eichberger, 2014, pp. 100–01.
72 Jan Gossart, Eleanor of Austria, after c. 1515, 28 × 36 cm. The portrait is held in a private
collection and shows the sitter holding rosary beads, see Friedländer, IV, p. 144 (Master of the
Joseph Legend); Matthews, 2003, fig. 98.
73 Houdoy, p. 516. From the French translation, ‘deux tableaux de la portraicture au vif de
madame Leonor, sa tres chiere et bien amée seur’.
74 Workshop of Bernard van Orley, Portrait of a Lady (probably Eleanor of Austria), oil on panel,
37.6 × 27.1 cm, Royal Collection, inv. no. RCIN 403467. This portrait resembles Eleanor’s likeness
in the fourth tapestry of the Legend of Notre-Dame du Sablon series, which was designed by
van Orley and commissioned by François de Taxis (1459–1517), the imperial postmaster: see
Campbell, 1985, p. 108, no. 69; Campbell, 2002, pp. 168–74; Belozerskaya, pp. 119–20. For another
possible early portrait of Eleanor of Austria, see Friedländer, VIII, p. 100, no. 74.
Figure 6.2 Joos van Cleve, Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France, c. 1532–34
Oil on panel, 71.3 × 58.7 cm. RCIN 403369, Royal Collection Trust (© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2017)
the thumb and forefinger of her right hand; a gesture replicated in a later
portrait of Eleanor of Austria attributed to van Cleve’s workshop.75 Her
sumptuous gown, augmented by voluminous ermine sleeves, is enriched
by the heavy-set jewel collar draped around her lower neck, hinting at
75 Workshop of Joos van Cleve, Eleanor of Austria, c. 1532–35, oil on oak panel, 25 × 19 cm,
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon, inv. no. 1981.
188 Lisa Mansfield
her future displays of sumptuous costume and jewels in pageantry and

portraits as queen of France. The Habsburg princess’s charming oval face and
standardized features in her betrothal portrait appear to have condensed
the ideal likenesses of her foremothers: Mary of Burgundy (1457–1482), Isabel
of Castile (1451–1504), and her paternal great-grandmother and namesake,
Eleanor of Portugal (1434–1467).76 Her head is framed by a close-fitting
Flemish-style hat set back from her forehead, which reveals her neatly
combed hair parted in the middle in the same style as her most powerful
maternal grandmother, the queen of Castile.77 She turns her face and diverts
her gaze toward the left, in a pose that would be repeated throughout her
mature portrait record at the court of France and beyond. Her countenance
expresses a benign cast in the trace of a subtle closed smile. The injection of
warmth animating Eleanor’s visage reflected Erasmian ideals of feminine
benevolence, kindliness, and generosity.78 This northern humanist influence
not only transformed the austerity of Margaret of Austria’s widow portraits,
but was integrated in portraits (drawings and paintings) of François I with a
slight smile conceived by Jean (c. 1480–1540/41) and François Clouet (before
1520–1572) from as early as 1518 as an enhancement of his eloquence and
charisma.79
Conversely, the king’s smile is barely visible in portraits by van Cleve and
his workshop, which reinforces the probability, put forward by Kathleen
Wilson-Chevalier, that the queen, rather than the king, was the driving force
behind the Antwerp artist’s arrival in France in the early 1530s.80 Cécile
Scailliérez has, in turn, contextualized van Cleve’s portraits of François I
and Henry VIII as diplomatic gifts created to commemorate the second
face-to-face meeting between the Valois king and Tudor monarch in 1532 at
Calais and Boulogne.81 Eleanor of Austria’s absence at the royal interview
was not surprising given that Henry VIII ‘was accompanied by Anne Boleyn
76 Master of the Magdalen Legend, Mary of Burgundy, 15th century, oil on panel, 26.5 × 22.5
cm, Musée Condé, Chantilly, inv. no. PE588; Juan de Flandes, Isabel of Castile, c. 1490–1492, oil
on panel, 21 × 13.3cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. no. P07656; Hans Burgkmair the Elder,
Eleanor of Portugal, early 16th century, oil on panel, 79 × 59.1 cm, Habsburg Portrait Gallery,
Schloss Ambras, Innsbruck, inv. no. 4399.
77 Jansen, pp. 8–23; Liss, p. 120.
78 Rummel, p. 207. On the impact of Erasmus (1466–1536) on the visual arts and his influence
at Margaret of Austria’s court, see Marlier; Checa Cremades.
79 Matthews, 2003, pp. 92–94. On the signif icance of François I’s slight closed smile in his
portraits, see Mansfield, 2016, pp. 46, 48–50.
80 Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 504–07; Jordan and Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 371–74; Hand, pp. 101–04;
Fagnart, pp. 103–15; Leeflang, pp. 19–20.
81 Scailliérez, 1996, pp. 77–78; Scailliérez, 2011, p. 107.
Figure 6.3 Workshop of Bernard van Orley, Portrait of a Lady (probably Eleanor of

Austria), after 1516
Oil on panel, 37.6 × 27.1 cm. RCIN 403467, Royal Collection Trust. (© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2017)
190 Lisa Mansfield
(c. 1501–1536), at François I’s suggestion’.82 While this might have been the
case, the Valois king’s purposeful negligence of his Habsburg queen consort
would also seem to negate his role as the patron of the portraits. If the
portrait of Henry VIII was a later speculative artistic venture sent to the
English court by van Cleve, this would, in turn, cement Eleanor of Austria’s
status as an influential patron of a popular courtly genre of painting.83
There is, nonetheless, a calculated individuality in the iconography of the
three principal portraits.84 These peculiar attributes are balanced by the
shared compositional and stylistic elements linking the images, from the
green backgrounds with shadows to the left-facing direction of each figure’s
gaze. As a loosely related configuration, the pictures not only encapsulate
Eleanor of Austria’s marginalization from François I, but reinsert her pride
of place and independence at the French court.
Eleanor of Austria’s patronage of portraiture in France was extended
to Léonard Limosin (c. 1505–1575/77) and the Dutch painter Corneille de
Lyon (fl. 1533–1575) as early as 1534.85 François I’s predilection for northern
Renaissance portraitists, demonstrated by his enduring attachment to
the Clouets, has traditionally been overshadowed by his (more securely
sourced) preference for Italian Mannerism and antiquities. However, if
the claim of Carel van Mander (1548–1606) that François I invited Jan van
Scorel (1495–1562) to the French court in the mid-to-late 1520s is accurate,
the king is also likely to have valued (or tolerated) Eleanor of Austria’s
contacts with Flemish and Dutch portraitists as a matter of artistic cov-
etousness.86 Margaret of Austria’s wise counsel to her niece on the eve
of her second French marriage, encouraging her towards benevolent and
gracious comportment in her relations with the close-knit trio of the king,
his mother, and sister, appears to have been channelled into the queen’s
artistic productivity in France.87 That Eleanor of Austria, as dowager queen,
82 Knecht, p. 297.
83 Hand, p. 203.
84 The three principal portraits by van Cleve are Eleanor’s portrait (Fig. 6.2), Royal Collection
(Hampton Court); François I’s state portrait, Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Henry VIII’s
painting in the Royal Collection (Hampton Court). The Tudor monarch holds a scroll with the
Latin inscription (Mark 16:15): marci 16 / ite in mvdvm vniversv et predicate / evangelivm
omni creatvre ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation’. Hand notes
that the smaller image of Eleanor, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna is of equally high quality
(p. 102).
85 Baratte, pp. 42–43; Béguin and Dubois de Groër, pp. 28–42; Dubois de Groër, pp. 8, 16, 19.
86 Mander, I, p. 315, fol. 234 r–v. Jan van Scorel declined the king’s offer of lucrative conditions
to avoid being beholden to a court post: see Mansfield, 2017.
87 De Boom, p. 127.
would subsequently employ the services of van Scorel’s renowned pupil and
court portraitist, Anthonis Mor, in Brussels also highlights her status as an
experienced and influential patron of portraiture motivated to manage her
own image-making practice.88
Although van Cleve did not work for the French or imperial court ex-
pressly, he had devised portraits of Maximilian I from life around 1509–1510
that were copied extensively.89 His portrait of Eleanor of Austria was a
resolute iconographic avowal of her imperial allegiance. The queen’s (defiant)
Spanish-style costume, donned in ceremonials and reproduced again in
her portrait, was echoed by the emperor’s embracement of ‘Spanish dress,
language and customs’ from 1529.90 The theme of imperial victory is also
made clear in the letter held by Eleanor of Austria evincing her exclusive
title of ‘Most Christian Queen’ of France in Spanish script.91 In a previously
mentioned workshop copy of van Cleve’s portrait held in Lisbon, Eleanor
of Austria’s glittering display of gem and pearl accessories includes a fine
golden necklace with a pendant in the form of a small armillary sphere, the
Imperial device of her previous spouse and father of her daughter, Manuel
I.92 That the painting was undoubtedly destined for the Portuguese court
raises the prospect that Eleanor of Austria’s use of portraiture went beyond
self-commemoration to maternal communication, functioning as a feminine
role model for her beloved daughter in Portugal. The smaller dimensions
of the Lisbon portrait and queen consort’s placement closer to the picture
plane creates an infusion of intimacy that is intensified by the movement
of her hands and is comparatively softened by her somewhat ambiguous
facial expression that seems to implore the viewer.
A copy of a lost (betrothal) portrait of the youthful infanta Maria by
Francisco de Holanda (1517–1585), dated to the 1540s, shows the influence
exerted by Eleanor of Austria’s portrait attributed to the workshop of van
Cleve.93 An effort has been made to capture the physical resemblance
between mother and daughter in terms of facial resemblance, pose, gaze,
88 Woodall, pp. 202, 215–16. Eleanor of Austria is depicted as queen dowager in widow’s weeds
in a portrait attributed to the Workshop of Antonis Mor, Eleanor of France, 1549–1550, oil on
panel, 99 × 85 cm, Convento de las Descales Reales, Madrid.
89 Hand, p. 20; Scailliérez, 2011, p. 104; Eichberger, 2014, p. 107.
90 Matthews, 2003, p. 188.
91 Campbell, 1985, p. 24; Hand, p. 102: ‘Ala xpianisima [christianisma] y muy podisinora
ponderosa siñora la Reyna ma siñora’. On the privileged title of ‘Most Christian’ with the French
monarchy, see Knecht, pp. 88–89.
92 On the symbolism of Manuel I’s device, see Jordan, 2005, p. 186; Pereira, 44–50.
93 Unknown artist (after Francisco de Holanda), Portrait of Maria of Portugal, c. 1541–1545,
Church of the Convent of the Incarnation, Lisbon.
192 Lisa Mansfield
costume, and jewels. The bateau neckline of both gowns, strewn with a
looped string of pearls, ruby pendant with drop pearl, fine necklace (with
an unidentifiable pendant worn by Maria), and slashed sleeves are shared
visual features. However, the infanta’s portrait is imbued with an air of
gravity and stillness, reflected in her dark gown and impenetrable facial
expression. In contrast to the congenial facial aspect of Eleanor of Austria’s
early portraits by van Orley, the larger portraits by van Cleve, which place
her at a distance from the viewer and show her holding a letter, represent
the queen consort with a new mask of imperiousness. Her formality and
aloofness are accentuated by the mannered flamboyance of her costumes
and comparatively immobile face. This change in Eleanor of Austria’s rep-
resentation appears to have aligned with Charles V’s imperial coronation
on 24 February 1530, which motivated the reconfiguration of his image and
identity as an authoritative ruler sporting armour in full-length portraits that
accentuate his rigid sobriety.94 However, it also suggests the multifaceted
functions and communicative nuances in van Cleve’s portraits pitched at
different target audiences.
Eleanor of Austria’s definition in portraits showing the diluted facial
contours of her Habsburg kin also appears to be an outcome of her role as
queen consort of François I. In addition to the multiple private and public
social functions performed by portraits, Renaissance rulers followed ancient
precedent and invested in permanent and peripatetic court portraitists to
devise and duplicate salient likenesses that reinforced political legitimacy
through familial resemblance.95 Portraits played a vital role in transmuting
the Habsburg dynasty’s genetic disfigurement of mandibular prognathism
(Habsburg jaw) into a powerful physiognomic symbol of imperial resolve.96
Charles V’s early portrait record, before he grew a beard, appears to have
delineated the physical severity of his affliction under the protection of
this physiognomic bias.97 In contrast, Eleanor of Austria’s early portrait by
94 Rosenthal, p. 205; Yates, pp. 1–28; Tanner, pp. 119–30; Matthews, 2003, pp. 188–89.

95 A large nose was an established physiognomic symbol perpetuated in portraits of the Valois
kings. On the symbolism of François I’s long nose in his portraits, see Mansfield, 2016, pp. 60–64.
Maximilian I’s inheritance of his father’s hooked nose was also accentuated in his portraits.
Physiognomic theory designated an aquiline nose as an exterior sign of imperial dignity or
‘regal spirit’: see Gauricus, p. 147.
96 See Rubbrecht; Thompson and Winter, pp. 838–42; Wolff, Wienker, and Sander.
97 Refer to the following examples: Anonymous Flemish artist, Emperor Charles V, c. 1514–1516,
oil on panel, 43.8 × 32.2 cm, Royal Collection, inv. no. RCIN 403439; and Bernard van Orley,
Charles V, c. 1520–1522, oil on panel, 72 × 51.5 cm, Szepmüvèsti Muzeum, Budapest, inv. no. 1335.
Profiles on medal obverses by Hans Schwarz (c. 1492–1521) also showcased the emperor’s angular
face: Charles V, c. 1520, bronze medal, 6.5 cm diam., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The
van Orley (Fig 6.3) mitigates signs of the Habsburg jaw to meet Renaissance
ideals of feminine beauty and enhance her desirability on the international
marriage market. This may also have been due to the fact, established
in modern medical diagnoses, that this ‘autosomal dominant trait’ usu-
ally affects ‘males more severely than females’.98 However, the theory and
practice of Renaissance portraiture advocated excessive verisimilitude
be tempered to create the most agreeable likeness of the sitter. Charles V
patronized Tiziano Vecelli (c. 1488/90–1576), commonly known as Titian,
as his prime image-maker in the 1530s and 1540s because of the Venetian
painter’s ingeniously idealized physical interpretations of his innate imperial
virtue.99
Imaginably, the Habsburg jaw was an aesthetically challenging trait for
the women of the dynasty despite the Renaissance rhetorical principle that
‘all good women are beautiful’.100 Whereas Charles V’s ‘extremely deformed
jaw did not permit the upper and lower teeth or the mouth to close’, Eleanor
of Austria’s left facing profile rendered on a boxwood game piece displays
a rather more subtle extension of her chin and protruding lower lip with
slightly open mouth.101 The conventional feminine softness of her facial
outline contrasts the harder prof ile of her sister, Mary of Hungary, on
another game board token, dated to around 1535, attributed to Hans Kels
(1508/10–1565).102 The younger regent’s conspicuously protracted jaw (and
slight dorsal hump of her nose) not only alludes to her imperial resolve, but
also her reputed vigor and active political leadership in the Netherlands by
way of her right facing profile, which replicates Mary of Burgundy’s game
piece profile.103 Reflecting her real political power, reputed energy, and
combative nature, Mary of Hungary’s dynamism would also be expressed
facial template outlined in the numerous versions of Schwarz’s medal was also used to depict
Charles V’s profile portraits in panel paintings, woodcut prints, and a shallow relief sculpture in
stone by Loys Hering after Hans Schwarz, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no. 4371. On
the positive intellectual connotations of Charles V’s high forehead and blue eyes, see Burke, p. 408.
98 Thompson and Winter, pp. 838–39.
99 Freedman, pp. 115–43.
100 Goffen, p. 64; Lozano, p. 153. Scholarship on Renaissance (poetic) ideals of femininity,
beauty and portraiture is extensive; see the bibliographic list of primary and secondary sources
in Firenzuola, pp. xliii–xlv.
101 Unknown German artist, Eleanor of Austria, c. 1530s, boxwood game piece (roundel), 54 mm
diam., Paris, Musée du Louvre; Wethey, p. 19. On Habsburg game boards, see Wilson-Chevalier,
pp. 474–524; Eichberger, 2010, pp. 123–39.
102 Attributed to Hans Kels, Mary of Hungary, c. 1535, boxwood game piece (roundel), Kunst
historisches, Vienna, inv. no. KK 3868; see Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 478, 482, n. 26.
103 Wilson-Chevalier, p. 485, n. 32. Mary of Hungary’s profile is strongly evocative of right-facing
profiles of Charles V in medals attributed to Hans Schwarz, which spawned portraits (dated to
194 Lisa Mansfield
in a full-length bronze sculpture, executed by Leone Leoni around 1555,

which bypassed the traditional artistic boundaries of gender and power in
Renaissance portraiture through its imperial grandeur and audacious use of
materials.104 Margaret of Austria had also demonstrated her physiognomic
discernment in seeking the ‘faithful representation’ of her family members
in the formation of her portrait collection.105 According to the anecdotal
testimony of Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme (c. 1540–1614),
Eleanor of Austria was acutely curious about the origins of the Habsburg
jaw; having allegedly scrutinized the effigies of the Burgundian royal tombs
in Dijon, she exclaimed:
Ah! I thought we did take our mouths from them of Austria; but by
what I see here we seem rather to get them from Mary of Burgundy, our
ancestress, and the Dukes of Burgundy, our ancestors. If ever I see the
Emperor, my brother, I will tell him; nay! I will write him at once.106
The portraits of Eleanor of Austria as queen of France by van Cleve and

Limosin fabricated flattering facial templates without forfeiting Habsburg
signs of identity in her thin oblong bone structure, narrow jaw, small pursed
mouth with fleshy lips, and hooded eye lids topped with fine linear brows.107
However, van Cleve’s painting stretches the boundary between generic
beauty and physiognomic likeness in the soft curve and smudgy outline
around her chin and left cheek.108 Likewise, the decorative high collar that
conceals her neck in Limosin’s enamel plaque of 1536 (Fig. 6.4) fashions a
pretty white ruff that diminishes the extreme pointedness of her jawline
by mirroring the paleness of her porcelain complexion. The curved frame
for the lower face is replicated in the small rigid ruff worn by her daughter,
the early 1520s) of the emperor in anonymous paintings and derivative prints by Daniel Hopfer
(woodcuts held in Staatliche Museen, Berlin inv. no. 240-1974) and elsewhere.
104 Van Wyhe, pp. 135–68.
105 Eichberger and Beaven, pp. 227–28. Charles V also placed high value on accurate likeness in
portraits of his spouse, Isabel of Portugal (1503–1539), Holy Roman Empress: see Lozano, p. 150;
Checa Cremades, p. 275.
106 Cited in Jollet, p. 104.
107 The queen’s face is given explicit delineation (compact mouth with slightly distended, fleshy
lower lip, in a three-quarter-posed likeness) on the boxwood game piece attributed to Hans Kels,
Game piece with Eleanor of Austria/France, c. 1535, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no.
KK 3866: see Wilson-Chevalier, p. 485.
108 In the Lisbon portrait of Eleanor of Austria by Joos van Cleve, the queen raises her hands
(with no rings visible on any of her fingers), as if on an invisible parapet, holding a single ruby
ring between the two forefingers of her right hand.
Figure 6.4 Léonard Limosin, Eleanor of Austria, 1536
Enamel plaque. Musée national de la Renaissance, Écouen, inv. CI 2 520 (© RMN-Grand Palais
(musée de la Renaissance, Château d’Écouen) / Droits réservés)
196 Lisa Mansfield
Maria of Portugal, in her betrothal portrait, and is used to similar effect in

Titian’s portraits of the mature emperor with a beard. Eleanor of Austria’s
French-style costume and headdress worn in the enamel plaque was likely
due to her amiable nature and ‘assimilation’ after six years at the French
court.109 Nevertheless, it was not until 1537 that François I reportedly urged
his Habsburg queen consort to adopt the fashions native to his kingdom
permanently and dismissed most of her Spanish entourage.110 Her willingness
to oblige the king’s request is confirmed in a drawing attributed to the
Clouet workshop, dated to around 1540.111 There is no mistaking, however,
Eleanor of Austria’s distinctive Habsburg face in either the enamel plaque
or chalk sketch.
Unica semper avis (‘The bird that is ever unique’)
Symbolic layers of Habsburg collective identity and personalized imagery

also pervade Eleanor of Austria’s impresa of the phoenix in flames, and Latin
motto (derived from Ovid) ‘Unica semper avis’.112 The wondrous beauty and
regenerative immolation of the mystical creature mingled classical allegory
as an ancient Roman sign of filial pietas with the Christian tradition, alluding
to both Christ’s Resurrection and the Virgin Mary’s perfect chastity.113
Eleanor of Austria’s adoption of the burning phoenix as queen consort
of François I not only demonstrated her sensitive erudition and clarity of
purpose, but, like her portraits, confirmed her cultural capacity and political
agency as an image-maker. The legendary bird was not only aligned with
Charles V’s imperial eagle, but also complemented François I’s impresa of
the flaming salamander, epitomizing the symbolic dimension of her role
as family moderator and international mediator in allusion to ‘the empire
on which the sun never sets’.114 As Annemarie Jordan Gschwend explains,
Eleanor of Austria’s inimitable presence as ‘a symbol of light promising
peace, deliverance and reconciliation’, articulated by the Governor of Paris
at her first royal entry, was matched only by her status as the first woman
109 Wilson-Chevalier, p. 507.

110 Anderson, 1981, p. 222; Wilson-Chevalier, p. 507, n. 74.
111 Workshop of François Clouet, Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France, c. 1540, black chalk,
sanguine, 31 × 22.6 cm, Musée Condé, Chantilly, inv. no. MN24 B275. On Eleanor’s close working
relationship with the Clouets, see Wilson-Chevalier, pp. 492–93.
112 Nigg, pp. 221–22.
113 Jeffrey, pp. 611–12.
114 Scheicher, pp. 54–55; Mansfield, 2016, p. 18.
in a long line of future Habsburg queen consorts to hold royal office at the
French court.115
In this context, the portraits of Eleanor of Austria are a tacit reminder of
the triumphant Habsburg infiltration of the French kingdom. The emotive
psychology and political ambition embedded in the queen consort’s symbolic
vocabulary was amplified by her use of portraits to adapt the contours of
her physical identity with communicative nuance and stylistic panache.
Portraits disseminated a perpetual public record of Eleanor of Austria’s
physiognomic resemblance with both her esteemed feminine lineage and
immediate Habsburg kin in a decisive — political and personal — episode
of history for both the Habsburg dynasty and Valois monarchy. Put simply,
the French queen consort’s portrait record was formed out of her poign-
ant and quixotic personal narrative, which activated her agency as an
image-maker and resulted in a permanent record of recognition. Although
she was repositioned at the unwelcoming yet sumptuous French court,
Eleanor of Austria’s portraits, both humble and imperial, distinguished and
commemorated her face — and pride of place — in the Habsburg dynastic
framework of sibling devotion.
The pragmatism underpinning the gendered lessons of her cultural and
political heritage honed under the guidance of Margaret of Austria, one of
the most powerful women politicians and patrons of the Renaissance, would
empower the queen dowager to rise again after the death of François I as an
accomplished patron of portraiture at Mary of Hungary’s court in Brussels
from 1548.116 While Eleanor of Austria’s power was universally contained
and concentrated within the political ideals and ambitions of the Habsburg
collective, her individual identity as the first Habsburg French queen consort
could not be repressed despite François I’s unreceptiveness. She endured
the challenging conditions of her second marriage with a subdued style
of self-confidence, discipline, determination, and feminine grace. These
inimitable personal qualities not only buttressed her role as the devoted
sister of her siblings and most intimate ally of the emperor, but also provided
a foundation for her self-directed approach to image-making. Eleanor of
Austria’s portraits executed at the French court heightened her visibility
as a unique queen consort and an agent of empire during the apogee of the
genre of Renaissance portraiture.
115 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2576; Patrouch, pp. 32–33.

116 Jordan Gschwend, 2010, p. 2583; Woodall, pp. 202, 215–16, 218.
198 Lisa Mansfield
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About the author
Lisa Mansfield is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the University of Adelaide.

Her doctoral dissertation on royal image-making at the French Renaissance
court, completed at the University of Melbourne in 2005, formed the basis
for her book, Representations of Renaissance Monarchy: Francis I and the
Image-Makers (Manchester University Press, 2016). In 2017, she was awarded
a Kress Fellowship by the RSA (Renaissance Society of America) at the CRRS
(Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies), University of Toronto,
for research towards the development of a monograph on the portraits of
the sixteenth-century Dutch artist–polymath Jan van Scorel.
Part III
The Power of Creative Voices
7. Family Female Networking in Early
Sixteenth-Century France
The Power of Text and Image
Cynthia J. Brown
Abstract
This study examines the visual and textual staging of four interrelated
mother–daughter relationships in commissioned books. Through a com-
parative analysis of a primer Anne of Brittany had confected for Claude de
France; a prayer book Claude had designed for her sister, Renée of France;
a manual of moral comportment Anne de France dedicated to Suzanne de
Bourbon (Enseignements à ma fille); a prayer book Louise de Savoie gifted
to Marguerite d’Angoulême and her first husband, Charles d’Alençon; and
the role of Marguerite’s daughter Jeanne d’Albret in assuring the enduring
legacy of her mother’s Heptaméron, I argue that this remarkable women’s
network promoted an image of feminine pedigree and artistic creativity
that gradually reached beyond the French court.
Keywords: Claude de France, Anne of Brittany, Louise de Savoie, Margue-

rite de Navarre, Jeanne d’Albret, networks, cultural patronage, religious
engagement
Since scholars began investigating medieval and early modern culture from
a feminist perspective, a number of strides have been made in understand-
ing the transmission of knowledge among women during this period and
the intellectual empowerment they derived from such exchanges. One
productive area of such research has centered on the creation, acquisition,
and circulation of books making up noble women’s libraries in Europe.
These connections often encompassed mother–daughter–sister or religious
sister-to-sister lineages as well as noteworthy male–female and female–male
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch07
210 C ynthia J. Brown
associations.1 As reliable documentation about a woman’s cultural upbring-

ing and influence is often hard to come by, scholars can turn to their books,
those written about, dedicated to, commissioned, or purchased by them,
for evidence of their intellectual interests and cultural impact on others.2
Noble women did not often wield political power as sovereign rulers in their
own right in the French kingdom, owing to Salic law — Anne de France and
Louise de Savoie who ruled as temporary regents, and Anne de Bretagne
who ruled her own duchy while queen of France, represent exceptions. The
contents of their libraries, however, provide evidence of both active pursuit
of intellectual empowerment, and promotion of their cultural knowledge
through the circulation of these books, many of which provided moral
grounding for their readers within their families and at their courts. In this
sense, elite women of early sixteenth-century France exercised significant
cultural influence over others, especially other women. This kind of power,
though, is less easily measured than the political control of French kings
or princes, who, of course, also sought to exert cultural influence through
construction of their own libraries.
Yet, in many ways, women activated more extensive, diverse, and trans-
cultural networks than their male counterparts, for they were the ones
who introduced their family’s artistic and intellectual traditions into the
foreign domains, dynasties, or countries with which they often became
affiliated through marriage. Indeed, one measurable dimension of this
hybrid acculturation can be gleaned from the books young foreign brides
transported with them to their new households, volumes often marked by
their parents’ coats of arms suggesting they were family or even wedding
gifts — or were inherited after their parents’ death. Isabel of Portugal
(1397–1471) was probably one of the few who sent books back to her native
Portugal after they had been translated into Portuguese from the French of
Burgundy, the territory of her husband Philip the Good (1396–1467).3 Isabel
thus ingeniously exploited her marriage. Accessing new forms of ‘foreign’
knowledge through her politically and culturally influential husband, she
then sought to strengthen the intellectual power of her natal dynasty by
imparting that culture to her birth family.
1 For details about some of these associations, see Hughes, Holladay, Eichberger, and Hand.
There is also evidence that a ‘sharing’ of the same books occurred (see C.J. Brown, 2010; Hand,
pp. 13–14).
2 Ashley considers books of hours as transmitters of cultural identity, and Hand speaks of the
multi-functionality of books of hours in preserving family devotional and cultural traditions
(p. 8). Not only books of hours functioned in these ways.
3 Willard, p. 310.
Family Female Ne t working in Early Six teenth- Century Fr ance 211
Research Challenges and Achievements in Reconstructing

Women’s Libraries
The power to create an identity as a cultural figure through her legacy as a

book owner after death must have figured, consciously or unconsciously,
as an objective of the early sixteenth-century French aristocratic woman,
although the control that she wielded over the posthumous maintenance
and dissemination of her library as a unit was, in many cases, limited. In
fact, reconstructing the libraries of women and their reading and writing
networks remains a distinct challenge, for the incomplete and disparate
nature of available documents may offer only partial insight into these
cultural dynamics. While noble men’s deaths typically precipitated the
creation of official inventories of their book collections, these catalogues
have not always enlightened us about the existence or contents of the librar-
ies of their widows. Indeed, women’s libraries were frequently assimilated
into men’s collections without differentiation of ownership. Many such
manuscripts might bear spouses’ joint coats of arms, but these can make it
difficult to ascertain the role the woman might have played in the acquisi-
tion of a particular codex and why. Combing the inventories of women’s
husbands, brothers, sons, and even uncles can, however, reveal works that
were originally designed for their female relatives.4 That women’s books were
not always inventoried upon death increases the difficulty of reconstituting
their holdings.5 Even if extant inventories are to be found, descriptions of
books are often incomplete or so vague that a work might not be recogniz-
able. In a superb reconstruction of the library of the French queen Jeanne
d’Évreux (1310–1371), Joan Holladay demonstrated how scholars must still
comb through a variety of documents, even when inventories exist.6
4 For example, Bonne de Luxembourg’s books appear in the inventories of her sons, Charles V
and Jean de Berry, while those of Jeanne de Bourbon, wife of Charles V, are known only through the
inventories of her husband, brother-in-law (Jean de Berry) and son Charles VI. Margaret of Bavaria’s
books are described in the inventory of her son, Philippe le Bon (Hand, pp. 13–14, 15–17, 22).
5 Book inventories, often made after death, exist for: Jeanne de Navarre (1305) (E.A.R. Brown,
2010); Jeanne d’Évreux (1371), her daughter Blanche d’Orléans (1392), Clémence of Hungary (1328),
Valentina Visconti (1408) (E.A.R. Brown, 2013b; E.A.R. Brown, 2013a; Holladay, pp. 69, 82–84,
86); Margaret of Flanders (1405) (Hughes); Margaret of Bavaria (1423) (Hand, p. 22); Charlotte
de Savoie (Legaré, 2001); Isabel of Portugal, (Sommé, 1989); Isabeau of Bavaria (1401), Marie de
Clèves (1487), Anne de France (1507, 1523), Margaret of Austria (1499, 1523), Anne de Chabannes
(1500–1502) (E.A.R. Brown and Claerr); and Joanna of Castile (1545) (Hand, pp. 18, 27–28, 37,
41). No known inventories exist for Anne de Bretagne, her daughters Claude and Renée, or for
Margaret of York, among others.
6 See Holladay.
We should remember also that women did not always choose their own
books. Frequently, beautifully illuminated devotional texts, such as prayer
books or books of hours, were offered to women by their advisers or parents
(masculine and feminine), often when they were learning to read or in
commemoration of their marriages, to encourage them to a life of virtuous
conduct. This is a kind of ‘double bind’ for the researcher attempting to
understand and define the tastes and interests of female readers of the
medieval period.7 However, Susan Groag Bell showed in her seminal article
about female ‘cultural ambassadors’ that women’s desire for vernacular works
in the fourteenth century prompted the dramatic change in book production
from an emphasis on liturgical works for an ecclesiastical readership to the
proliferation of devotional books targeting a female audience.8
Distinguishing whether manuscripts and early printed books in women’s
libraries were inherited, gifted, purchased, or commissioned thus becomes a
critical part of the scholarly objective.9 Researchers should seek to understand
the role played by family and society in molding women’s interests, the
extent to which females might have embraced and pursued these learned
ideologies, the manner in which they might have shaped or reshaped their
own literary, cultural, and intellectual aspirations, and the extent to which
their personal ambitions influenced and empowered others, particularly
female family members and entourages. A close examination of those very
books known to have constituted part of a women’s library in the medieval
or early modern period can contribute in a constructive fashion to such
inquiries. This detective work often involves scrutinizing the manuscripts
and early printed books associated with women’s families as cultural
artifacts. It involves interpreting more carefully coats of arms as signs of
ownership (sometimes a female heraldic device has been misread as that
of her husband).10 It also entails reading prologues, rubrics, inscriptions,
and colophons, which may provide veiled references to (female) dedicatees
and owners, studying the texts themselves, and decoding the relationship
between illustrations and the texts they accompany in order to discern how
these codices were acquired and why. Like most medieval investigations, this
7 L’Estrange, p. 35.
8 Bell.
9 On gifts, see, for example, Buettner, 2004; Davis; and Orth, 2001. On gifts with a focus on
Margaret of Austria, see Eichberger.
10 For example, some scholars attributed Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), ms. 2222 to
Louis XI, Charlotte de Savoie’s husband, based on the coat of arms that appears on the opening
folio, when, in fact, it is Charlotte’s own coat of arms that is displayed. For details, see C.J. Brown,
2016b.
constitutes an interdisciplinary enterprise involving scholarship in the fields

of history, art history, codicology, literature, culture, and history of the book.
Considerable research in this arena has taken place. Madeline Caviness’s
analysis of early medieval female patronage and John Parsons’s research on
thirteenth-century Plantagenet queens in the 1990s have been pivotal to the
field, but much work remains to be done.11 The influence of prominent female
patrons in the production of illustrated books from the thirteenth to the
sixteenth centuries has been recognized — that of Jeanne d’Évreux, Charlotte
de Savoie (1443–1483), Marie de Berry (1375–1434), Gabrielle de la Tour (c.
1422–1486), Anne de France (1461–1524), Isabella d’Este (1474–1539), Anne de
Bretagne (1477–1514), Louise de Savoie (1476–1531), and Margaret of Austria
(1480–1530), to name a few. However, many facets of their cultural impact on
the art of bookmaking and intellectual networking are still unexplored, as
well as the contributions of lesser known and still understudied women in a
variety of countries. Anne-Marie Legaré’s in-depth research into the libraries
of Jeanne de Laval (1433–1498) and Charlotte de Savoie, her comparative
analyses of the collections of Margaret of York (1446–1503) and Margaret
of Austria, and her edited collection, Livres et lectures de femmes en Europe
entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance present enlightening studies of cultural
advances generated by a wide-ranging number of women who inherited
books from their fathers and mothers, brought books to their marriage as
part of their dowries, borrowed books from their husbands, and received
books as gifts.12 Joni Hand’s 2013 survey of devotional manuscripts belonging
to, or commissioned as gifts for others by women associated with the House
of Valois provides a valuable review of research into many women’s libraries
and insightful analyses of the significance of feminized images, coats of arms,
and inscriptions in a selection of devotional books that project women’s
political, cultural, and genealogical claims as well as their spiritual concerns.13
The 22 articles in a volume that I recently co-edited with Legaré expand
our understanding of the cultural roles played by a host of celebrated and
lesser-known female book owners in France, England, Germany, and Italy
in the textual and iconographical crafting of secular and religious works.14
Among these many investigations, Brigitte Buettner’s 2004 study of the
system of objects in the will of Blanche de Navarre (1330–1398), Queen of
Philip VI (1293–1350), stands out for its innovative viewpoint of female
11 See Caviness; Parsons.

12 See Legaré, 2001 and Legaré, 2005; as well as Legaré, 1985 and Legaré, 1996.
13 Hand.
14 C.J. Brown and Legaré.
networking in the Middle Ages. It serves as a reference point for case studies
of individual female’s libraries and their intellectual exchanges. Focusing
on what she calls an art of the circulation of things, Buettner explores the
genealogy of nine generations of objects bequeathed to women that funneled
down to Blanche de Navarre before being passed on.15 She theorizes that
the value of these objects, including books, which were among the most
prized possessions of noble families, lay in their provenance. That is, their
value resided not only in their material cost and the dynastic symbolism
they promoted, but also in their role as cultural artifacts and instruments
of knowledge, which had been leafed through by female forebears and
then passed down to their female heirs, creating a kind of female lineage
(‘parenté féminine’) in the transmission of cultural wisdom.16 What was
constructed through the transferral of books (and other cultural objects)
by these female legators, and what is inscribed in the material reality of
these volumes, is cultural memory as these women became historically
visible through their bequests.
This study resituates Buettner’s concept of parenté féminine in a later
period by examining how a selection of manuscript and printed books that
women had confected for other women during their lifetimes visually and
verbally staged, defined, and empowered several interrelated family female
pairings during the reigns of Louis XII (1462–1515), François I (1494–1547),
and Henri II (1519–1559), namely: Anne de Bretagne and her daughter Claude
de France (1499–1524); Claude and her sister Renée de France (1510–74);
Anne de France and her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521); and
Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), her mother, Louise de Savoie, and
daughter, Jeanne d’Albret (1528–1572). Through a comparative analysis of text,
image, gift-giving, and ‘publication’ activity related to one particular book
associated with each coupling, I argue that this extraordinarily dynamic
constellation of women’s networks promoted an image of feminine pedigree,
power, artistic creativity, and authorial influence — both Anne de France
and Marguerite de Navarre were authors in their own right —, marked
by (changing) Christian and moral values, that gradually reached beyond
the confines of the French court thanks to their literary and pedagogical
engagement and the emerging print culture.
15 ‘un art de la circulation de choses’, Buettner, 2004, p. 2. Buettner considers Blanche de
Navarre’s networks with female family members during her long widowhood as a kind of female
laboratory, where the tools necessary for the management and the defense of dynastic interests,
especially of the dower, were sharpened, where models of women of social status were influential,
and where religious, cultural, and artistic practices were shared and transmitted (p. 5).
16 Buettner, 2004, p. 18.
Although the research cited above into women’s libraries and their
potential cultural impact might not always overtly consider their activities
as modes of empowerment, that claim implicitly underpins much of this
scholarship. My study contributes to those discussions by introducing
explicitly a lens through which female intellectual authority in the early
sixteenth-century can be measured.
Mother–Daughter Networking
A brief summary of female networking in the Anne de Bretagne–Claude

de France and Anne de France–Suzanne de Bourbon pairings will set the
stage for a discussion of the workings of parenté féminine associated with the
sisters, Claude de France and Renée de France, and Marguerite de Navarre
and her mother and daughter. It is not surprising that these groupings
were interrelated, given the many bloodlines and political alliances that
united members of the French nobility during this period. For example,
Anne de Bretagne and Anne de France were sisters-in-law (1491–1498)
as were Claude de France and Marguerite de Navarre (1514–1524), while
Marguerite’s mother Louise de Savoie, raised by Anne de France when her
mother (Marguerite de Bourbon, 1438–1483) died in 1483, in turn became
Claude’s and Renée’s surrogate mother upon the death of Anne de Bretagne
in 1514. In addition, Renée shared spiritual beliefs with both Marguerite and
her daughter Jeanne d’Albret. These family clusters imply that intellectual
and cultural interactions of consequence took place among the dynastic
houses in which these women played critical roles, even though records of
such exchanges do not always confirm these mutual interests.17 Of note
is the fact that, although Claude de France is one of the least researched
among these women, she stands at the nexus of the cluster of female family
networks under investigation here.
Parenté féminine clearly defines the pedagogical and intellectual networks
that Anne de France established with her daughter through the gift of
her own Enseignements (Lessons) to Suzanne de Bourbon, a transaction
illustrated in the opening dedication miniature of the manuscript copy of
17 Although there is little information about Anne de Bretagne’s relationship with Claude
and Renée, Claude’s relationship with Renée, or Anne de France’s relationship with Suzanne,
Marguerite’s letters provide some insight into her relationship with Claude of France, her mother,
and daughter. See, for example, Briçonnet. On the verse exchange between Marguerite and
Jeanne, see Kupisz.
the work that the mother had prepared for her daughter sometime before
Suzanne’s marriage to Charles de Bourbon (1490–1527) in May 1505 (Fig. 7.1).18
Although the manuscript disappeared from the Saint Petersburg Library
many decades ago (see below), A.-M. Chazaud’s 1878 edition of Anne’s teach-
ings features Armand Queyroy’s engraved reproduction of this original
miniature, thereby providing scholars with access to the probable cultural
circumstances surrounding this interchange.19 This image is exceptional
in its portrayal of a female family network in action, as Anne de France
conveys special knowledge to her daughter from her own principles of
moral conduct. The group of fifteen to 20 women in the center background,
Anne’s female entourage at court, witness and likely listen to this uniquely
depicted mother–daughter interaction and appear to partake in it, if only
as auditors of the ideas and words exchanged between the two women,
who read and/or discuss the manuscript books they hold. Significantly,
visual focus here is placed not on the actual reception of a work by its
dedicatee as convention dictated, but rather on the very dissemination
of the material contained in the book, which included advice to summon
the aid of the Virgin in imitating her virtuous behavior. Anne de France’s
incorporation of her own image and arms, cultural guidance, and intellectual
engagement with Suzanne in the latter’s personal and personalized copy of
the Enseignements; that is, the mother’s sharing of paratextual and textual
space with her daughter, guaranteed the posterity of this family female
network, at least within court circles.
It was thanks to the initiative taken by Suzanne that her mother’s book
enjoyed a broader legacy. Sometime before her untimely death in 1521, she
had the Enseignements printed by the Lyonnais printer Pierre de Sainte
Lucie (c. 1490–1558), thereby providing considerably wider access to her
mother’s directives about ladies’ proper comportment. Suzanne’s — and
her mother’s — illustrious lineage were prominently inscribed on the title
page of this edition, and although she died without any heirs to whom she
might have transmitted her mother’s teachings, Suzanne incorporated a
new female network into her parenté féminine that engaged both noble
and middle-class women outside the Bourbon court circle.20 She could not
18 Saint Petersburg Library, MS Fr. Q. v. III. 2.

19 The summary in this and the following paragraph is drawn from a more detailed and
expanded analysis of the Enseignements manuscript and its opening image in C.J. Brown, 2016a,
pp. 176–82.
20 The title page of this undated edition (which lacks a title) reads: ‘A la requeste de treshaulte
et puissante princesse ma dame Susanne de Bourbon, femme de tresillustre et puissant prince:
monseigneur Charles duc de Bourbon, et Dauuvergne, et de Chastellerault: Connestable, Per,
Figure 7.1 Anne de France’s dedication of her Enseignements to her daughter

Suzanne de Bourbon
From Les Enseignements d’Anne de France, duchesse de Bourbonnois et d’Auvergne à sa fille Susanne
de Bourbon, ed. by A.-M. Chazaud (Moulins, 1878), p. XLII
& Chambrier de France: & fille de treshaulte et tresexcellente dame madame Anne de France,
duchesse desdictes duchez; fille et seur des roys Loys. xj. & Charles. viij.’ (‘Upon the request of
the most noble and powerful princess, Madame Suzanne of Bourbon, wife of the most renowned
and powerful prince, my lord Charles, Duke of Bourbon and Auvergne and Chastellerault,
Constable, Peer and Chamberlain of France; and daughter of the most noble and most excellent
lady, Madame Anne of France, Duchess of said duchies; sister and daughter of Kings Louis XI
and Charles VIII.’) For further details, see Kemp, pp. 179–81, and Baudrier, pp. 159–60.
have known that through her actions her mother’s legacy would extend to
one of the most remarkable intellectuals of the period, namely Marguerite
de Navarre, who replaced Suzanne and Anne as the honored female on the
title-page of the 1535 edition of the Enseignements.21
Suzanne’s involvement in the relatively new print culture anticipates a
similar level of participation on the part of Marguerite’s daughter Jeanne
d’Albret nearly 25 years later in her successful posthumous effort to ensure
the legacy of her mother’s Heptaméron. The dedication by Parisian editor (and
Margaret’s valet de chambre), Simon Silvius of his 1547 edition of Marguerite
de Navarre’s Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses (‘Pearls of the
Pearl of Princesses’), a collection of the queen’s poems and thoughts on
religious subjects, to the nineteen-year-old Jeanne d’Albret united mother
and daughter together in the same paratextual space, and introductory verses
promoted the image of an authoritative female pairing to the general public.22
However, even more significant was the action that Jeanne d’Albret took to
resurrect her mother’s lost authorship of the Heptaméron, as a result of the
spurious 1558 posthumous publication of the work by Pierre Boaistuau (c.
1517–1566).23 Not only had the Parisian author served as editor of a corrupted
version of Marguerite’s narratives and debates about appropriate behavior
in love relationships by ten storytellers (an unfinished collection inspired
by Boccaccio’s Decameron, which Marguerite had left incomplete upon
21 The title page reads: ‘A tresillvstre et pvissante princesse et Dame, Madame Marguerite de
France, Royne de Nauarre, Duchesse d’Alencon, et de Berry, Comtesse d’Armagnac, auec humble
reuerence prompte et f idelité seruitude, par vng vostre treshumble seruiteur, Iehan Barril
marchant de Thoulouze, par vng vray zelle presente, Salut et paix.’ (‘To the most renowned and
powerful princess and lady, Madame Margaret of France, Queen of Navarre, Duchess of Alençon
and of Berry, Countess of Armagnac, with humble reverence, ready and faithful service, from
your most humble servant, John Barril, merchant of Toulouse, with a true zealous presence,
greetings and peace.’) See Kemp, p. 181.
22 The title page of the work Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses (Lyons: Jean de Tournes,
1547), celebrates the author, and the dedication title (p. 3) similarly praises Jeanne d’Albret.
An introductory poem describes the direct links between daughter and mother, claiming, for
example: ‘Or des vertus qui en elle reluysent, / Et des haults fruits que ses esprits produisent,
/ Raison veult bien qu’en sois totalement / Vraye heritiere; & desia vrayment / Chacun te iuge
estre la vraye Idee / De ses vertus & bonté collaudee: / De bonne mœurs & d’honneur le fontal /
Chacun te dit, & son pourtrait total’ (p. 7). (‘Reason desires that you be absolutely the true heir
of the virtues that shine in her and the lofty fruits that her mind produces; and already, truly,
all judge you to be the true idea of her virtues and praised goodness: everyone says you are the
fountain of good manners and honor and her complete portrait.’) Navarre, 1547b. 1547.
23 See Courbet, pp. 283–85. Roelker explains that Jeanne destroyed Boaistuau’s edition by
buying up all the copies (p. 248). On the publication of the manuscript and print editions of the
Heptaméron, see Broomhall, and Lefèvre.
her death in 1549), but Boaistuau had also invented its title, Histoires des
Amans fortunez (‘Stories of Fortunate Lovers’), included only 67 of the 72
existing narrative-discussions, and failed to name the author of the work.
Jeanne addressed these egregious oversights by initiating the printing of a
‘complete’ edition of the work in 1559, edited by the Parisian Claude Gruget
(d. 1560), whose publication not only contained the 72 stories Marguerite
had finished before her demise, provided a better organized collection,
and adopted the more relevant title ‘L’Heptaméron’, but also featured the
author front and center on the title page.24 The elaborately presented tribute
to Marguerite on the cover of the 1559 edition identifies her as the ‘most
illustrious and most excellent princess, Marguerite de Valois, Queen of
Navarre’ and Gruget’s title-page announcement of his dedication to Jeanne
d’Albret ensured the daughter’s place beside her mother on the first page
of the printed book.25 Following in the footsteps of Marguerite de Navarre,
who had been involved in the publication of several of her works while still
alive, Jeanne guaranteed that her mother’s name would remain associated
with what is recognized as one of her most important works.26
Parenté féminine surfaces in two-fold symmetrical fashion through an
ingenious doubling of female networks in the liminal and final miniatures
of the Primer of Claude de France.27 Like the Enseignements, this manuscript
book features female teaching-and-learning alliances. It was created (al-
though not written) for a daughter, Claude de France, around 1505 by her
mother Anne de Bretagne, provided guidelines for religious and moral
instruction, and visually staged the mother and daughter, here in parallel
images (Figs. 7.2, 7.3).28 Once again the transmission of Christian-based
wisdom and edification by and for females rather than the dedication or
gifting of a book to a female dedicatee is portrayed. The double pairing
of mothers and daughters, Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary instructing
Anne de Bretagne in the first image (Fig. 7.2) and the holy mother and
daughter providing religious inspiration to Claude de France in the second
24 See Navarre, 1559.

25 ‘tresillvstre et tresexcellente princesse Margverite de Valois Royne de Nauarre’, ‘Remis en
son ordre, confus auparauant en sa premiere impression: & dedié à tresillustre & tresvertueuse
Princesse Ieanne de Foix Royne de Nauarre, par Claude Gruget Parisien’. (‘Rearranged in its
original order, having been previously disordered in its first printing, and dedicated to the most
illustrious and most virtuous princess, Jeanne de Foix, Queen of Navarre, by Claude Gruget,
Parisian.’)
26 These include the Marguerites de la Marguerite des Princesses and La Coche (The Coach).
27 Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159.
28 This paragraph summarizes C.J. Brown, 2016a, pp. 182–86.
Figure 7.2 Anne de Bretagne at her prie-dieu before Saint Claude, accompanied

by Saints Anne and Mary
From the Primer of Claude de France, Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 1
(© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
Figure 7.3 Claude of France at her prie-dieu before Saints Anne and Mary,
accompanied by Saint Claude
From the Primer of Claude de France, Cambridge University, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 159, p. 14
(© The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
miniature (Fig. 7.3) depicts what had, by the fourteenth century, become

a well-known female religious paradigm, and anticipates, indeed inspires,
Anne’s sharing of religious knowledge with Claude through her gift of the
book itself.29 This intimate depiction of female networking, characterized by
a mother’s emblems and images placed alongside those of her daughter and
associated with the even more enduring sacred mother-daughter paradigm
of the Catholic tradition exemplifies early sixteenth-century female family
networking in many cases. For example, the Enseignements miniature of
Anne de France and Suzanne de Bourbon discussed above (Fig. 7.1) calls to
mind the famous Moulins Triptych in which the same intimacy of female
networking that characterizes the Primer of Claude de France is in evidence
as Anne de France and Suzanne de Bourbon, with the support of Saint Anne,
kneel before the Virgin in prayer.30
Just as Anne de France had a special manuscript copy of her Enseigne-
ments prepared for Suzanne as a wedding gift, and Anne de Bretagne
gifted a personally confected prayer book to the young Claude de France,
as she was learning to read Latin — both educating and empowering their
daughters with principles of decorous behavior as they were becoming royal
female models —, so too did Louise de Savoie follow tradition by celebrat-
ing the (first) marriage in 1509 of her daughter, Marguerite d’Angoulême,
to Charles d’Alençon (1489–1525), with the gift of an 85-folio illustrated
prayer book sometime between 1522 and 1524.31 Where one might expect
to find a mother–daughter association in emblems and images, Margue-
rite’s prayer book opens with a Latin dedication to the king (Marguerite’s
brother François I), mother, and sister punctuated by the crowned arms of
France (fol. 1), and a family portrait of this ‘Royal Trinity’, each identified
by individual crests (fol. 2).32 In fact, Louise and François take center stage
29 Sheingorn, p. 70. Saint Claude, Claude’s patron saint, figures prominently in each miniature
as well.
30 For a reproduction of this altarpiece, see http://www.wikiart.org/en/jean-hey/the-bourbon-
altarpiece-the-moulins-triptych (accessed 26 January 2017).
31 BnF, ms. nouv. acq. lat. 83. For details see Lembright; and Orth, 2015, I, pp. 231–36. The min-
iaturist has been identified as the Master of the Ango Hours of Rouen. Marguerite d’Angoulême
became Duchess of Alençon in 1509 through her marriage to Charles d’Alençon before becoming
Queen of Navarre through her second marriage in 1526 to Henri de Navarre, following the death
of her first husband.
32 I know of no scenes depicting only Margaret and Louise. Louise’s primary goal was to promote
her son. The dedication reads: ‘O Nobile ternarivm regis matris & sororis vnvm est desiderivm’
(‘O noble trinity, a union of king, mother and sister is greatly desired’). All 29 illustrations in
BnF, nouv. acq. lat. 83 can be accessed at http://mandragore.bnf.fr/jsp/rechercheExperte.jsp
(accessed 26 January 2017).
in this promotional miniature, with Marguerite, the supposed dedicatee,

partially visible behind them, as all three kneel in prayer. Nevertheless,
Louise has her daughter pictured in 23 of the 28 remaining manuscript
miniatures,33 including one that portrays Marguerite and Charles, identi-
fied by their individual coats of arms, in adoration of the infant Jesus (fol.
18). Like her contemporaries’ gifts to their daughters, the images in the
book Louise de Savoie had prepared for Marguerite illustrate her daughter
actively engaged in prayer within a host of biblical narratives, including the
worship of saints. Echoing the two Annes, Louise also had the book’s makers
visually celebrate Marguerite by frequently locating her in a female-centric
world. Nine miniatures feature Marguerite praying at scenes of the Virgin
(or Saint Anne) as mother (the Nativity, Flight into Egypt, Saint Anne and
Joachim, the Virgin’s birth, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Virgin’s
dormition, Mary at the Crucifixion, and the Virgin providing milk to Saint
Bernard), which visually document Louise’s principal aim of encouraging
prayers for producing (male) progeny.34 Indeed, Christ, who appears in
eleven images, is depicted as an infant seven times.35 Despite Marguerite’s
increasingly active engagement with the French Evangelical cause,36 this
prayer book was, according to the scholar Myra Orth, ‘backward-looking,
further reinforcing the connection to Louise’, who did not wholeheartedly
embrace new religious modes as her daughter did.37
These examples of intellectual and cultural female networking reveal
how mothers could transfer their maternal and royal wisdom to daughters
by dedicating books to their offspring, thereby empowering them to serve
as virtuous courtly role models. One could argue that these mothers as-
sumed a new power as educators when their knowledge was more widely
disseminated in print, thanks to their daughters, as in the cases of Anne
de France and Marguerite de Navarre.
33 Orth claims that ‘[t]he assertive presence of Marguerite in most of them is a jarring note
that commands our attention’, Orth, 2015, I, p. 234).
34 Orth, 2015, I, p. 233.
35 These include the infant Jesus’s singular appearance on the opening folio, which contains
the inscribed dedication, and his presence as object of worship in the Royal Trinity miniature
(fol. 2) and the illustration of Margaret and her husband (fol. 18).
36 Compare, for example, Marguerite’s Initiatoire Instruction en la religion chrestienne pour les
enffans (‘Initiatory Instruction in the Christian Religion for Children’), Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal
MS 5096, a manuscript confected later in 1528–29, which ‘resembles a traditional, pious personal
Book of Hours, but in fact it contains two texts that come from the turbulent center of the French
Evangelical Reform of the latter 1520s’ including ‘the first known Evangelical French-language
catechism’, Orth, 2015, I, 122.
37 Orth, 2015, I, p. 233.
Sisterly Networking, Trans-Cultural Shifts
Bolstered too by the visual association between the Virgin Mary and females
in prayer, parenté féminine assumes a different character in the example
of Claude de France and Renée de France. Following the death of Anne de
Bretagne in 1514, Claude, who had become Queen of France in 1515 through
her marriage to François I, stepped into her mother’s shoes in yet another
capacity by raising her younger sister, Renée de France, with her own chil-
dren, and by sharing the role of Renée’s educational, cultural, and spiritual
guide with the king’s mother, Louise de Savoie, and sister, Marguerite de
Navarre.38 Claude’s preservation of her mother’s role of gifting books that
both provided a religious education for her sister and promoted female
networking is clearly embodied in the prayer book that she commissioned
for Renée around 1517 at the time of her own coronation as queen of France.39
Like the eight-year-old Claude, when she received the Primer her mother had
had specially made for her, Renée would have been just seven at the time
her sister presented her with this manuscript. The exquisite miniatures in
this small codex measuring just 4.8″ × 3.5″ (12.2 × 8.8 cm) were painted by
the so-called Master of Claude de France, the artist who also decorated a
tiny prayer book Claude commissioned for herself during the same period.40
Considered to be ‘the most precious and masterly painted prayer book of
the early 16th century’ by its online publishers,41 Les Petites prières de Renée
de France (‘The Little Prayers of Renée de France’) contains twelve richly
gilded miniatures, and all 25 folios are decorated with floral ornaments in
the margins. Unlike the gothic lettering of Claude’s Primer and the bâtarde
characters of Marguerite’s manuscript, the various prayers and texts of
Renée’s prayer book are transcribed in a beautiful Roman script known as
Renaissance humanist script, one that was easier to read. In addition, two
of the Latin texts, the Ten Commandments and the Apostle’s Creed, were
transcribed in French at the end of the little volume.
Whereas the image and heraldic signs of Anne de Bretagne, Anne de
France, and Louise de Savoie had figured prominently in their respective
38 Rodocanachi, pp. 9–18.
39 Wieck argues that Claude ‘used as a model […] the manuscript that her mother had commis-
sioned for Charles-Orland (and that Claude had inherited)’ (p. 127). Charles-Orland (1492–1495)
was the son of Anne de Bretagne and her first husband, Charles VIII; he died at the age of three.
40 Wieck, p. 127.
41 See the Quaternio Verlag website of Les Petites prières de Renée de France, http://www.
faksimile.de/international/editions/productdetail.php?we_objectID=395 (accessed 26 January
2017).
daughters’ books, ensuring the posterity of the mother’s historic visibility

alongside her daughter, Claude does not exhibit evidence of her imprimatur
in Renée’s prayer book, but rather yields to a more owner-centered visual
presentation. Indeed, in five of the twelve miniatures Renée herself takes
center stage; there is no visible sign of Claude’s presence. In fact, we wit-
ness an aging Renée who first appears to be a seven-year-old girl in the
opening folio (Fig. 7.4) — the age at which she received the book from her
sister —while in the subsequent images Renée looks more like an adolescent
(Fig. 7.5). This configuration suggests, then, that the book was envisioned
as a guide that Renée would continue to use as she matured. However,
Claude or her mother could not have predicted the outcome of this religious
education and aftermath of the prayer book itself.
Despite Claude’s discretion as commissioner of Renée’s prayer book, she
nonetheless carried on her mother’s tradition, very likely in cooperation
with the miniaturist, by having the first illustration depict Renée kneeling
at her prie-dieu, before her open prayer book, the very codex gifted to her
by her sister, in an appropriate likeness of a young girl learning to read,
and one that reminds us of the miniature portraying Claude at this early
age in her Primer. Hands folded, Renée’s eyes are not focused on her book,
but rather contemplate the stunning depiction of the Annunciation on the
opposite folio, where the young Virgin herself is similarly staged in prayer
before an open book, which she reads. Renée, presumably motivated by the
scenario before her, is then to repeat the ‘Ave Maria’ prayer transcribed in
Latin on the same folio as her portrait in humanist script, its title ‘The angel
greets the Virgin Mary’ in gold leaf. 42 Once again, it is not the dedication of
the book that is featured but rather the transmission of sacred knowledge
through one of the many prayers mothers commonly taught daughters. 43
Missing, however, is the maternal figure. Neither Saint Anne nor Renée’s
ersatz mother, Claude, appear in either miniature, a conspicuous absence,
given the female alliances involving mothers, daughters, and saints that
exemplified Claude’s Primer, Suzanne’s copy of the Enseignements as well as
the Moulins Triptych, and Marguerite’s prayer book. Whether consciously or
not, this illustration conveys the image of a girl on her own, without family
members, who is meant to re-enact, perhaps on a daily basis, what she
42 ‘La salutation de l’ange a la Vierge Marie’, Les Petites prières de Renée de France, Bibliotheca
Estense Universitaria, Modena, Lat. 614=alfa U.2.28, fol. 6r.
43 Wieck states that the Our Father (Pater noster), Hail Mary (Ave Maria), Apostles’ Creed (Credo),
Graces for Meals (Benedicte Dominus nos and Agimus tibi gratias), and the Act of Confession
(Confiteor) were the basic prayers every Catholic child was expected to memorize (p. 126). These
very prayers open Renée’s prayer book.
Figure 7.4 Renée de France in prayer before the Virgin
From Les Petites prières de Renée de France, Bibliotheca Estense Universitaria, Modena, Lat. 614=alfa
U.2.28, fols. 5v–6r (Su concessione del Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo)
observes in the facing miniature, namely the recitation of the ‘Ave Maria’,
inspired through contemplation of this holy episode in Mary’s life. Religious
knowledge is thereby transmitted directly, in textual and visual terms, from
female saint to female disciple without the intercession or presence of the
Virgin’s holy mother or Renée’s royal mother. Mediated by the image of the
Virgin Mary transcribing and passing down the Credo to the Apostles (fols.
6v–7r), subsequent miniatures illustrate the older Renée in even more direct
association with male holy figures, for within one and the same frame she is
pictured receiving absolution from a bishop following confession (Fig. 7.5),
praying before Christ (fols. 9v–10r), and being blessed by him (fols. 12v–13r).
One miniature illustrating the Misereatur (fol. 8r) portrays Renée alone at
prayer. Such representations of an immediate connection between Renée
and a Catholic bishop, for example, have a certain paradoxical quality when
examined with hindsight, given her eventual Reformist religious leanings.
Renée’s life as Duchess of Ferrara — her marriage in 1528 to Ercole d’Este
(1508–1559), future Duke of Ferrara, was arranged by François I, her former
brother-in-law (Claude had died in 1522) — has decidedly ironic associations
with Claude’s effort to continue family female networking through the
transmission of religious knowledge to her sister in the form of this prayer
book, which, of course, contained strictly Catholic prayers such as the ‘Ave
Maria’ and images of saints revered by Catholics, such as Mary Magdalene,
Saint Helen, and Saint John. On the one hand, The Little Prayers of Renée de
France constituted part of Renée’s dowry when she left France for Ferrara;
she thus transported her sister’s gift and family cultural artifact to a new
country, which embraced the teachings it symbolized. In fact, Ercole d’Este
maintained strong ties with the papacy and the emerging order of Jesuits
throughout their entire marriage. On the other hand, during her 32 years
at the court of Ferrara, Renée openly supported Reformist teachings and
sheltered Huguenots and Calvinists, without ever openly declaring her
Protestantism.44 And yet, following her condemnation to life imprisonment
by Inquisitors in September 1554 because of her liberal religious leanings,
Renée’s husband essentially placed her under house arrest, separating her
from her children until she agreed to once again attend Mass. Punished at
the time with the confiscation of her goods, Renée was further disciplined
with the burning of some hundred proscribed manuscripts and imprints
in her personal library. 45 Unfortunately, we do not know exactly which of
44 For details on Renée’s marriage and this period in her life, see Rodocanachi, pp. 28–36.
45 See Fontana, III, p. 375; and Rodocanachi states: ‘On livra aux flammes sa bibliothèque
dans laquelle avaient été trouvés une centaine d’ouvrages défendus, manuscrits ou imprimés’
her books were destroyed. This prayer book, however, created before the
Reformist movement took hold in France, survived that purge, doubtless
because of the Catholic nature of its meditative prayers and absence of
Protestant ideology. Whether or not it served as a visual symbol of Renée’s
now feigned Catholic beliefs or was ever used by her own daughters, Anna
(1531–1607), Lucrezia Maria (1535–1598), or Eleonora (1537–1581), 46 we will
never know. But, likely reflecting a rejection of society’s imposition of certain
books on women at a time of more religious alternatives (and adopting beliefs
more in line with those of Marguerite de Navarre and Jeanne d’Albret),
Renée left this prayer book in the Este library when she returned to France
in 1560 following her husband’s death.
Promoting the family tradition of female empowerment, Claude de France
transferred to her sister the moral and religious wisdom conveyed by her
mother through the gift of a Catholic prayer book, whose illustrated spiritual
relationships Renée was encouraged to espouse and maintain on her own.
However, shifts in Renée’s belief system, exacerbated by cultural tensions she
experienced as a French Reformist woman living in Italy, ultimately led to her
rejection of much of her sister’s imparted knowledge, a narrative captured
by the book’s own history. While Renée was spiritually and intellectually
empowered in different ways than her mother and sister, the destruction of
much of her library nevertheless suggests that it was through her acquisition
of books that she had maintained these new spiritual relationships that
were condemned by her husband.
Challenges Controlling the Physical Legacy of Books
Renée’s prayer book survived the Inquisition and remained in the Este
library until the eighteenth century, but then disappeared and reappeared
in 1780, when it was reintegrated into the ducal library. However, the book
was stolen while on loan to Montecassino Abbey in 1994, doubtless because
of the great value of its exquisite illustrations and decoration. 47 Fortunately,
(‘They threw into the flames her library in which some hundred banned works, manuscripts or
imprints, had been found’) (p. 248).
46 This prayer book may well have served to educate Renée’s daughters, especially given their
father’s strong Catholic tendencies, which all three likely embraced into adulthood. While
Lucrezia and Eleonara spent their entire lives in Italy, presumably as practicing Catholics, Anna
remained in France after her 1548 marriage to François, Duke of Guise (1519–1563), whose family
fiercely supported the Catholics during the Wars of Religion.
47 Wieck, p. 125, n. 3.
Figure 7.5 Renée receiving absolution
From Les Petites prières de Renée de France, Bibliotheca Estense Universitaria, Modena, Lat. 614=alfa
U.2.28, fols. 8v–9r (Su concessione del Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo)
a photographic copy of the work had been made beforehand (accessible in

digital form), providing the only access today to this work. 48
Curiously, Suzanne de Bourbon’s Enseignements manuscript had a
similarly mysterious and complex afterlife at the hands of a number of
male book collectors, a trajectory meticulously reconstructed by A.-M.
Chazaud based on a seventeenth-century inscription at the end of the
volume, yet another paratextual sign of the manuscript’s survival as a
literary artifact. 49 Confiscated by François I along with many other works
following the treason of Suzanne’s husband, Charles de Bourbon, in 1523,50
the Enseignements manuscript entered the king’s library at Fontainebleau.
Likely serving as a gift from Henri II (son of Claude and François I) to Diane
de Poitiers, the manuscript then figured in the library of the famous château
of Anet, from where it passed through several hands before being deposited
for safe-keeping in the Abbey of St-Germain-des-Prés. The Russian noble
Petr Dubrowski apparently stole and transported the book along with 700
other manuscripts to Saint Petersburg during the French Revolution. It was
then bought by Tsar Alexander I and transported from the Hermitage to the
Imperial Public Library. There Chazaud studied it, before Soviet authorities
sold it in the 1930s.51
Like so many volumes owned by elite women of the time that lacked a
formalized afterlife, jeopardizing their female owners’ efforts to assert their
identity through posthumous control over their libraries, the subsequent
transmission channels of the Primer of Claude de France remain unknown
until the eighteenth century, when it appeared in a private English col-
lection — its description and call number at the time remain pasted on
the upper side of the cover. The manuscript was subsequently acquired
in 1808 by Richard, seventh Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion (1745–1816),
whose imprimatur appears on folio 2, before being bequeathed to Cambridge
University’s Fitzwilliam Museum (1816).52 Similarly, the history of Marguerite’s
prayer book is unknown before the nineteenth century, when it appeared in
the sale of the library of Marie-Caroline, Duchess of Berry (1798–1870) and
48 A facsimile edition, Milano and Orth, was published in 1998. It was also made available in
CD-ROM form by Bini, Les Petites prières.
49 See Chazaud’s introduction to his edition of Anne de France, pp. vi–vii and Delisle, II,
pp. 47–48.
50 Upon her death Suzanne left her estates to her husband, who refused to marry Louise de
Savoie. After siding with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V against the king, Charles de Bourbon
died in 1527 without issue.
51 Hobson, p. 172, n. 3.
52 See Panayotova.
eventually made its way to the Bibliothèque nationale de France. There is no

corroborating evidence that it was inherited by Jeanne d’Albret, but it did not
figure among the volumes belonging to Marguerite that were absorbed into
her brother’s library.53 Given the increasing support of Jeanne (and Marguerite)
for Protestantism, how likely is it that Jeanne would have inherited or valued
the Catholic-oriented prayer book her grandmother had given to her mother?
Three, and perhaps four, of these manuscripts represent just one
generation-worth of family female networking. Once their female owners
died — at an early age in the case of both Suzanne de Bourbon and Claude
de France — or embraced a different system of belief, as was the case with
Renée de France as well as Marguerite de Navarre and her daughter, that
female power, prestige, and patronage associated with the books’ fabrication
and original transmission were appropriated by other agents, and the codices
took on a life of their own, out of women’s hands. However, thanks to the
manuscripts’ original images and emblems, that first layer of paratext,
the cultural memory of these mother–daughter and sisterly connections
has remained embedded in the books themselves. Through books such as
these, and often with significant sleuthing, modern scholars are able to
resurrect the empowering relationships promoted by elite women of the
early sixteenth century.
Conclusion
We can thus better understand the dynamics and the cultural value of
female networking associated with Anne de France, Anne de Bretagne, and
Louise de Savoie by examining the paratext of the volumes these mothers
confected for their respective daughters. While Suzanne de Bourbon’s luxury
manuscript book of the Enseignements that she received from her mother did
not carry on the tradition of female networking within her own family since
she died without children, her mother’s writing saw renewed life through
its reproduction in print form, thereby reaching a more diverse bourgeois
readership that included one of the most famous royal female figures of the
time, Marguerite de Navarre. And in that revived life in print, the names
of Suzanne, Anne, and also Marguerite were prominently announced, as
publishers appropriated some of that power and prestige Buettner associates
53 For details on this manuscript’s provenance, see Orth, 2015, p. 235. Orth claims that the
book collections of the Angoulême family, Louise de Savoie, and much of Marguerite’s, were
absorbed into François I’s library at Blois, Orth, 2015, p. 85.
with the workings of parenté feminine. The framing illustrations of the Primer
that Anne de Bretagne had made for her daughter Claude embody and
confirm the transmission of sacred knowledge through double interrelated
family female networks, that of Saints Anne and Mary and that of Anne
and Claude. The power of women as sixteenth-century moral and spiritual
educators is thus visibly conveyed through miniatures and a repackaging
of their manuscripts into print form.
Marguerite de Navarre’s prayer book, which may or may not have passed
on to her daughter, serving as yet another example of the challenge scholars
face in tracing the trajectory of books that constituted part of a feminine
legacy, also verbally and visually projected the transmission of traditional
religious wisdom from mother to daughter through an association with
female-centered communities. However, unlike the two Annes (who never
had adult sons), Louise de Savoie had the intimate mother-daughter rapport
reordered and replaced with a family triangle in a simultaneous tribute to her
son and Marguerite’s brother, François I, an acknowledgment prominently
inscribed and painted in Marguerite’s manuscript. Jeanne d’Albret, however,
ensured her mother’s singular eminence by implicitly contesting one edi-
tor’s questionable printing practice and reviving Marguerite’s authorship
through Gruget’s reconstructed edition of the Heptaméron. While a very
different work from the others examined here, Marguerite’s narratives, and
the unique series of debates that follow each story in this work, provide
through fictional means similar views about women’s contemporary roles as
moral leaders. As in Suzanne’s renewal of her mother’s work through print,
the restoration of the Heptaméron’s creator through title-page celebratory
language that lauded both mother and daughter together may well constitute
an equivalent staging of family female networks to that featured in the
manuscript miniatures appearing in the codices shaped by Anne de France,
Anne de Bretagne and Louise de Savoie.
The prayer book that Claude had made for her sister Renée conveys a differ-
ent but analogous cultural message about parenté féminine, as it bears traces
of the transmission of religious knowledge between female family members,
while marking the absence of a mother figure. By visually representing the
book owner, the manuscript miniatures project Renée’s expected, but in the
end rejected, visualization and adoration of Catholic figures in her prayers.
Like the three other manuscripts examined, Renée’s Petites prières preserves
a record of its cultural life as a treasured artifact. Through its unique history
of relocation from France to Italy due to the marriage of two dynasties, of
non-circulation status within the Este library as an indirect sign of religious
repudiation, of mysterious disappearances in later periods because of its
artistic worth, and of its survival today in photographed, facsimile, and

digitized form, Renée de France’s prayer book personifies an equally compel-
ling socio-political narrative of feminine pedigree, expanding family female
networks, and women’s (changing) roles as promoters of Christian and moral
values. On the one hand, it is challenging to gauge just how elite women of
the period empowered themselves and others as inheritors and purveyors
of cultural and intellectual knowledge through books, because even the
most lavishly decorated codices remain more or less silent about those very
interactions, especially compared with documents and official records that
more explicitly convey how men (and sometimes women) wielded political
power. On the other hand, as I hope this brief comparative study suggests,
it is possible to extricate a narrative about networks of cultural power that
early modern women shaped, shared, and sometimes refashioned through
careful study of a book’s text, illustrations and paratextual details.
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NAVARRE, Marguerite de. Marguerites de la marguerite des princesses. Paris:
Simon Silvius, 1547a. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8609559p/f1.item.
r=Marguerites%20de%20la%20Marguerite%20des%20Princesses (accessed
26 January 2017).
—. La Coche. Suyte des marguerites de la marguerite des princesses Lyons: Jean de
Tournes, 1547b, pp. 265–363.
—. Histoires des Amans fortunez. Paris: Pierre Boaistuau, 1558.
—. L’Heptaméron. Paris: Claude Gruget, 1559. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bt
v1b86171930/f1.planchecontact (accessed 26 January 2017).
—. Nouvelles lettres de la reine de Navarre au roi son frère. Ed. F. Génin. Paris:
Renouard, 1842.
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Renaissance Women’. Women and Book Culture in Late Medieval and Early
Modern France. Ed. Martha W. Driver and Cynthia J. Brown. Special issue of
Journal of the Early Book Society, 4, 2001, pp. 88–111.
—. Renaissance Manuscripts: The Sixteenth Century. 2 vols. London: Harvey Miller,
2015.
PANAYOTOVA, Stella D. ‘Provenance’. The Primer of Claude de France MS 159,
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Commentary to the Facsimile Edition.
Lucerne: Quaternio, 2012. 166. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bt v1b86171930/
f1.planchecontact (accessed 26 January 2017).
PARSONS, John Carmi. ‘Of Queens, Courts, and Books: Reflections on the Literary
Patronage of Thirteenth-Century Plantagenet Queens’. The Cultural Patronage
of Medieval Women. Ed. June Hall McCash. Athens: University of Georgia Press,
1996, pp. 175–201.
RODOCANACHI, Emmanuel. Une protectrice de la Réforme en Italie et en France:
Renée de France, duchesse de Ferrare. Paris, 1896. Repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1970.
ROELKER, Nancy Lyman. Queen of Navarre: Jeanne d’Albret (1528–1572). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1968.
SHEINGORN, Pamela. ‘“The Wise Mother”: The Image of St. Anne Teaching the
Virgin Mary’. Gesta, 32.1, 1993, pp. 69–80.
SOMME, Monique. ‘Le Testament d’Isabelle de Portugal et la dévotion moderne’.
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WIECK, Roger. ‘The Prayers’. The Primer of Claude de France, MS 159, The Fitzwilliam
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About the author
Cynthia J. Brown is a Professor of French at the University of California,

Santa Barbara, specializing in late medieval and early Renaissance French
literature and culture and the history of the book. Patrons, Poets and Printers:
Crisis of Authority in Late Medieval France (Cornell University Press, 1995)
was awarded the MLA Scaglione Prize in 1996. Her recent publications
investigating the patronage of Queen Anne of Brittany and her involvement
in the so-called querelle des femmes include an edited volume entitled The
Cultural and Political Legacy of Anne de Bretagne: Negotiating Convention
in Books and Documents (D. S. Brewer, 2010) and a monograph, The Queen’s
Library: Image-Making at the Court of Anne of Brittany, 1477-1514 (University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). With Anne-Marie Legaré, she co-edited a 2015
Brepols publication, Women, Art and Culture in Medieval and Renaissance
Europe. In 2013 she was named Chevalier des Palmes Académiques.
8. The Power of Reputation and Skills
according to Anne de Graville
The Rondeaux and the Denunciation of Slander
Mawy Bouchard
Abstract
Anne de Graville, as a noblewoman writing for the court, raised many
issues that pertain to the theme of social power, mainly through language
and speech. This essay analyzes the concept of power through her two main
works, a narrative that drew from the literary influence of Boccaccio and
another rondeaux composition inspired by Alain Chartier’s La Belle dame
sans mercy, that challenged the perception of the courtly woman within the
boundaries of Christianity. Both Graville’s works involve reflection on the
stakes of courtly conversation, which was staged as a battle of words that
most women were not prepared to fight with dignity, thus putting forth a
perception of courtly language as a dangerous weapon named ‘slander’.
Keywords: Anne de Graville, reputation, slander, gossip, women’s speech,

courtly households, literature
In this essay, I address the issue of women’s power in relation to malicious gossip
that becomes the object of denunciation, within Anne de Graville’s Rondeaux
(c. 1515) and, to a lesser extent, her Beau Romant des deux amans Palamon et
Arcita et de la belle et saige Emilia (c. 1521). Anne de Graville (c. 1490–c. 1543)
was born in a very influential noble family, at the Castle of Marcoussis. Her
father, Louis Malet de Graville (1438–1516), an Admiral of France, was close to
Anne de France (1461–1522) and Pierre de Beaujeu (1438–1503), in a position of
influence within the circle of Louis XII (1462–1515).1 Well educated and from
1 Montmorand.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch08
242 Maw y Bouchard
a family surrounding where books abounded, Anne was a lady-in-waiting to

Queen Claude (1499–1524), first wife of François I (1494–1547).2 However, when,
some time before 1510, she secretly married her maternal cousin, Pierre de
Balsac d’Entraigues (b. 1465), she was immediately disowned by her father.3
Between 1515 and 1524, the queen commissioned two works from Graville,
both explicitly dedicated to the queen. Speaking to and for the queen, Graville
perhaps envisaged her role as both an agent for women of the court in general
and as her own defender, for having taken destiny into her own hands.
La Belle Dame sans mercy and Women’s Power in Question
At the time of its original circulation, the controversial dialogue entitled La

Belle Dame sans mercy (1424) by poet and political writer Alain Chartier (c.
1385–1430/1446) provoked immediate reaction.4 Joan E. McRae suggests that
Chartier’s ambiguous poem offered ‘the perfect scenario for debate, since
[it had] no clear hero or villain, no internal call for a judge to decide which
side holds the stronger claim, and little to no authorial commentary to guide
reader’s interpretation’.5 Its circulation also coincided with the awakening
of a female audience, a hitherto largely silent social group. Chartier emerged
as the frontrunner of a new, ‘diverse’ literature that was conceived with
lay readers in mind; that is, a society composed of noblemen and ladies.
In rhetorical terms, Chartier targeted a readership with divergent gender
identities and social responsibilities. His dialogue bypassed the dichotomy
between women’s good and evil status that dominated the literature of the
Querelle des femmes. Chartier’s rendering of the challenges of women’s public
role and social duties did not attempt to attenuate the conflict or assert an
idealistic consensus.6 Chartier showed tensions with the skilled advocates
of both positions. As Adrian Armstrong argues, in addition to appealing to
the diversity of his audience, Chartier ‘pioneers the notion of the poet as a
2 Anne de Graville was well educated, most likely knew Latin and Italian, and had access to
the considerable collection of manuscripts and prints that belonged to her wealthy father, one
of the richest of the time. She became a collector herself, owning four manuscripts of Christine
de Pizan, which she annotated. See Reno. For further biographical information, see Bouchard,
2005 and 2013.
3 For further biographical information, see Bouchard, 2005.
4 Bouchard, 2005.
5 McRae, p. 204. See also Kibler; Cayley. Calin proposes a review of the bibliography concerning
the Quarrel.
6 In contrast to later works by Castiglione and Guazzo, for example. See Stampino, p. 93.
The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Gr aville 243
public servant, whose work not only bears witness to events and situations
but helps to shape opinions and behaviour’.7 Graville showcased a strong
authorial voice in choosing — ‘on command’ or not — to adapt Chartier’s
dialogue and his representation of an emerging social diversity.
As the adapter of Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy (1424) into ron-
deaux, Anne de Graville makes a strong claim for a sort of power that can
be exercised through Christian values, and which is readily available to all,
men and women alike.8 This is the power of ‘free will’, which requires the
ability for each individual to choose a virtuous path. Her first literary work,
a collection of seventy-one rondeaux, was produced in a manuscript that
shows two columns, one being the version of Chartier, and the other, that of
Graville. Maxime de Montmorand, Graville’s biographer, suggests that the
success Graville had with the Rondeaux assured her a second commission
for the translation of the Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia (c. 1340) by Giovanni
Boccaccio (1313–1375), inspired by the Thebaid of Statius (c. 45–c. 96 ce), which
Boccaccio thought to be the first true Italian epic. Graville’s adaptation was
not the first — Chaucer had earlier written The Knight’s Tale, an English
version of 2250 verses in his Canterbury Tales (c. 1392). Graville’s second
work, Le Beau Romant des deux amans Palamon et Arcita et de la belle et
saige Emilia, was likely composed around 1521 as a commission from Claude,
whom Graville says she duly obeys.9 Testimony of Graville’s success as a
poet and writer during her lifetime were given by Geofroy Tory (c. 1480–1533)
in 1529 and later by Antoine du Verdier (1544–1600). Tory noted: ‘And to show
that our French language can be gracious when it is used with measure, I
will quote here a rondel composed by an excellent woman of virtue, Lady
of Entraigues’ (the married name of Anne de Graville).10
Chartier’s original dialogue between a rebuffed Lover and a ‘cruel’ Lady
portrays a disagreement between two equally valid but irreconcilable views
of feminine power in the context of courtly love traditions exposed to
centuries of chivalric romance. Graville rewrites the dialogue in a manner
7 Armstrong, p. 303. Armstrong adds: ‘It is precisely this view of public eloquence that un-
derpins much of the rhétoriqueurs’ work, and indeed characterizes them as a group regardless
of their diverse political affiliations’ (p. 1).
8 The Rondeaux were first published by Wahlund in 1897, and are accessible in one manuscript
(BnF, ms. fr. 2253).
9 There are six extant manuscripts (Arsenal, 5166; BnF, ms. fr. 1397 and 25441; BnF, n.a.f., 6513;
Stockholm, Kungliga biblioteket, 719; and Musée Condé, 1570).
10 See Tory, fol. 4 r: ‘Et pour monstrer que nostre dict langage françois a grace quant il est bien
ordonné, j’en allegueray icy en passant un rondeau que une femme d’excellence en vertus, ma
dame d’Entraigues, a faict et composé’, Du Verdier, pp. 42–43.
244 Maw y Bouchard
that gives leverage to the position defended by the Lady, one that asserts
individuals’ free will in the matters of courtly love. In her adaptation of
Chartier’s dialogue almost one hundred years after the original composi-
tion, Graville indeed makes a strong case against the allegorical character
Malenbouche (Slanderer) presented in the rondeaux as a threat to everyone
within court society. To borrow John K. Galbraith’s analytical tools de-
scribed in The Anatomy of Power in which he conceptualizes three types
of power — Condign, Compensatory, and Conditioned — and the three
sources of power — personality, property, and organization —, Graville
articulates a seduction strategy disguised as tragic love lamentations that
aim at ‘conditioning’ the submission of women with all the resources of
chivalric personality.11 In light of the pervasive literary theme of excessive
talk and slander, Graville’s reliance on the perception of courtly language
as a dangerous weapon appears symptomatic of a social situation that
was challenging for women conditioned by courtly and Christian ideals,
who sought the empowerment that humanist education made available.12
Graville’s Rondeaux in response to Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy
implicitly attempt to underline the manner by which courtly literature
is used as a ‘condign’, a ‘compensatory’ and a ‘conditioned’ instrument of
power by the Lover, who in turn can only be overthrown by another source
of power, that of the Christian institution and values (marriage, chastity,
fidelity), which are implicitly claimed by the Lady throughout the dialogue.13
11 Galbraith. From the early response of the ladies of the court to Alain Chartier (Copie des
lettres des dames en rithme envoyee a maistre Alain) to the well-known verses of Louise Labé,
in her Sonnet xxiii, 9–10, ‘Oh tears, that dry so quickly in the air; / oh Death, on which you
promised you would swear / your love — and where your solemn vows still hang / (or was the
aim of your deceitful malice / to enslave me, while seeming to be in my service’, and her Elegie
iii, 9–26.
12 My current research project, ‘Médisance et constitution des publics modernes dans la prose
discursive au tournant des xvie et xviie siècles français’, explores malicious gossip and slander.
See also Butterworth, 2016; and Butterworth, 2006.
13 Galbraith explains: ‘Condign power threatens the individual with something physically or
emotionally painful enough so that he forgoes pursuit of his own will or preference in order to
avoid it. Compensatory power offers the individual a reward or payment sufficiently advantageous
or agreeable so that he (or she) forgoes pursuit of his own preference to seek the reward instead’
(p. 14). He defines conditional power as follows: ‘While condign and compensatory power are
visible and objective, conditional power, in contrast, is subjective; neither those exercising it
nor those subject to it need always be aware that it is being exerted, the acceptance of author-
ity, the submission to the will of others, becomes the higher preference of those submitting.
This preference can be deliberately cultivated — by persuasion or education. This is explicit
conditioning. Or it can be dictated by the culture itself; the submission is considered to be
normal, proper, or traditionally correct. This is implicit conditioning’ (p. 24).
Moreover, Graville’s re-working focuses on the condemnation of courtly

slander that specifically threatens courted ladies, and which is closely related
to fol amour. Although Cox argues that by the early sixteenth century courtly
language of poetry had already ‘deteriorated into a somewhat sterile and
formulaic academic exercise’,14 there are strong grounds to investigate an
issue emerging from the representation of gallant conversation. Graville
challenges the traditional role of women at the court, one that was thor-
oughly exposed in the influential works of both Baldassare Castiglione
(1478–1529), the Italian courtier and renowned author of Il Cortegiano (1516;
1529), and Steffano Guazzo (1530–1593), an Italian diplomat and author of
many dialogues.15 My reading of Anne de Graville’s Rondeaux analyzes
the specific discussion that occurs between the Lover and the Lady about
the conflicted sources of power emerging from polite conversation and
courtly values.
Widely represented in chivalric literature as a feminine power to inflict
sudden and violent love passion, the personal beauty and virtue of the
woman is not perceived as a viable source of power by the Lady of the
dialogue. She thus refuses to submit herself to the power instituted by
feudal values, equivalent to that of allegiance to the lord, which limits
feminine action to acceptance or rejection of the proposed ‘service’ of love,
or, to use the term of John R.P. French and Bertram Raven, to exercise her
‘power to reward’.16 Although it may appear that the key theme of Graville’s
rewriting of Chartier’s famous dialogue is love, its true underlying value is
the ‘public good’, which, as John Locke holds, is conceived as associated with
political power, something not readily accorded to early modern women.17
This fundamental issue of power at stake in Chartier’s work helps to explain
why an apparently mundane dialogue created such turmoil and interest
over more than a century.18 The form of power that I analyze here is Graville’s
exploration of women’s ability to intervene in the public sphere for the sake
of the public good. From the beginning of the dialogue, the Lady rejects the
‘power of reward’ that the Lover attributes to her, because it constrains her to
14 See Cox, p. 1.

15 See Campbell, pp. 73–88.
16 See French and Raven: ‘Reward power is def ined as power whose basis is the ability to
reward. The strength of power of O [Social agent: another person, a role, a norm, a group, part
of a group] / P [Person] increases with the magnitude of the rewards which P perceives that O
can mediate for him’ (pp. 156–57).
17 See Locke, I.3.
18 See Hult’s reading of the ‘Cycle’ of La Belle Dame sans mercy which brings together the
cultural and social aspects of its success (Chartier, Herenc, and Caulier, pp. xxx–liv).
246 Maw y Bouchard
a private sphere of love relationships. Instead, the Lady targets what French
and Raven describe as ‘expert power’; that is, a form of power derived from
her skills as a speaker and as a lucid observer of her society’s moral conflicts.
The Power of Malicious Gossip
In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French texts, one notion is always

present in courtly love debate: slander, and its various grammatical forms or
synonyms — defamation, denigration, disparagement, libel,19 and ‘publica-
tion’ (with a dishonoring connotation related to the idea of being exposed),20
among others. All involve unworthy speech and degrading public exposure.
This notion is crucial for La Belle Dame sans mercy, in which malicious
gossip makes the object of slander a spectacle for an audience. Slander
can also be understood as a form of power. Viewed from a ‘functionalist
perspective’, malicious gossip promotes and maintains a community’s norms.
Alternatively, from a social and economic perspective, it reveals individual
strategies to gain forms of power.21 Both perspectives highlight how the
theme of slander reveals what is at stake for women operating at the court.
In Chartier’s dialogue, it is precisely the malicious gossip of lovers that is
pinpointed as the main cause of the Lady’s ‘cruelty’ (or absence of ‘mercy’)
in refusing to grant the Lover his deserved reward. It is because the Lover
has the power to ‘speak ill’, and with authority, of the Lady; that is, to make
public what ought to remain private, that the Lady cannot grant him the
‘courtly prize’ he expects. This foregrounds questions of court decorum
and politeness, as well as issues of honor, which all have the potential to
clarify the strategies developed by women writers to tackle the issue of
public good and agency without doing so openly.22 As malicious gossip
involves an accuser, a victim and an audience, it exposes the power struggles
between individuals whose access to public discourse and action is unequal.
Consequently, slander — as a statement or theme — can be part of a strategy
to reveal publicly that which is usually implicit, and that cannot be raised
19 Médire, calomnier, losenger, brocarder, publier.

20 Initial research in the project ‘Médisance et constitution des publics modernes’ has identified
approximately 80 different expressions for malicious gossip, most from Marie de Gournay’s
writings.
21 Mougin, p. 10.
22 See Brantôme, whose Recueil des dames reverses the usual order of things: his praise of the
great women in the public sphere is directed to women, and his description of intimate scenes
explicitly targets a male audience.
any other way. Therefore, it is not surprising to see a vast lexicon of slander
appear through more than 20 different terms that recur frequently in the
nouvelles of Marguerite de Navarre, which discuss a wide range of social
aspects of relationships. By the end of the sixteenth century, the topic
features prominently in the writings of Marie de Gournay (1565–1645); and
in her Mémoires, Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615) writes to correct malicious
gossip, specifically the slander of her brother, the Duke of Anjou, future
King Henri III, 1551–1589).23
Three voices are heard in Alain Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy: those
of the Author, the Lover, and the Lady. The Author narrator who appears
first in the dialogue expresses sensitivity and sympathy to the feelings of
the Lover. While depicting a joyous scene typical of courtly life, Chartier
creates a character who presents the ethos of a sincerely suffering Lover.
Although the Lover is accused by noblemen of the court later in the cycle
of not defending courtly values strongly enough, by contrast, the Author
appears benevolent, honest, and in sympathy with the moral decorum of
the court.24 The introduction to the dialogue by the Author is thus a crucial
part of Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy, without which the ambiguous
meaning of the text would have been even more troubling to contemporary
readers. The Author’s voice underlines the unfortunate misunderstanding
between the Lady and the Lover, while giving the reader some clues about
the Lover’s sincerity.
In Anne de Graville’s version, the voice of the Author completely disap-
pears at the beginning of the dialogue and can only be heard, very briefly, in
the end. This disappearance, in addition to effecting a more discrete ethos
for the female adapter, forces readers to assess for themselves the arguments
of both parties. Unlike Chartier, Graville develops an enunciation in the
first persona that bears more subjectivity for the two interlocutors. These
key differences in the development of the voices within the dialogue thus
accentuate the fact that what is at stake in their debate is the question of
women’s power, which the Lover attempts to dissimulate behind a supposed
universal courtly eroticism. The Lady does not allow that pretence to stand
in the way of her own capacity to reject or accept proposals, which she calls
her freedom to ‘not love’.25 However, as this might have consequences in
23 See Valois, pp. 45–50. It also appears in the title of Book 2 of the Recueil des dames by
Brantôme: ‘Discours sur ce qu’il ne faut jamais parler mal des dames et la conséquence qui en
vient’.
24 See Chartier, pp. 481–89.
25 See Rondeau 10, verses 9–13: ‘Free, I was born, and by decree / Free, I will remain, without
fear or worry / of any living man, and without losing / The freedom that I chose / And for that
248 Maw y Bouchard
the public sphere as well, the Lady in Graville’s version insinuates that her
private actions have a meaning for a greater audience and interfere with
agents of power. Therefore, initiated by Chartier’s dialogue, in Graville’s
text the essential disagreement between both parties is never resolved,
and rhetorical negotiation seems impossible.26 Without the mediation of
an Author in her text, the alternative viewpoints on women’s agency are
passionately stated right from the outset, but left unresolved.
From the courtly point of view of the Lover, the Lady’s power derives from
the simple action of accepting the Lover’s service, which coincides, in the
Lover’s logic, with an efficient medical action that cures a love sickness that
would otherwise prove fatal. And, for the Lover, the Lady simply does not
have the moral power to deny her involvement in the suitor’s misery, because,
in accordance with the courtly literary tradition of the innamoramento, she
is responsible for the illness; it is induced by the strength of her gaze. In not
awarding her courtly prize, the power of the Lady’s glance appears immoral
because it becomes a tool of domination, vanity, and sadistic pleasure, and
perverts the virtuous identity of women. But the Lady firmly denies both the
power and its pleasurable experience.27 She refuses to associate herself with a
fictitious generalization. For her, women’s power is defined by an alternative
reading of the courtly tradition that allows her to reject the Lover’s offer
of service (‘I don’t want you’), to separate herself from his pain (‘None will
die from that’), and to disagree over the question of innamoramento (‘You
are wrong’).28 Subsequently, from the Lady’s perspective, female power
consists in an argumentative ability that can lead the Lady to convince or
‘condition the submission’ of the Lover to reason, to control his passion (‘I
beg of you’), to ‘depoetize’ the intensity of his love (‘frivolous desire’), and
then to encourage him to assume responsibility for his own pain (‘This type
matter, I don’t want any / Of that love’ (‘Franche naquis et par bonne ordonnance / Franche
seray sans crainte ne doubtance / Dhomme vivant et sans me dessaisir / De liberté que jay voullu
choisir / Et pour autant, je nen veulx acointance / De telz amours’). I am quoting Carl Wahlund’s
diplomatic edition: Graville, 1897. For clarity, spelling is modernized. I have distinguished
‘i’ and ‘j’, ‘u’ and ‘v’; added accents on prepositions ‘à’, ‘où’, on final ‘é’; and added commas in
enumerations. English citations from the Rondeaux are my own translation.
26 On rhetoric defined as a negotiation of the distance between the author (or speaker) and
his readers, see Meyer, p. 10.
27 See Rondeau 10, verses 1–8: ‘Of that love, I don’t want to know / To see you ill has never
brought me joy / Neither any regrets to see you happy / To love you I have no hope or desire /
And thus I am not asking for trust or confidence’ (‘De telz amours, je ne veuil congnoissance /
De vous voir mal je neuz onc plaisance / Ne aucun regret si vivez en plaisir / De vous aymer nay
espoir ne desir / Et si nen quiers ne foy ny asseurance’).
28 ‘Je ne vous veulx’, Rondeau 6; ‘Il nen meurt nulz’, Rondeau 8; ‘Vous avez tort’, Rondeau 4.
of love’).29 The Lady thus a priori rejects the power that the Lover claims as
hers — as ‘sovereign of his heart’ — to heal him and free him from love’s
chains: it is up to him alone, she argues.
Disengaging herself from the Iseuts and Guenièvres of courtly literature,
Graville’s Lady does not admit to any power of seduction, nor does she
feel responsible for the Lover’s grief. If she does not completely deny her
‘medical’ function, she does limit it to the boundaries of Christian virtue.
Her compassion extends only to reminding the Lover of his honor and his
moral obligations, and to warning him against the dangers of fol amour. The
dialogue between the Lover and the Lady thus articulates two opposite views
on women’s power. The Lady also attempts to reveal the fraudulent nature
of what the Lover refers to as power, which often is a trap that brings the
Lady social damnation, and deprives her of any possible source of power.
We will now focus on the Lady’s view that the Lover’s perception of power
is erroneous.
Words related to slander appear frequently in the texts of Christine de
Pizan and Anne de Graville,30 likewise in sixteenth-century literature.
For example, the Threzor de la langue françoyse by Jean Nicot (1530–1600),
a compilation of a number of important sixteenth-century dictionaries,
including that of Robert Estienne (1503–1559), provides two interpretations
through médisance and calomnie. Médisance is malicious gossip that consists
in ‘blaming an absent’; and one evokes calomnie ‘when falsely and maliciously
one alleges or accuses someone of something’.31 The Threzor anticipates
many of the denunciations made by Marie de Gournay, Montaigne’s ‘daughter
by alliance’ and one of the first women to claim the status of author (autrice)
in France, throughout her writings. She considers such discourse a moral
crime, at once frequent and unpunished: ‘the slanderer and his wilful audi-
ence are both possessed by the devil, one by the tongue, the other by the
ear’,32 and ‘because that deadly spear of the tongue pierces three persons
at once, the victim, the speaker, and the listener’.33 From a theoretical
perspective, the meaning of médisance differs depending upon whether
29 ‘Je vous supply’, Rondeau 21; ‘Leger vouloir’, Rondeau 22; ‘De telz amours’, Rondeau 10.
30 See Fenster, pp. 461–77.
31 ‘Blasmer un absent’, and calumny ‘quand faucement et malicieusement on allegue ou met
[…] à sus quelque chose à quelqu’un’. See Nicot.
32 Marie de Gournay, ‘De la mesdisance, et qu’elle est principale cause des Duels’, p. 706. ‘[l]e
medisant […] et son auditeur volontaire portent tous deux le Diable, l’un sur la langue, l’autre
en l’oreille’.
33 Gournay, p. 706: ‘[C]este meurtriere lance de la langue transperce trois personnes en un
coup, l’offencé, le parleur et l’escoutant’.
250 Maw y Bouchard
the point of view adopted is moral, aesthetic, philosophical, political, that

of the victim or an observer. From a literal point of view, malicious gossip
is a false statement made in front of an audience, resulting from credulity,
stupidity, or incompetence, motivated by jealousy, vengeance, interest,
hatred, mockery, or cruelty, and which aims to harm someone who is absent
or muzzled. Nevertheless, the ‘malicious’ speaker can perceive malicious
gossip as a hidden truth, unheard, and unsuspected in other instances such
as in libellous texts, satires, and conflicting dialogues.34 In those cases,
the slanderer considers his own statements not as evil, but well-founded
observations. As the Lady of Anne de Graville’s Rondeaux attempts to convey
to the Lover, the diverse forms of slander can be subtle, because one can
speak maliciously by antiphrasis and irony while seeming to praise someone,
or by remaining silent or terse and thus insinuating at best that the victim
is worthy of neither praise nor comment.
Anne de Graville’s Rondeaux often imply a specific understanding of
malicious gossip as a quantitative phenomenon of speech (too much or
too little). This notion of médisance requires a cultural context in which
silence could be as honorable a deed as speech, especially when it involves
ladies of the court. Thus, in certain situations, malicious speech is perceived
when silence would have been most appropriate in order to avoid a breach
of decorum. It should be countered, according to the Lady, by a ‘deaf ear’.
This is often the only resistance against slanderous actions of others, which
leave the victim without recourse. But ‘malicious gossip’ can also refer to
statement that the Lady in the Rondeaux associates with ‘fancy talk’ and
‘elaborate figures of speech’; that is, with overly refined expressions that are
deceptive and aim to charm and delude.35 It is precisely her power to resist
seduction, by means of rejecting the literary tradition in which the discourse
finds its roots, that is so problematic and caused so many passionate and
divided reactions among the court audience. This power not only justifies
the Lady’s refusal but also weakens the symbolic feudal allegiance within
French politics, the ‘organizational’ power that underpins courtly culture.
Based on Christian conventions of fidelity, the agency of women in courtly
love metaphorically compromises the otherwise accepted submission of
the vassal to his lord. Within the new boundaries of chastity imposed by
the Lady — deemed ‘cruelty’ by the Lover — the Lover finds himself in the
position of an offender.
34 Butterworth, 2006, identifies a will to initiate change in the satirical enunciation (p. 5).
35 ‘Beau parler’ and ‘fine parabole’, Rondeau 12.
Malicious Gossip in the Rondeaux
Clearly, in this period the concept of ‘malicious gossip’ had diverse mean-
ings. Its etymology underscores that ‘bad’ talk (mé-dire: mal dire, dire mal,
dire le mal) could involve many levels of error and ineptitude. One could
talk maliciously while being wrong about someone or something, will-
ingly deceive an audience, spread lies to serve one’s own interests or harm
someone, but one could also speak wrongfully, with inadequate words, bad
style, inappropriate tone, inadvertently, or reproachfully. One could criticize
lightly, without solid grounds, or express an ‘opinion’ not (yet) recognized as
truth. All in all, slander is never constructive. It is the word of the other, the
opponent, or the rival. Before Marie de Gournay defined it with precision at
the end of the Renaissance, writings concerning relations between men and
women often represented malicious gossip as a key cause of disorder. Before
Marie de Gournay’s contribution to the exploration of slander, however,
in the Rondeaux, Anne de Graville had already identified three species
of slander — excessive speech, insufficient speech, and fraudulent word
play — that she linked to poetry and figurative speech. In spite of these
nuances, Graville’s Rondeaux associate the question of malicious gossip
with excessive speech that inappropriately made public what should have
remained private, and exposed women ‘with mercy’ against their best
interests.36 To fight against malicious gossip then amounts to claiming
the power to remain private, or at least appearing in public at one’s own
chosen moment.
Anne de Graville’s chosen poetic form, the ‘rondel’, is itself a response to
the Lover’s (pseudo) tragic discourse. The rondeau is a frivolous and cheerful
form of poetry, associated with festive music, song and dance, which, in
the context of love lamentations, attributes a parodic tone to the Lover’s
dramatic discourse.37 In Graville’s version, the Lover explicitly exposes
that symbolic meaning of the form himself when he claims his despair
36 See the def initions Furetière gives in his Dictionnaire universel: ‘Mesdire: Parler mal de
quelqu’un, descouvrir [publier] ses deffauts, soit qu’ils soient vrais, soit qu’ils soient controuvez.
Quand on mesdie de son prochain, on est obligé en conscience de luy reparer son honneur’;
and ‘Mesdisance: Discours contre l’honneur de quelqu’un, qui descouvre ses deffauts. On fait
souvent une medisance pour avoir occasion de dire un bon mot. Les femmes se font plus de tort
par leurs reciproques, mesdisances, qu’elles n’en reçoivent de celles des hommes’.
37 Bouchet establishes the relationship between La Belle Dame sans mercy and the parodic
confrontation of ideological voices in the f ifteenth-century play Jeu à quatre personnages.
Chartier’s composition, as well as Le Roman de la Rose, are often part of parodic compositions
through the fifteenth century (Bouchet, p. 222).
252 Maw y Bouchard
and renounces all kinds of happiness and earthly pleasure, including the
specific happiness of ‘writing rondeaux’,38 which effects a mise en abyme.
We need to identify how malicious gossip becomes a source of agency, and
how the rondeau naturalizes that agency.
Rondeau 42 condenses two aspects of bad speech and is thus a significant
example of how Graville seeks to qualify malicious gossip in poetry. As noted
above, the basis of the quarrel that emerges from La Belle Dame sans mercy
is the Lady’s rejection of figurative speech as poetic stereotypes. Indeed
she presents the praise and courtly claims of the Lover as malicious gossip
that aims to seduce her through a poetic embellishment of lies, one that
would lead to her immediate social downfall were she to believe him. Her
response to the flattering verses of the Lover is in line with the perception
that amorous discourse is treachery. The last stanza of the rondeau sum-
marizes the components of malicious gossip as excessive language and
fraudulent praise, which does not seek the glorification of its subject as
an epideictic discourse but aims to disparage the Lady. Interpreted in that
skeptical light by the Lady, the Lover’s courtly words offer only offence:
Please do not say that the more we seem in love

In loyalty, we will be happy
Later or never, good might occur
In any places.
You are excessively laudatory with me
And every one of your words is offensive to me
It is not my intention to be mean [but]
Never before have I seen a lover come to me
With such outrageous discourse
In any places.39
In these lines the Lady reveals that the tradition of feminine praise initiated
by Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) in the Canzoniere (1374) he dedicated to
Laura, is the ordinary speech of the seducer (seducere). He is defined morally
as the ‘corruptor’ who aims to divert the victim from her virtuous path. The
Lady sees it as her task to expose the infamous manoeuver designed to make
38 ‘Pour l’advenir je n’ay besoing de rire / Faire rondeaulx, de chanter ou escrire’, Rondeau 58,
verses 1–2.
39 ‘Ne dictes plus se on se monstre amoureux / En leaulté quon y sera heureux / Tard ou jamais
en peut bien advenir / En tous endroiz. // Vous estes trop vers moy avantaigeux / Et tous voz
motz me semblent oultrageux / Je nay vouloir meschante devenir / Jamais amant vers moy ne
vis venir / Dont le parler me soit si dommaigeux / En tous endroiz’, Rondeau 42.
her ‘bad’ (meschante devenir). This perspective strips courtly discourse of all
its rhetorical varnish, casts courtly seduction as a moral crime outrageously
left unpunished, and which the Lady feels she must denounce. Once the
immoral dimension of courtly conventions is exposed as a synonym of
malicious gossip, the Lady demands social justice and takes up the role of
prosecutor of those lovers who use deceptive courtly language.
The Lady’s condemnation of seductive praise has further implications,
as Rondeaux 12 and 14 show. Courtly talk is offensive, and as a lie, it fails to
convince women of good sense. Having no access to legitimate or coercive
power, women can only hope to experiment with what French and Raven
describe as ‘referent power’; that is, power derived through influence and
reputation:
Whatever you might think, ladies are not so stupid

That for a little sweet talk,
Make believe and pleasant lies
One could fool them like dummies
Or deceive them with outright fabrication. 40
Paradoxically, in this context, the power of women is to expose such de-

ceptive speech, pinpointing seducers who, in other circumstances, might
well be the flatterers of kings and queens. Likewise, in her case against
slanderers and flatterers of all kinds who abound and flourish, disguised
as advisers, around queens and lords, Marie de Gournay argues for the
acquisition of education as a means to develop individual judgment, and
as a tool to diminish the power of the slanderer. Feminine power emerges
from ‘behind the scene’ observation of social mechanisms and comes with
certain responsibilities. It is the ability to see the truth and detect lies, and,
the capacity to open one’s eyes and close one’s ears to faulty speech: women
‘will always show deaf ears / To pretty talk and fancy parable’. 41
In similar terms, Rondeau 48 exposes courtly talk as malicious gossip
(or mesfaictz) against which victims’ only recourse or means of retaliation
is words. In this light, the only power left to women is the limited, but
real, capacity to convince an audience. This means of retaining credibility,
40 ‘Quoy quen pensez dames ne sont si folles / Que pour ung peu de fringantes parolles / De
fainct semblant et de plaisantes bourdes / On les decoipve ainsi quon feroit lourdes / Pour se
laisser tromper en chauldes colles’, Rondeau 12, verses 1–5.
41 ‘Mais ilz [sic] auront tousjours oreilles sourdes / A beau parler et fines parabolles’, Rondeau
12, verses 12–13.
254 Maw y Bouchard
however, disappears as soon as the courtly love agreement is settled. But this
power of the Lady represents a threat to courtly values. The Lady describes as
unacceptable a commonplace in which the malicious gossiper and wrongdoer
act with impunity, their audience complacent, and their victim silenced.
Of your wrongdoings at once in the city or in court

For justice there is no judge and no court
To whom can I, me, plaintiff, turn?
If they are judged, it is not to die
And so they start again.
Everybody spreads the word

But nevertheless their vice is not thwarted
And we receive the blame
Of your wrongdoings.
If we dare retaliate, everybody is deaf
If we are hurt, no one will relieve us
None, or very few, will come to rescue us
From your wrongdoings. 42
In the following rondeau, the Lover responds to this critique of his amorous
discourse. He admits the infamy of false amorous discourse followed by
public exposure, and agrees to the severe punishment that should ensue, but
primarily insists upon the strength of virtue required to attract happiness.
He argues that men’s capacity for vicious action is kept in check by fear of
tarnishing their reputation and honor. The Lady finds this argument weak.
Instead, the Lover’s observations on the fruitful and irresistible influence of
honor encourage her to develop new arguments about the powerful social
attractions of slander.
It is not the example of honorable behavior that ensures morality at
court, but the risk of moral downfall. This is expressed in Rondeau 64’s
personification of malicious gossip — Malenbouche (Slanderer) — and the
spectacle of shame at the court.
42 ‘Sur tez mesfaiz tant en ville quen court / Pour droit avoir ny a juge ne court / Vers qui plaintifz
puissent bien recourir / Silz sont jugez ce nest pas à mourir / Dont de rechef recommence tout
court. // Pour en parler tout le monde y acourt / Mais non pourtant tousjours leur vice court /
Et seuffrent on blasme vers nous courir / Sur tez mesfaictz. // Si nous prions replicquer on est
sourd / Se on nous fait tort aucun ne nous ressourd / Nulz ou bien peu nous veulent secourir /
Donc il convient gref reprouche encourir / Pour le mal faict qui deulx sengendre et sourt // Sur
tez mesfaictz’, Rondeau 48.
Slanderer thrives around the world

And malicious gossipers are welcome everywhere
And everyone wants to excel in gossip
And there is no one who does not slander
In the city, in the fields, or at the court.
If one lauds someone, it is very brief
But if one slanders her, everyone concurs
And no one will dare contradict
Slanderer
I do not believe there could be any so stupid
So discreet, be he mute or deaf
Who would want to be believed
When he says he suffers great love sickness
And that is how Slanderer flourishes and succeeds. 43
In this context, it is not what the Lover says (dictz) that is significant for
the Lady’s response, but the fact that he said it: the wise lady must use her
rhetorical power to deter her suitor and ward off his love talk. No good
can come from the situation, not even when the Lady is ‘truly loved’ (bien
aymée), because loving words are a magnet for slander, and no one truly
believes in love sickness:
According to your words, if I am truly loved

I should not be blamed
If, let’s say, I did not obey and I fooled around,
But if I happened to believe these words
I could be defamed in no time.
If your mind is enflamed

With mad love and hope blinded
Know me as I ever was
According to your words.
Such compassion does not dent me
And I do not want my weakness to be made public
43 ‘Malenbouche par tout le monde court / Et mesdisans par tous lieux ont grant court / Donc
la pluspart à mesdire estudie / Et nen voit on pas ung qui ne mesdie / Soit à la ville aux champs
ou à la court. // Son loue aulcun le parler est fort court / Son en mesdit tout le monde y acourt
/ Et ne voit on ung seul qui contredie / Malenbouche. // Je ne croy pas quil en soit de si lourd
/ Tant soit secret fust il muet ou sourd / Qui ne voulsist estre mescreu et die / Pour une amer
porter grant maladie / Et de cela se reliefve et ressourd / Malenbouche’, Rondeau 64.
256 Maw y Bouchard
For if it were,
And if I regretted my actions afterwards,
My punishment would be defamation.
According to your words. 44
Thus cornered, the Lover has no other choice but to recognize that the
discourse of love participates in a pervasive slandering phenomenon det
rimental to women. In so doing, he retains just one of the three meanings
of slander proposed by Graville’s Lady, namely, as a synonym of ‘boasting’,
a narrower perspective that allows the Lover to prove his capacity to speak
with measure; that is, with extreme discretion.45 From the beginning of the
dialogue, the Lover recognizes the virtues of silence and discretion, which
are revealed to be the antithesis of slander. He declares his intention to
withdraw from the world and condemns malicious gossip:
Without bragging, I know how to dissimulate and say

All my concerns, and describe my regrets
But I prefer to isolate myself
For the future.
Because there is nothing worse in the world
Than to defame and slander ladies
And so a good heart ought to be honored
And a bragger always be dishonored
I never was, and that is sufficient
For the future. 46
Rondeau 48 is entitled ‘Of your Wrongdoings’ (‘Sur tes mesfaictz’), and as

shown above, it exposes the leeway given to slanderers who abuse their ‘pretty
ladies with mercy’. In her later writing on slander, Marie de Gournay similarly
expresses outrage over this. No ‘court’ and no ‘judge’, Anne de Graville
44 ‘Selon voz dictz se je suis bien aymée / On ne me doibt pas tenir pour blasmée / Si pour
parler nobeys et foloye / Car si telz motz souvent croire vouloye / Je pourroye estre en bref temps
diffamée. / Si vous avez la pensée enflamée / De fol amour et despoir embasmée / Congnoissez
moy celle que je souloye / Selon voz dictz. // Telle pitié ne ma point entamée / Et si ne veulx
jamais estre clamée / Pour tel confort car se je men mesloye / Et puis apres de ce je me douloye
/ Pour mon payement jen serois mal famée / Selon voz dictz’, Rondeau 60.
45 ‘Car il nest riens en tout le monde pire / Que diffamer et des dames mesdire / Dont ung bon
cueur se doibt bien honnorer / Et ung vanteur par tout deshonnorer / Onc ne le fuz dont il me
doibt suffire / Pour ladvenir’, Rondeau 63, verses 9–13.
46 ‘Sans me vanter je scay celer et dire / Tous mes ennuyz et mes regretz descripre / Mais jayme
myeulx à part moy demeurer / Pour ladvenir’, Rondeau 63, verses 6–8.
and Marie de Gournay argue, is interested in this ‘crime’ called malicious

gossip, which often has severe consequences for its victims: dishonor, blame,
and incomprehension. The social aspect of the Lady’s refusal relates to the
absence of a remedy for anticipated slander, so frequent at the court, against
which all victims of Malenbouche find themselves powerless. The Lover can
offer no guarantee and no proof of truth, and envisaging the future, he can
only prove his sincerity by staging his own imminent death through his
deteriorating health and miserable appearance. In this dialogue, his courtly
discourse is devoid of power and fails to convince the Lady of his true love.
In Graville’s debate, both interlocutors appear at their best; their discourse
enhances the virtues associated with their status and gender. Their argu-
ments present them as each possessing the exemplary ethos that make the
nobleman or the Lady an honorable member of the court. Both interlocutors
battle fiercely to convince the other and to mount arguments designed to
end the controversy. The Lover’s strategy is clever. From the start, his engage-
ment with female identity aims to institute the principle of compassion as
a prime feminine virtue, by which he can hope to submit the Lady to his
will and power. By claiming that the Lady’s compassion is a key element
of virtue, he hopes to convince her that it would be indeed a pledge in
favor of her excellence and value. Although the attempt fails, it succeeds in
reinforcing the ethos of a prisoner of war that the Lover has also consistently
developed through the dialogue, a powerful posture in consideration of the
military and chivalric values shared among the contemporary audience of
the dialogue. Assimilated to a love war initiated by the Lady’s gaze, the love
pursuit appears unfairly disadvantageous to the honorable Lover and the
merciless, cruel Lady. The pathos of erotic desire and war conquest might
have positioned much of the audience against the Lady, but it would fail to
convince those whose pathos is not activated, and who aspire to maintain
a good reputation through chaste, modest, and discreet behavior.
From a rhetorical point of view, the Lover does not have a winning ap-
propriate strategy. He counts on the passions of his targeted audience’s desire
for conquest and pursuit of erotic pleasure. The same chivalric hierarchy of
passions does not stand for the Lady (or the assumed readership of Graville’s
text). But the Lady observes that the Lover only pretends not to know her
hierarchy of values and desires, and to thus consider her interpretation
invalid, a strategy that is often successful with an inexperienced debater.
The Lady, however, employs reason. Highlighting the questionable aspects of
courtly love, she exposes the problematic dimensions of such relationships
between men and women. The Lover shows himself incapable of resolving
the conflict presented to him.
258 Maw y Bouchard
The Voice of a Lady
Anne de Graville gave voice to the courtly lady by adapting the literary
precedents established by Boccaccio and Chartier, literary icons who had
created a fictional universe attractive to leisure readers and members of the
nobility and who had problematized the constraints that restricted courtly
women. The Rondeaux present a Lady suffering the insistent requests of an
impassioned lover, while her Beau Romant des deux amans et de la belle et
saige Emilia represents a young and beautiful maid emotionally destroyed by
the passionate attention of two noble kinsmen who were ready to risk their
lives and friendship to gain her love. 47 In both works, Graville demonstrated
that the ‘courtly prize’ of such service was a source of public chaos.
The significance of Graville’s decision to center two literary works upon
the actions and dialogues of female characters, and thereby to inform readers
about women’s social and cultural power, is clear. Her work gives us access
to a social discourse that welcomed the voices of new interlocutors who were
resisting the precepts of traditional courtliness and employing new strate-
gies to claim power for women. They allow us to evaluate contemporary
debates about feminine power. The Rondeaux represent different types of
power and identify one that emerges from eloquent speech — verbal resist-
ance to the rhetorical assault of the Lover who possesses all the required
seduction skills, and whose power derives from both feudal and in the
courtly institutions. 48
The famous ‘Quarrel’ that emerged around La Belle Dame sans mercy
in the fifteenth century, and that Anne de Graville’s version re-enacts in
the sixteenth century, can be explained in part by the disappointment
of half of the audience forced to identify with the rebuffed Lover, who is
powerless in two meaningful ways for courtly culture. For the Lover and his
supporters, the requalification of the Lady’s chastity as ‘cruelty’ appears to
be the only rhetorical exit, one that neutralizes the Lady’s powerful speech
and arguments, and thus ends the debate. If we understand ‘power’ in the
political sense Galbraith defines as the ability to control or influence others
or the course of events in a given society, then discussion around malicious
gossip can be described as a tool that courtly women could use to stage
their capacity to think, talk, and decide. In Anne de Graville’s Rondeaux,
the topic of malicious gossip is central. Analyzed from a functionalist
47 See Graville, 1965.

48 See Müller, pp. 231–41, and my own analysis of the female voice in Bouchard, 2004, and
Bouchard, 2012, in which the focus of the analysis is also on the female voice.
perspective, the discourse of the Lady both challenges and confirms the
norms of relationships between men and women at court. From a social
and economic perspective, the topic and phenomenon of slander reveal the
diverse, and conflicted, individual strategies to gain power or, in the case
of women at court, to not lose one’s social strength and influence.
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About the author
Mawy Bouchard teaches French Renaissance literature in the French

Department of Ottawa University. She has published many articles and
a monograph, Avant le roman: L’allégorie et l’émergence de la narration
française au 16e siècle (Rodopi, 2006) on the emergence of French narratives
in the Renaissance period. Her current research is focused on publishing
strategies developed by writers and printers to widen their audience, and
on the thematic of malicious gossip in women’s writings.
9. Imagination and Influence
The Creative Powers of Marguerite de Navarre at Work at
Court and in the World
Jonathan A. Reid
Abstract
This study examines Marguerite de Navarre’s many sources of power and
her goals in using it. Beyond her use of seigneurial rights, fiscal resources,
patronage, and influence over her brother, François I, it explores how
shewielded her considerable powers of imagination as a writer and scripter
of narratives: to craft programmatic personas for her brother, self, and
other courtiers; to build relationships, especially with other women; to
generate valuable cultural capital; and to shape affairs at court, in France,
and abroad. Her concern with promoting religious renewal stands out as
her abiding ambition, which conflicted occasionally with her attempts
to champion her brother, her family and household, and her patronage
and religious networks.
Keywords: Marguerite de Navarre, religious reform, religious engagement,

letters, cultural patronage, literature, diplomacy, networks
For what is the hart of a Man, concernynge hys owne strength before he
hath receyved the gift of faythe? Thereby only hath he knowledge of the
goodnesse, wysedome, and power of God. And as sone as he through
that faythe, knoweth pythely the truthe hys hart is anon full of charyte
and love.
— Marguerite de Navarre, translated by Elizabeth I, prefatory verse
epistle, Le Miroir de l’ame pecheresse (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul) (1533)1
1 ‘Quel est le cueur d’ung homme quant à soy / Avant qu’il ait receu le don de Foy, / Par
lequel seul l’homme a la congnoissance / De la Bonté, Sapience, et Puissance ? / Et aussi tost
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch09
264 Jonathan A. Reid
Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549) played many roles during her 57 years.

Among French female courtiers, she arguably ranks among the most power-
ful after the two regent/queen mothers of the sixteenth century, Louise de
Savoie (1476–1531) and Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589).2 Setting her apart
among that group, she produced a large corpus of literary works, which
earned her high regard in her own day and ever since as one of the most
important female writers of early modern Europe for her contributions to
religious, social, and political thought.3 Recognizing that her literary career
was an important aspect of her political one, this study attempts more
narrowly to analyze her ‘worldly’ influence as a female courtier: how she
won power; the limits she encountered in wielding it; and to what ends she
put it. 4 It also investigates her collaboration with and influence on other
noble women in those pursuits.
The primary focus of this essay and volume — a preoccupation with power
— it should be recognized, is framed from a modern perspective. Theorists
following the path from Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) via Karl Marx and
Friedrich Nietzsche to Michel Foucault, often treat power (authority, might,
or influence) as an end or reality unto itself. In the epigraph quoted above,
Marguerite, faithful to the religious and philosophical traditions of her day,
asserted that power (puissance) was — as Elizabeth I (1533–1603) rightly
interpreted her meaning — ultimately God’s. In her pithy formulation, a
blend of Christian and Platonic virtues — Faith and Love framing Goodness,
Wisdom, and Truth — give rise and purpose to power. Put another way,
those traditions held that moral ends should shape how holders use power
and be the standard by which their use of it be judged. The object of our
study, Marguerite, has something to say subjectively and substantively,
about our preoccupation with power as well as the power we wield and
the conceptualizations we employ in studying her use of it. Eschewing any
moral judgment about means or ends, this essay follows Max Weber, who
qu’il congnoist Verité, / Son cueur est plein d’amour et Charité.’ Translation by Elizabeth I, ‘The
preface’, A Godly Medytacyon on the christen sowle (1548), B2r.
2 Among the recent studies on the subject of French women’s power, Viennot, chs. 12–13,
provides a useful overview grounded in a longue durée perspective.
3 King and Rabil count Marguerite as one of 28 major female religious writers in Europe from
1450–1700; Stjerna presents her as one of 11 major female ‘models, leaders, and teachers’ during
the Reformation; and Broad and Green examine her literary works as contributions to political
thought For a penetrating reading of her Heptaméron in that vein, see Ferguson, Part 2, Ch.3.
4 See Stephenson on Marguerite’s ‘raw’ power; and Reid, 2009, on the ends to which she put her
might and the results. The latter work will only be cited to draw attention to particular points,
not for the bulk of the information or interpretation related below, which can be readily found
via the work’s table of contents and indices.
Imagination and Influence 265
understood authority (rule, power, or influence) to originate from three

possible sources: tradition (inherited power), the law (elected or bureaucratic
power), and charisma (attracted power). This essay explores how Marguerite
valorized and increased her inherited powers by use of her imagination
and intellect (charisma), that is, through her ability to convince others of
her vision of the world.
Along those lines, among Marguerite’s many qualities, two stand out as
essential to understanding her influence. First, as exemplified in The Mirror
of the Sinful Soul, she was a gifted writer, endowed with creative powers of
narrative invention and subtle reflection. Second, as the title page of the 1533
edition of The Mirror forcefully announced, she was ‘Marguerite de France,
Unique Sister of the King, by grace of God Queen of Navarre’. As Machiavelli
would have recognized, fate had bestowed on her great fortune. She was
the sole, beloved sister of François I (1594–1547), whom contemporaries
recognized at the start of his reign as forming one angle of the closely-knit
ruling ‘royal trinity’ composed of them and their widowed mother Louise de
Savoie. As will be explored below, the obvious sine qua non for Marguerite’s
influence was her close rapport with her brother, which was in dynamic
balance with his relations with his mother and, later, his mistress Anne de
Pisseleu (1508–1580) as well as his closest male councillors.
The full measure of Marguerite’s influence in her roles as a royal courtier,
diplomat, territorial lord, patron, writer, forceful voice in the querelle des
femmes (debate about women), theorist in several fields, religious reformer,
and champion of the poor and persecuted has not been fully plumbed
after over 170 years of ever growing study since François Génin published
an edition of her correspondence and observations based on it. Nor will
or could all those roles and that huge body of scholarship be surveyed
here.5 Taking inspiration from Marguerite’s greatest literary work — one
unfinished and unpublished at her death — the Heptaméron (Seven Days)
(1558), this essay presents and interprets contes (tales), that is, representa-
tive vignettes, from seven days or seasons of her life’s work. Collectively,
these interpreted episodes throw into high relief the main contours of
her acquisition and use of power at court and beyond. Borrowing Lucien
Febvre’s apt characterization of the world reflected in her Heptaméron,
these vignettes demonstrate that Marguerite sought and wielded influence
for both ‘sacred and profane’ purposes.6 She promoted the interests of
5 For orientation to the literature, see Clive; Ferguson and McKinley, ‘Introduction’; and Reid,
2009, I, ‘Introduction’.
6 Febvre.
the Valois dynasty and her own house. Like her mother, brother, and the
burgeoning ranks of humanist educated nobles throughout Europe, she
patronized the new arts and learning to enrich culture, literature, and
courtly life. Lastly and most distinctively, far beyond the worldly concerns
of most courtiers, she strove with domestic and foreign allies to effect
evangelical religious renewal in France. Her determined efforts put her in
conflict with conservative Catholics. As a result, her dynastic and religious
goals were at times at cross-purposes and she experienced her most bitter
failures on the latter front.
Whatever the tally of Marguerite’s victories, defeats, and stalemates, the
hallmark of her unfinished life’s work at court was her remarkable, perhaps
exceptional, use of imagination to multiply fortune’s gifts and win significant
power from, or influence over, her male relations — her brother, his sons,
and her two husbands — by providing them with political service, advice,
exploitable cultural capital, and, at times, by scripting for them narratives
of possible actions that promised to fulfil their dynastic ambitions. Beyond
those core relationships, she exercised significant influence by fostering and
collaborating with a broad circle of noble men and women, humanist and
religious writers, churchmen, town notables, and commoners. If not always
successful in her goals, she helped to create opportunities and expectations
for cultural and religious revitalization in France, which would not have
existed without her efforts and those of her networks.
The Celebration of the Treaty of London, 1518: The New Role of

Women at François I’s Court
On 22 December 1518, François I had the three women closest to him, Queen
Claude (1499–1524), Louise de Savoie, and Marguerite, host the banquet for the
ratification of the Treaty of London. During the dinner, breaking with custom,
women and men were seated together. This innovation, Robert J. Knecht
observes, was an early example of the much more prominent role François
gave to women at court than his predecessors had. It was a lasting precedent.
As the century wore on, while women generally lost rights, especially over
property within marriage, female courtiers continued to exercise significant
influence. Although a minority, never making up more than 20 per cent of the
court, women were present in greater numbers than during the late Middle
Ages, especially in the households of queens, regents, and mistresses — a
trend that had begun under François’s mother-in-law, Anne de Bretagne
(1477–1514). Women also had more frequent and intimate interactions with
the king and his courtiers.7 Thereby, some female courtiers had increased
opportunity to exert influence since access to the ruler was a key to power.8
While presence and access were important, the quality of the relationship
mattered most. François’s two wives had little say in shaping his rule. His
first, beloved wife, Claude, was a retiring figure. Ambassadors at court never
credited her with holding significant sway at court before her early death
in 1524. Daughter of the powerful Anne de Bretagne, her influence might
have increased had she lived to oversee the rearing and marriages of her
sons and daughters. After her death, the responsibility for educating them
fell to Marguerite, who chose the children’s tutors. François’s second wife,
Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), was even less influential over him. While
her household was larger and had more women in it than those of Claude
or Louise, François paid slight attention to her. Theirs was simply a state
marriage, which sealed in 1530 a short-lived peace treaty with François I’s
chief enemy, her brother Charles V (1500–1558).
During François’s reign, only three women figured among his important
formal and informal councillors. His mother, Louise, dominated during the
first half of his reign. She sat on his council and twice served as regent during
his war-time absences.9 Some speak of her as a co-ruler from his accession
in 1515 at age 19 to her death in 1531. His mistress for the last two decades of
his reign, Anne de Pisseleu, a young woman from an unremarkable noble
family, came to court in 1526. Only towards the end of his reign did she exert
extraordinary sway, serving as leader of an anti-imperial faction at court, which
included Marguerite and François’s third son, Charles (1522–1545); a group
that a rival faction associated with the dauphin Henri (1519–1559) swept from
court at his accession. Marguerite was the only councillor (male or female)
to exercise influence over the whole of François’s reign, and, though clearly
second to Louise during the first half, as were all other courtiers, she exerted
significant sway over her brother in spurts from the 1520s to the end of his life.
The foregoing examples illustrate the core fact that the unfettered will and
affection of the ruler shaped an elite woman’s capacity for influence at court.
They also provide comparative context revealing how fortunate Marguerite
had been in 1518 to have been at court presiding at that treaty celebration. For
women of royal blood — whose marriages monarchs sought to regulate as
a matter of state — the starting point for their adult careers depended upon
7 Knecht, 2008, pp. 58–60, 72–74; citing Jouanna, pp. 812–13. See also Michon, 2015.
8 Raeymaekers and Derks; Claerr and Poncet.
9 Michon, 2011, provides a thorough review of the relative influence of François’s 44 leading
councillors.
the sovereign’s decision over whom they would marry. Unlike Charles V’s four
sisters and three daughters, Henry VIII (1491–1547)’s two sisters, Queen Claude’s
sister, Renée de France (1510–1574), François’s two surviving daughters, and
most other early modern princesses, Marguerite had exceptionally not been
subject to the traditional dynastic policy of being married off at a young age
to a foreign prince in order to seal a political alliance. Instead of being wed
to Henry Tudor, as Louis XII (1462–1515) once intended, he had her betrothed
in 1509 to Charles d’Alençon (1489–1525), a match designed to tie the heir of a
royal blood line and possessor of important territories closer to the royal house.
Thus, when François became king, Marguerite was lucky to be in a position
to rise in power with him. After his accession, second only to Louise, François
granted her and her husband more gifts, powers, and territories than any of
the other men and women he brought to court. Crucially, he gave Marguerite
sovereign territories of her own, including the Duchy of Berry, as well as a
large annuity, which secured her a degree of independence, including from
her husband. As he stated in the official acts of his gift, François appreciated
the loyalty of his beloved sister and trusted her to use those gifts to bolster
his rule. Subsequently, François augmented her seigneurial and fiscal power
by granting her lifelong usufruct of the Alençon territories after the death
of Charles (in 1525) and allowed her to choose her second husband, Henri
d’Albret (1503–1555), King of Navarre, the most powerful feudal lord in France.
At court, however, her relationship with François and personal sway mattered
most. After his death, her fall was immediate. Henri II, who evidently did
not love her — likely because of their opposing religious views and factional
loyalties in the 1540s as well as because Marguerite had cherished his brothers
prior to their deaths more than him — kept her from court. Henri gave her
daughter Jeanne d’Albret (1528–1578) in marriage against Marguerite’s will,
and even laughed at the queen’s diminished station.
In sum, through a fateful decision by Louis XII, dynastic chance, and
François’s appreciation for her outstanding qualities, at the start of his
reign Marguerite had acquired substantial seigneurial powers and a leading
position at court.
Captain Marguerite and the Meaux Reformers: An Independent

Religious Agenda
In September 1521, Louise and Marguerite left court to visit Bishop Guil-
laume Briçonnet (c. 1472–1534), who, with a team of humanist scholars from
Paris headed by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455–1536), was orchestrating
innovative reform in his diocese of Meaux. The visit marked the importance
of what had become a close relationship between Marguerite, Louise, and
female members of court and Lefèvre’s circle. The visit was a reunion of sorts,
since both groups had had substantial interactions at court and in Paris
dating back to 1516. Though Briçonnet’s first reform efforts in the diocese
began in 1518, only after 1521, when Lefèvre’s team arrived to reinforce his
attempts to improve his clergy and educate the laity did their relationship
flourish. That move precipitated Marguerite to initiate regular correspond-
ence with Briçonnet in June 1521. In her first letters, she begged him to allow
one of the Meaux group, Michel d’Arande (fl. 1521–1539), to return to court to
finish a series of Bible lessons he had been giving to her and other ladies at
court. She also placed herself under the spiritual tutelage of Briçonnet and
the Meaux group, and promised to serve as their champion, or as Briçonnet
likened her, their ‘captain,’ at court. Over the next four years, Briçonnet and
Marguerite carried on an intensive spiritual and tactical dialogue, resulting
in over 120 long letters, which document their efforts at court to promote
the Meaux reform as a model for the rest of France. François’s defeat at
Pavia in 1525 enabled conservative critics from Paris to pressure Briçonnet
into ending the reform experiment as well as to level accusations of heresy
against Lefèvre’s group, forcing them to flee to safe havens.
Marguerite’s involvement with the Meaux group and their reform program
was the most transformative experience of her life. Under their tutelage, she
underwent a spiritual awakening and was inspired to express her new faith
in works of poetry and prose. Her first two substantial poems were religious
dialogues and date from this period. Her unpublished Pater Noster (Our Father),
c. 1524, was a verse translation of the exposition of the Lord’s Prayer by Martin
Luther (1483–1546) as a dialogue between the God and the soul.10 In her Dialogue
en forme de vision nocturne (Dialogue in the form of a Night-time Vision),
published in 1533, she channelled her grief at the death of François’s daughter
Charlotte (b. 1516) soon after child’s passing in 1524: the spirit of her niece speaks
to her, consoling and instructing her in the knowledge of true saving faith.
Inspired by the Meaux circle, these works exhibit the hallmarks of her later
works: discursive form; intimate settings; characters — more often women
than not — modeled on her family, courtiers, familiars, or some heavenly or
holy figure; a preoccupation with spiritual instruction and consolation; and
Scripture as the omnipresent frame and subject of her discourse.
Those spiritual and literary awakenings paralleled her emergence at
court as the leading advocate of a contested evangelical agenda of religious
10 Navarre, 2001, pp. 25–36.

renewal. Already in July 1521, Marguerite and Briçonnet worried that her
advocacy of their reform program might break the royal trinity. She and
Briçonnet tried twice over the period 1522–1523 to induce Louise and François
to back specific reform proposals based on the Meaux model. Those efforts
failed for a variety of reasons: the preoccupation of Louise and François with
the first Habsburg war (1521–1525) and opposition from conservatives at
court, such as Chancellor Antoine Duprat (1463–1536), as well as the Faculty
of Theology and Parlement of Paris. On the defensive, Marguerite was forced
to spend her credit with Louise and François to induce them to protect the
Meaux group as well as a series of evangelicals who preached under her aegis
in Paris, Lyons, Mâcon, Grenoble, and her seigneurial territories of Alençon
and Bourges. Marguerite’s efforts at court and across France were so forceful
that she earned admiration or condemnation at home and abroad as a leader
of the ‘Lutherans’ in France. Diplomats, journalists, street singers, pamphlet
writers, and hostile preachers described her as a version of the image of her
portrayed in a tableau vivant staged in the cloister of Notre Dame of Paris in
the summer of 1525: that is, as a woman riding on horseback accompanied
by devils on foot with Luther written on their fronts and backs.11
Marguerite’s leadership during this first phase of the Reformation, when
religious frontiers and identities were being explored and clarified both in
France and the Empire, did not permanently tarnish her reputation or funda-
mentally undermine her position at court. Her standing there, however, was
thereafter complicated by her independent religious agenda, which her brother
or mother tolerated but did not actively support and other courtiers positively
opposed. Through the rest of François’s reign, her reputation and religious
agenda both attracted friends and made enemies. She worked the numerous
allies who flocked to her into a broader network. Beyond her relationship with
her brother, this network became one of her most important sources of power
for advancing her various political, social, cultural, and religious projects.
François’s Captivity, 1525–1526: Purgation and Protection
François I’s defeat at Pavia on 24 February 1525 was a disaster of enormous

proportions, including for Marguerite. Unlike most of the nobles, who died
on the field, or the few taken captive, including her brother, her husband,
Charles d’Alençon, commander of the rear guard, was the only major figure
11 Knecht, 1994, p. 236 for the incident; Reid, 2009, I, pp. 299–305 for the reputation of Marguerite
and her network c. 1525.
to escape the battle. Fate or fortune erased that dishonor and also ended
Marguerite’s long, childless marriage, when Charles died unexpectedly of
a pleurisy within weeks of returning to France (11 April), leaving his major
estates to her in his will. Then, during the summer, with her brother in
captivity and the court facing strong opposition within France, Louise and
Duprat allowed discontented Parisian authorities to indict the Meaux group
and others in her evangelical network on heresy charges. Marguerite’s greater
challenge was to save her brother, the lesser, her persecuted evangelical
‘brethren’. She responded by using her pen, imagination, and newly growing
network to attempt to protect persecuted evangelicals and save her brother,
body and soul. The remarkable series of letters from that year display her
prodigious creativity and resilience as a leader and religious thinker when
her main support, François I, was at his weakest.12
Marguerite took it upon herself to minister to François as a sort of spiritual
adviser. In March 1525, she sent him (via his childhood friend, and closest
companion in captivity, Anne de Montmorency (1493–1567)), her copy of
Lefèvre’s translation of Paul’s epistles. She promised that if he were to read
them each day ‘as if in prayer’, he would be delivered. Her relentless efforts
over the rest of the year to lead François to embrace an image of himself as
newly remade by God to restore a badly broken church ultimately failed. The
poems and letters François wrote during captivity, some in direct response
to her overtures, do not reflect her religious interpretation.
Marguerite’s efforts, however, succeeded on two other fronts. In the
summer of 1525, François and Louise agreed that Marguerite should be sent
to Spain (where François had been transferred) to negotiate the terms of
his ransom. François’s only act during his captivity was late in 1525, when
Marguerite was with him in Spain. He ordered the suspension of proceedings
against Lefèvre and the rest of the Meaux group. On the political front, she
ultimately failed to complete the negotiations for François’s release. Instead,
shortly after dismissing her from Spain as a meddler, Charles agreed with
Montmorency essentially to the same terms she had proposed. While in
Spain, she did win a symbolic victory of her own crafting, however. When
she arrived, François was mortally ill, barely conscious. She had the Eucharist
celebrated before him and convinced the officiant to allow him to commune.
When her brother recovered soon after, courtiers credited Marguerite with
his salvation, and proclaimed to the hostile Parlement of Paris and public
back home that the king’s restoration from near death by the Eucharist was a
clear sign that God had blessed his anointed to whom they owed obedience.
12 Over 140 letters date to 1525, a tenth of her known correspondence.

While scripting such morality plays out of the dire circumstances of

François’s captivity, Marguerite also succeeded in securing safe havens
for the main members of the Meaux group while she was absent. During
the fall of 1525, Anne Malet de Graville (c.1490–c.1540), a former lady-in-
waiting of Queen Claude, sheltered Pierre Caroli (1480–1550), a member
of the Faculty of Theology and Meaux group, who had been in trouble for
his preaching in Paris. Given the proximity of Marguerite and Anne at
court and the fact that Marguerite had taken Anne and her daughter into
her household by 1529, it is likely that Marguerite arranged for Caroli’s
protection under Anne’s wing. If so, Anne would be the f irst of many
noblewomen in Marguerite’s network to protect persecuted evangelicals
at her request or in emulation of her.
Marguerite also helped to arrange the high-profile escape into exile with
Sigismund von Hohenlohe (1485–1534), a distant cousin, who was a leader of
the Reformation in Strasbourg, of the three most prominent figures in the
Meaux group: Lefèvre, Gérard Roussel (1500–1555), and Michel d’Arande.
Through correspondence with Sigismund, Marguerite kept tabs on the
Meaux group and called them back after François’s release was assured. In
the following years Marguerite secured the ex-Meaux campaigners positions
either in her household or in François’s gift: Caroli as priest of Alençon,
Roussel as an abbot and her almoner, d’Arande as a bishop, and Lefèvre as
tutor to François’s children.
These episodes demonstrate Marguerite’s considerable tactical political
skill and influence with her brother. Equally, they show that even when
François was at a psychological low point, she was unable to convince him
fully of his supposed role as a reforming king. These vignettes also reveal
that the ever-conservative Anne de Montmorency had emerged, as he would
remain until his disgrace in 1541, as her major rival for François’s favor. In
her letter to Montmorency, noted above, Marguerite complained she was
envious of him since though she wished it more than he ever would, she could
not serve François as easily because ‘fortune has done me this wrong, that
in making me a woman, it has made the means difficult’.13 Her statement
was a frank admission that her gender constrained her from assisting her
brother as Montmorency could, but it was also a challenge to Montmorency:
neither fortune nor he would stop her.
13 Marguerite de Navarre to Anne de Montmorency, [March 1525] ‘Bien est vray que toute ma
vie j’auray envie que je ne puis faire pour luy office pareil au vostre, car où la voulenté passe
toute celle que pouriés avoir, la fortune me tient tort, qui, pour estre femme, me rend le moyen
difficile’ [Translated passage in italics]. Génin, 1841, nº 25, p. 176.
The Diet of Augsburg, 1530: The New Protestant Powers and

Political Possibilities
On 25 August 1530, Martin Bucer (1491–1551), a leading reformer from Stras-

bourg, wrote to Martin Luther and others from the Diet of Augsburg, where the
nascent ‘Protestants’ were taking a major step towards establishing themselves
legally by presenting their confession(s) of faith to the Emperor for recognition.
Bucer told Luther that French evangelicals had written to him outside of the
official diplomatic channels ‘at the order of the Queen of Navarre’ expressly
to encourage them to present a united front and a single confession of faith.14
Three rival confessions of faith were in competition and the Protestants were
trying, but failing, to settle on one agreeable to the majority. The ‘French
brethren’ were pleading with them, Bucer noted, because they believed that if
the German Protestants were united they would able to advance the evangeli-
cal cause in France, since François was not hostile to it and many nobles had
been won over by ‘that most Christian heroine, the king’s sister’.15
Bucer’s testimony reveals that Marguerite was serving as the active
leader of French evangelicals and had clear plans for advancing their cause.
Moreover, his letter testifies to her geo-political political acumen. Well
before François and his councillors, she saw and seized upon the opportunity
to cooperate with the nascent German Protestants to advance François’s
dynastic ambitions against Charles, Thereby, she also sought to advance
her network’s reform objectives.
Whereas François I had no diplomatic representation in the Empire during
the 1520s, in the 1530s and 1540s, following the paths blazed informally by
members in her network to centers of power in the Empire, he established
strong representation. Two of Marguerite’s closest allies at court, the learned
Guillaume du Bellay (1491–1543), whom she had chosen to accompany her to
Spain in 1525, and his equally talented brother Jean (1492–1560), whom she
helped have named bishop of Paris, employed a coterie of German operatives
such as Johann Sturm (1507–1589), subsequently an influential educator and
humanist, and Johann Sleidan (1506–1556), the future official historian of
the German Lutheran movement, to gather information, communicate via
back channels, and make formal diplomatic overtures to Protestant powers.
Marguerite, the Du Bellay brothers, and other courtiers, including Anne de
14 Martin Bucer to Martin Luther, 25 September 1530, Augsburg, Bucer, nº 328, pp. 212–19, esp.
p. 215, l. 17 – p. 216, l. 16.
15 ‘Tum numquam suo officio deest christianiss[ima] illa heroina, regis soror,’ Bucer, p. 216,
ll. 2–3.
Montmorency’s rival, Philippe de Chabot (1492–1543), and eventually Anne de

Pisseleu would champion from 1530 to the end of François’s reign, principally
in three extended periods — 1531–1535, 1538–1543, and 1545–1547 — political
alliances with the German Protestants, schemes which always carried the
promise of mutual aid and, whether probable or not, religious concord. In
each of these periods, Marguerite was, as diplomats ever noted, a leading
architect and key instigator at court of these anti-Habsburg, pro-Protestant
overtures.
The Alençon Heresy Trials, 1533–1534: The Limits of Influence
In 1533, an iconoclastic attack in Marguerite’s ducal seat of Alençon dealt

her a severe blow. On the eve of the feast of Corpus Christi, two commoners
took statues of the Virgin Mary and Saint Claude and hung them from the
gutter of a house.16 Their act could reasonably be interpreted as a violent
symbolic attack on belief in the cult of the saints, the Virgin as intercessor
before Christ, as well as the doctrines of the real presence and the sacrifice
of the Mass. The judges of her ducal exchequer court, which, as an apanage
territory, enjoyed independence from oversight by the region’s royal high
court, the Parlement of Rouen, treated the event as a minor infraction
and handed down lenient sentences. What happened next reveals much
about the limits of François’s tolerance for direct attacks on the church and
tradition, the degree of Marguerite’s influence over him in such matters,
the strength of opposition to her religious agenda at court, and, ultimately,
the otherwise opaque workings of her influence on the local level via her
networks and the prominent role of women in them.
In response to the lenient sentencing of the iconoclasts, in 1533 and again
in 1534, evidently spurred by Marguerite’s bête noir, Chancellor Duprat,
François ordered two special judicial commissions, made up of hand-picked,
conservative judges from several parlements, to re-investigate and re-try
their cases. With the help of the local bishop, these commissions enlarged
the investigation beyond the act of the two iconoclasts. They discovered
cells of heretics, indicted over 40 of them, and eventually, in the summer
of 1534, handed down harsh verdicts (only 21 of which survive) including at
least nine death sentences and three of banishment from the realm.
16 For the data and analysis backing up this interpretation of Marguerite’s relationship to the
local networks at Alençon, see Reid, 2009, I, pp. 393–416; and for a critical edition of the record
of the 42 individuals tried and sentences of 21, see Farge, II, pp. 1245–73.
During this affair, Marguerite wrote to her brother three times in an

attempt, initially, to convince him to order the first commission of 1533
to send the expanded docket of cases back to the ducal court for retrial.
Evidently, François agreed for a time, only to change his mind. Marguerite
submitted to his final decision, promising to cooperate with the second
special commission, which passed final sentence. Despite her best efforts,
she had lost a significant battle at court, had her territorial rights overturned
at the king’s express order, and suffered a black mark against her name.
This fray transpired in the context of a complex set of interrelated strug-
gles from 1533 to 1535 at home and in the foreign arena that were shaping
the religious direction of France and Europe including French support for
Henry VIII during his request for an annulment through his break with
Rome (1528–1535); François’s f irst period of cooperation with German
Protestants (1531–1534); his negotiations with Clement VII (1478–1534) for
an alliance, which was eventually sealed by the marriage of the Pope’s
niece, Catherine de Médicis, with François’s second son, Henri; and a rapidly
escalating period of religious strife in French cities between evangelicals
and Catholics (1533–1535). Marguerite had ignited that domestic season
of strife by having her almoner Roussel preach during Lent of 1533 at the
Louvre. It finally exploded when radicals in the evangelical movement
posted incendiary placards against the Mass in October 1534 and again in
January 1535, precipitating a massive persecution sanctioned by François.
Marguerite and her court network were heavily involved in all of those
momentous episodes. The less well-known Alençon affair, however, allows us
to glimpse something of her unheralded and difficult-to-measure leadership
of evangelical communities in the towns and burgs of France, both those
under her control and beyond. Despite her promise to cooperate, in fact she
did much behind the scenes to dull the judicial blow and save her subjects.
27 of those indicted had connections to Marguerite: she employed eleven
of them in her household or ducal administration, several after the trials,
including two of those sentenced to banishment. She also had relatives of
sixteen others in her service, including in the 1540s, the son of one icono-
clast and a relation of the other. The ex-Meaux campaigner, Pierre Caroli,
whom Marguerite had named priest of Alençon in 1530, saw his case — one
evidently too politically sensitive for the judges to handle — remitted to
the king’s Privy Court, where he found clemency.
Retrospectively, when the names of those indicted at Alençon are com-
pared with those on the rolls of her household, the officers of her duchy,
and the directors of the local Hôtel-Dieu, or poor relief foundation, it is
clear that Marguerite was directly responsible for fostering the several
conventicles of evangelicals, which the external judges discovered there in

1533 and 1534, dating back to 1523 when she first sent Michel d’Arande to
preach in Alençon. Subsequently, she appointed a series of clerics, several
of whom, like d’Arande and Caroli, were indicted for spreading heresy in
her duchy. These conventicles included town notables and ducal officers
as well as commoners in nearby villages. Given the focus of this essay, it
is noteworthy that a coterie of elite women indicted by the judges seem
to have anchored several of these sodalities: including the elite women
Marguerite had given over-sight of the town’s poor relief system and a local
noblewoman, Jeanne d’Avoise.
Alençon was one venue of Marguerite’s local influence. In dozens of other
towns similar evangelical cells formed, some in her seigneurial territories,
like Bourges and Nérac, but many more in places outside her direct reach
as lord such as Meaux, Nîmes, Lyons, Grenoble, Aix, Toulouse, Bordeaux,
Orleans, Troyes, and Paris. Marguerite fostered such communities by ensur-
ing evangelicals in her network were appointed to key ecclesiastical, royal,
and university positions as well as by protecting evangelical sodalities when
authorities targeted them.
La Coche (The Coach): Literary Clout at Court and in Print
During mid-winter 1541–1542, Marguerite presented Anne de Pisseleu, her

brother’s mistress, with a deluxe manuscript of her poem, The Coach, which
she had commissioned with detailed miniatures corresponding to the story
and act of dedication.17 Befitting the recipient, in the poem the figure of
Marguerite and several interlocutors discuss the nature of true love in its
various forms and counterfeits. The figure of Marguerite lauds Anne as an
exemplar of the perfect amie (female friend/lover), not for her great beauty
and grace but for her perfect, virtuous love of François.18
By that time, Anne was exerting powerful influence over Marguerite’s
brother. With the gift of The Coach, Marguerite was nourishing her already
close relationship with Anne, because, as she often told ambassadors dur-
ing this period, she needed Anne’s help to sway the king. Marguerite had
chosen her time and manner of currying favor carefully. That winter, Anne
was riding higher than ever. She had convinced François to reverse the
pro-Habsburg policy of their greatest rival, Anne de Montmorency, who
17 Petris, introduction to La Coche, in Navarre, 2012, pp. 271–76.

18 Navarre, 2012, La Coche, ll. 1244ff.
left court in quasi-disgrace in June 1541.19 As a mark of his growing esteem

and deference, François was having special apartments decorated for Anne
in his favorite residence, Fontainebleau. Marguerite’s poem echoed the
themes of that project.20
Marguerite’s gift of The Coach to Anne exemplifies three aspects of her
attempts to wield influence in the latter years of François’s reign, a period
when she was reaching her full powers as a writer and simultaneously
facing stiffer competition at court. First, she more frequently deployed her
literary works as cultural capital in the pursuit of her personal, dynastic,
and religious agendas. In the 1540s specifically, she renewed her effort,
similar to the one during François’s captivity, to convince him of his calling
to be a restorer of the church, a role which corresponded to the reform and
dynastic foreign policies that she and Anne were proposing in those years.
As part of this campaign, Marguerite addressed a series of New Year’s Day
poems to her brother in the 1540s, which again prescribed for François a
reforming persona.21 Thereby, she drew François I, who was also a poet, albeit
one whose pen had largely run dry since the 1520s, back into the intimate
world of their previous poetic exchanges and induced him to respond. His
poems from the 1540s exhibit that in some measure he accepted the religious
persona Marguerite ascribed to him. Given the large number of surviving
contemporary manuscripts of their poetic exchanges, which invariably
contain copies of Marguerite’s other literary works alongside those of other
court poets, her overtures to François were widely circulated and noted at
court and in literary circles.
Second, Marguerite collaborated more closely with a sodality of women
at court and their male relatives and allies to keep the king’s grace, win
favors, and shape his policies. At times in the 1530s, Marguerite had acted
in concert with other ladies to sustain their relationships with François,
such as in April 1537, when she, Anne de Pisseleu, Catherine de Médicis,
Marguerite de Bourbon-Vendôme, and François I’s daughter, Marguerite
de France (1523–1574), co-signed a letter of encouragement while he was
on campaign.22 In the 1540s, Marguerite cultivated her relationships with
important female courtiers by involving them in her literary efforts, even
19 Extending the work of Knecht, 1994, Potter, pp. 543–56, confirms Anne’s dominant power
at court, and corroborates Reid, 2009, II, pp. 497–516, that Marguerite and Anne collaborated
throughout the 1540s in attempts to guide François’s foreign policy towards alliances and
religious concord with the German Protestants and England.
20 See Ruby, pp. 104–14.
21 Reid, 2013, pp. 45–47.
22 Génin, 1842, nº 83, p. 138.
if they were not capable of creating such works themselves. In addition to

Anne, she had copies of The Coach made for Anne’s sisters and, similarly,
dedicated her Fable du faux cuyder (Fable of False Belief) to François’s
daughter, Marguerite. On at least one occasion in 1542, Marguerite had ladies
at the royal court perform one of her plays. Indeed, many of her late plays,
longer poems like The Coach, and, above all her Heptaméron, are peopled
with noble men and women (sometimes only women) in courtly settings.
These works reflect and project the women’s sodalities she cultivated and
cooperated with in maintaining influence at a court that was formally
dominated by François but by no means solely directed by him and his
male courtiers.
Third, in the 1540s, Marguerite drew on the cultural capital she acquired
over the years as one of the leading women in the republic of letters. The
significance of that capital and ways she deployed it have yet to be fully
measured. In the 1540s, although she had been writing consistently since
the 1520s, she had stopped publishing new material after the last authorized
versions of her Mirror in the winter of 1533–1534. Then in 1543 she released
two of the aforementioned works: Epistre envoyee au roi par sa soeur unique,
la roine de Navarre (Letter sent to the King by his Only Sister, the Queen
of Navarre), which was one of her New Year’s Day verse letters to François,
and the Fable of False Belief (reprinted in 1545, 1546, and 1547). In early 1547,
when her brother’s death was imminent, she had her secretary secure a
copyright privilege to publish a collection containing all her previously
printed works and a selection of unpublished ones in the Marguerites de la
marguerite des princesses (Pearls from the Pearl of Princesses) (1547) and Suite
des marguerites (More Pearls) (1547). Thereafter, however, even though they
were designed in part to flatter Henri II, she withheld from print her three
late major works: La Navire (The Ship) and Les Prisons (Prisons), which she
completed after François’s death and contain some of her most important
religious reflections, and her incomplete masterpiece, the Heptaméron.
In response to her literary œuvre and patronage of other authors, she re-
ceived a crescendo of recognition as one of the leading women in the republic
of letters. Authors from France, Italy, England, Switzerland, and the Empire
dedicated at least 76 books to her and wrote dozens of poems in praise of
her.23 Religious figures running the spectrum from Protestant reformers
like Wolfgang Capito (c. 1478–1541) and Huldrich Zwingli (1484–1531) to
conservative Catholics like Pierre Doré (1500–1569) chimed in to the chorus
23 The f igures are from the author’s (incomplete) unpublished lists of books and poems
dedicated or addressed to Marguerite.
of praise sung by the leading literary figures of the day, including neo-Latin
luminaries, Salmon Macrin (1590–1557) and Nicolas Bourbon (c. 1503–c. 1550),
and the most widely read French authors Clément Marot (1496–1544) and
François Rabelais (1483/94–1553). How much her reputation as a cultural
and religious paragon weighed at court or in her dealings beyond remains
a question begging investigation.
Jeanne d’Albret’s First Marriage: An Abrahamic Sacrifice to the

Hard Realities of Power Politics
In June 1541, Jeanne d’Albret, who was, according to Marguerite, still

pre-pubescent, was forced by François I to marry William, Duke of Cleves
(1516–1592). Jeanne had previously protested the marriage proposal, even
directly to François when he visited her to inform her of his decision. At
the marriage ceremony, Anne de Montmorency had literally to carry the
unwilling Jeanne to the altar. That was his final humiliating duty before he
left François’s court for good. The purpose of the marriage was to seal an
important anti-Habsburg military and defensive alliance between François
and the Duke, a wavering Catholic leaning to the Protestant cause, whose
extensive lands straddled the Empire and Low Countries. The alliance was
intended thereby to serve as the basis for a broader coalition between France
and the German Protestant princes, in chief John Frederick I (1503–1554),
Elector of Saxony, the Duke’s brother-in-law, who were supporting the Duke
in a territorial dispute with the emperor. As part of his grander ambition
to thwart the power of his rival, François was thus committing his support
to the Duke in an imminent war with Charles V as well as implicitly to the
German Protestants, on whom the Emperor had also threated to wage war.
The marriage was also diametrically opposed to the interests of Margue-
rite’s husband, Henri de Navarre, who had been negotiating semi-secretly
with Charles to marry his sole heir, Jeanne, to the Emperor’s son in return
for the restitution of Lower Navarre on the Iberian side of the Pyrenees,
which the Spanish had conquered in 1517. Marguerite was thus the monkey-
in-the-middle between her brother and husband.
Marguerite played a major role in bringing the Cleves marriage to pass
and in managing its outcome. The affair reveals that she had embraced the
inexorable logic of her pro-Protestant foreign policy when fortune presented
an alliance between France and Cleves as the best means of promoting it as
well as her brother’s dynastic interests. To those two ends, she sacrificed her
husband’s wishes. Viewed in terms of gender politics, Marguerite made some
hard choices in this affair, which reveal her commitment to her brother as
the prime source of her power. The Cleves marriage also displays her cagey
political sense for she both orchestrated the political alliance it sealed and
planned for the likelihood that it would fall apart, as it did when Cleves
lost the war with the Emperor and capitulated in 1543. As early as 1538,
when Montmorency was leading François towards reconciliation with
the Emperor, Marguerite learned from the Du Bellay brothers’ German
agents that a French marriage alliance with Cleves could bind François, the
German Protestants, and Henry VIII together against the Emperor. During
the marriage negotiations, Anne de Pisseleu and Marguerite worked hard
to promote the three-way alliance. They held long, private interviews with
English and Protestant ambassadors to plot and plan. From 1540 onwards
Marguerite seconded those efforts by sending dozens of letters to reassure
the Duke and his Protestant allies of her and her husband’s agreement to
the marriage, to express their happiness with it once it happened, as well
as to maintain good relations with them up until, and even after, Cleves’
defeat voided the raison d’être of the marriage. After the Emperor forced
Cleves to foreswear his French and Protestant allies, Marguerite appealed
to François and the Pope to have the marriage annulled. In her letters,
she assumed total responsibility for having forced her daughter into the
marriage despite Jeanne’s opposition, noting that the marriage had never
been consummated and was thus not valid (Marguerite had ensured that
the Duke only put a symbolic foot into the nuptial bed). As proof of Jeanne’s
unwillingness, Marguerite produced two secret, formal protests signed
by Jeanne on the day before, and of, the wedding. The witnesses included
members of the Albret household, including Marguerite’s close friend and
hand-picked governess for Jeanne, Aymée de La Fayette. Marguerite had
built into the marriage alliance scheme an escape hatch should it fail:
blaming herself via Jeanne’s protestations against the forced marriage she
exculpated her brother and ‘freed’ her daughter to serve once again as a
bargaining chip in François’s foreign policy. In all this Marguerite accepted
and played by the iron law, as she put it to her brother, that ‘a girl should
have absolutely no will’ of her own in marriage matters. 24 The contrast
with her contemporaneous literary meditations on the voluntary, mutually
24 In an apology to François, Marguerite summarizes this harsh rule of dynastic marriage

politics: ‘Monseigneur, ayant entendu que ma fille, ne connoissant […] ne l’obéissance qu’elle
vous doit, ny aussy que une fille ne doit point avoir de voulonté, vous a tenu ung si fou propous
que de vous dire qu’elle vous supplioit qu’elle ne feust point mariée à M. de Cleves’ (emphasis
added), Génin, 1842, nº 105, pp. 175–76; discussed by Petris in Navarre, 2012, p. 275.
enriching, affection between perfect lovers — her brother and his mistress
in The Coach — is staggering, but completely congruous with the gendered
rules of that era’s game of dynastic politics, wherein the fates of families
and states were shaped by whether such ‘advantageous’ marriages actually
paid off, not least in producing (male) heirs.
Conclusion: Abiding Influence
In June 1536, shortly after the death of Anne Boleyn (c. 1501/7–1536), an
unidentified English ambassador sympathetic to the Catholic cause, writ-
ing to the English court about the Emperor’s preparations for war with
France, quipped that he ‘would be loath the King [Henry VIII] should have
married in the French race, for they have been trained with the queen
of Navarre’.25 It was a backhanded compliment of sorts, admitting that
Marguerite had great influence on other women, and, implicitly, that such
women could sway the policies of kings. The ambassador likely had in
mind Marguerite’s influence on Boleyn, who spent part of her youth at
the French court. As modern scholarship has established, Anne had close,
discrete ties to Marguerite and her network. Before and during her reign,
Anne acquired many evangelical works in French, including Marguerite’s
Mirror. Her brother George (1504–1536), who served several terms in the early
1530s as ambassador to the French court and was in frequent contact with
Marguerite, transmitted at least some of these works as well as personal
messages. In early 1534, most likely at Marguerite’s request, Anne appealed
for the neo-Latin poet, Nicolas Bourbon, to be released from prison in Paris
after indictment on heresy charges. Anne employed him as the tutor of
noble children in her household. After her execution, Bourbon returned to
France and Marguerite eventually made him tutor to her daughter Jeanne.
It is not surprising, then, that in 1544 Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, would be
set the task, designed to help her win the favor of her step-mother, Catherine
Parr (1512–1548), of translating Marguerite’s Mirror.26 The decision to publish
Elizabeth’s translation in 1548, early in the reign of Edward VI (1537–1553),
clearly had a political dimension and could not have been made without the
approval of the English court. The publication served to bolster Elizabeth’s
persona as a pious and learned princess by associating her with the pious
25 2 June [1536], Brewer, X, nº 1042, pp. 432–33.

26 Ellis argues that Elizabeth learned a form of rhetorical ‘indeterminacy’ from Marguerite,
which served her well when addressing concerns over her marriage and succession plans.
and learned queen. Much the same could be said for the decision in 1550
and 1551 to associate the young Seymour sisters with two editions of poetry
in honor of Marguerite after her passing.
Those cross-channel examples of Marguerite’s stature as an evangelical
paragon reflect her exemplary role among powerful women of the French
court and beyond. While obedient to the gendered behavioral norms and
expectations of women within marriage and families, at court, and as nobles,
Marguerite creatively exploited the available social pathways. As a courtier
and writer, she developed, and passed on to contemporaries and succeeding
generations, traditions of female agency she had learned from her forebears.
She had grown up witness to the formidably able political manoeuverings of
Louise de Savoie and Anne de Bretagne, and the piousness of her mother-in-
law, Marguerite de Lorraine (1463–1521).27 She imbibed and invoked in her
literary works the ideas of female writers who had gone before her, such as
the renowned French royal courtier, Christine de Pizan (1364–c.1430) and the
martyred mystic Marguerite Porete (c. 1248/50–1310). In turn, Marguerite’s
reputation attracted the attention of contemporary female writers. The
Genevan reformer, Marie Dentière (c. 1495–1561)¸ dedicated to the queen her
Epistre tresutile (A Most Helpful Letter) (1539), an apology for the evangelical
cause containing a strident ‘Defense of Women’ and their right to discuss
Scripture with one another despite the attempts of men on all sides of the
religious controversy to keep them silent.28 In the 1540s, the renowned religious
poet, Vittoria Colonna (1492–1547), prompted by Renée de France, Duchess of
Ferrara, initiated a spiritual correspondence and exchange of religious poetry
with Marguerite. In 1542, the first letters of Marguerite and Colonna were
published in Italian, adding to their lustre as major religious literary figures.
These literary examples of Marguerite’s stature among women are
telling markers of her influence. More importantly, following the English
ambassador’s line of thinking, they suggest that her influence over her
brother, at court, and in the world — explored in the seven examples above
— was broader and stronger than it otherwise would have been precisely
because she sought influence among women and succeeded in attracting
their attention and aid. In two articles published in 1972, Nancy Roelker
analyzes Marguerite’s possible impact on elite French noblewomen active
either in evangelical reform during her generation or later as supporters
27 For analysis of Marguerite’s relationship with her mother-in-law after the latter’s retirement
to her convent, see Reid, 2009, I, pp. 109–11.
28 Fols. 4r–5r. For orientation to the literature on Dentière see Stjerna, pp. 133–47; and McKinley’s
introduction to Dentière.
of the Huguenot party during the first religious wars.29 Roelker notes ties
between Marguerite, the anchor of the first generation, and four or five of
the 28 elite women she cites for those two periods. One can easily make
the case for Marguerite’s direct or strong indirect influence on over half of
those cited by Roelker, as well as many ladies of the lesser nobility whom
Roelker did not cite, such as (noted above) Anne Malet de Graville, Jeanne
d’Avoise, or Aymée de La Fayette. Roelker’s sketch of Marguerite’s influence
on the women of her generation remains to be completed. What seems clear,
however, is that, unlike Marguerite’s campaign to win her brother’s heart to
an ardent desire for religious and personal renewal, she had much greater
success with noble women. In the summer of 1542, Anne de Pisseleu — whom
Roelker oddly does not count among her 28 — vaunted to an ambassador
that she had recently come to a knowledge of the word of God by reading
the Gospel, and then turned to Marguerite to complain teasingly: ‘Madame,
how could you have wanted to do me this ill-turn of hiding and depriving
me of such a great good for so long? I am now so calm and confident that I
count myself happy and do not know how to thank God enough’.30 Anne’s
was another backhanded compliment. In addition to The Coach, Marguerite
had evidently convinced Anne, unlike François, to read the Scriptures,
leading Anne to claim adherence to the evangelical cause and boast of
her ability to move François to support it. Anne’s testimony and the other
vignettes cited above show that Marguerite was not just evangelical in her
beliefs and writing, but a dynamic evangelist on several fronts. At court,
in the realm, and indeed internationally, she not only sought to spread
‘knowledge of the word of God’, but also promoted culture and learning.
In particular, she advocated by word and example that women play a vital
role in deliberations over matters sacred and profane helping to ensure
that ‘Faith, Goodness, Wisdom, the Power of God, Truth, Love, and Charity’
would be embedded in the hearts of kings, men, and women and realized
in some measure on earth.
Or, as some modern theory asks, were her pious claims mere cant to
mask more mundane ends? At times, one suspects, as Febvre argued, it
was a bit of both.
29 Roelker, 1972a; Roelker, 1972b.

30 ‘[L]a dame d’Estampes lit l’Evangile et rend graces à Dieu qu’elle vienne à la cognoissance
de sa Parolle. Elle doibt avoir dit à la royne de Navarre: “Madame, comment m’avez-vous voulu
ce mal de moy si longuement receler er priver de si grant bien? Je suis presentement tant à mon
aise et repose que je me repute heureuse, et n’en sçauroye assez rendre graces à Dieu.”’ Juan
Naves to Louis of Flandres, 24 June 1542, Vienna, Staatsarchiv, Frankreich, Varia 3, fol. 146. Cited
by Petris in Navarre, 2012, p. 275.
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—. ‘Marguerite and Evangelical Reform’. A Companion to Marguerite de Navarre.
Ed. Gary Ferguson and Mary McKinley. Leiden: Brill, 2013, pp. 29–58.
RAEYMAEKERS, Dries, and Sebastiaan DERKS. The Key to Power? The Culture of
Access in Princely Courts, 1400–1750. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
ROELKER, Nancy Lyman. ‘The Appeal of Calvinism to French Noblewomen in the
Sixteenth Century’. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2, 1972a, pp. 391–418.
—. ‘The Role of Noblewomen in the French Reformation’. ARG, 63, 1972b, pp. 168–95.
RUBY, Sigrid. Mit Macht verbunden: Bilder der Favoritin im Frankreich der Re-
naissance. Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Fördergemeinschaft wissenschaftlicher
Publikationen von Frauen, 2010.
STEPHENSON, Barbara. The Power and Patronage of Marguerite de Navarre. Women
and Gender in the Early Modern World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.
STJERNA, Kirsi. Women and the Reformation. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
VIENNOT, Éliane. La France, les femmes et le pouvoir. Vol. 1. L’invention de la loi
salique. Paris: Perrin, 2006.
About the author
Jonathan A. Reid is Associate Professor of Renaissance and Reformation

History at East Carolina University. He is author of King’s Sister – Queen
of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549) and her Evangelical Network
(Brill, 2009), a study of her championing of evangelical religious renewal
in France during the early Reformation in Europe. He has co-edited the
volume of essays Neo-Latin and the Humanities: Essays in Honour of Charles
Fantazzi (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014) and served
as assistant editor of the journal Explorations in Renaissance Culture since
2011. He is currently working on a monograph about the rise of the Reformed
churches in the major cities of France from the outbreak of the Luther Affair
through the first War of Religion, 1520–1563.
10. Power through Print
The Works of Hélisenne de Crenne
Pollie Bromilow
Abstract
Hélisenne de Crenne was one of the first women from beyond the court
and the nobility to have her works circulated in print in sixteenth-century
France. Although she occupied a potentially marginal position, as an
author she accrued power with the appearance of each successive book in
print. This power was reflected in the materiality of the books themselves
and in her use of paratexts to position the text vis-à-vis its readers. Her final
work was printed in folio and dedicated to François I, showing that even
an unknown and provincial woman could, through the print circulation
of her works, participate in the networks of patronage usually reserved
for court writers.
Keywords: Hélisenne de Crenne, François I, literature, print culture,

female visibility, self-representation
When evaluating female authorship in both manuscript and print in

sixteenth-century France, courtly women predominate.1 It is not difficult
to imagine how their greater wealth, higher social status, and participation
in the cultural life of the court afforded royal and noble women opportuni-
ties for educational and literary development that were beyond the reach
of most women, including those from professional families. Although
courtly women such as Anne de Graville (c. 1490–c. 1540) and Madeleine
de l’Aubespine (1546–1596) wrote, the fact that they did not rely on writing
1 For an overview of the practices of scribal and print publication of works by female authors
during this period, see Broomhall, esp. chs. 3 and 4. Broomhall points out that the work of over
100 women circulated in print in sixteenth-century France and that many chose print circulation
(p. 93).
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch10
288 Pollie Bromilow
for an income meant that their works rarely found their way into print.
Indeed, the evidence of surviving editions suggests that, on the whole, print
culture and its possibilities for self-representation and self-empowerment
were hostile to living female authors in a way that manuscript circulation
was not. This was particularly the case in early sixteenth-century Paris,
before the 1540s when Lyons became established as a center for the printing
of women’s works.2
Where women’s writings did appear in print in Paris in the first half of the
sixteenth century, there were generally specific circumstances that mitigated
the possibilities for female literary agency and represented female authorship
as somehow separate from the living author. In the early decades of the
sixteenth century, only historical female authors such as Christine de Pizan
(1364–1430) had their texts printed as entire books. Texts by other women,
such as Anne de France (1461–1522), appeared in print only posthumously,
as was common for royal and noble women who did not rely on their writing
for an income. Most frequently, single poems or individual short texts by
courtly women writers were included in anthologies, in which writers were
often confined by the expectations of strictly codified genres and there
was little opportunity to develop an authorial identity.3 Anthologies of this
kind demonstrate the slippage between the printed book and the social
networks that fostered early modern literary activity, and imply that the
same expectations of women’s seemly and chaste behavior were present
in print as in real life.
Whilst the favoring of manuscript circulation over print for female authors
appears in some ways to be a consequence of the practical circumstances
of women writing, all of these instances in which women did make excep-
tional incursions into the realm of print speak to the cultural reticence in
sixteenth-century France to allow women power through self-determined
and sustained activity in the circulation of their texts in print. Within this
cultural context, it seems all the more remarkable, then, that Hélisenne
de Crenne (c. 1510–c. 1560), a woman from rural Picardy, achieved such
success in creating an identity as a writer. Hélisenne de Crenne was the pen
2 These included the Rymes by Pernette du Guillet (c. 1520–1545), printed in 1545 by Jean de
Tournes, who became well known for his promotion of female authors, especially Louise Labé
whose Œuvres he printed in 1555.
3 Broomhall has argued that in anthologies female-authored texts were often greatly out-
numbered by their male-authored counterparts. The opportunity for an anthology as a whole
to be identified as female-authored was therefore limited. In addition, there was often little
opportunity to write the female experience in poetic genres such as the tombeau, for example:
Broomhall, pp. 186–93.
Power through Print 289
name of Marguerite Briet, a woman from Abbeville in Picardy about whom

relatively little is known. She was the wife of Philippe Fournel de Crenne,
whose patronym she took as part of her authorial identity. They had a son
named Pierre who, in 1548, was a student in Paris. By the time of her death
in 1552, Crenne had separated from her husband and was herself living in
Paris. The role of the name Helisénne de Crenne has been the subject of
much critical discussion. 4 It had multiple connotations in the context of
contemporary and classical literature. Christine de Buzon has pointed out
that ‘Hélisenne’ evokes four female names frequently included in lists of
exempla (Elissa, Helen, Iseult and Polisenne) one of which was a synonym
for Dido, who was an enduring focus of Crenne’s works.5 Furthermore,
‘Hélisenne’ is also a homonym for a heroine of the highly popular romance
Amadis de Gaule, the French translation of which was also printed by Denis
Janot (fl. 1529–1544) in 1540.
This chapter evaluates the consequences of Crenne’s exceptional position
as the only living woman writer to have her works printed in Paris dur-
ing the first half of the sixteenth century. These texts revolve around the
disorder created by an imbalance between reason and sensuality and the
perilous position of the woman caught in the throes of an unvirtuous love.
Self-representation is constructed as central to her original compositions.
These issues are always refracted through specific genres, the consequences
of which for the themes and style of Crenne’s writings have yet to be fully
explored by scholars, in spite of the considerable critical attention the
author has attracted in recent decades. The appearance of critical editions
of the Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’amours in 1997, the Epistres
familieres et invectives in 1996 and the Songe in 2007 together with Diane
Wood’s 2000 book, the very first monograph devoted to Crenne, represent
the culmination of the rediscovery of her writings over the past 40 years.
Although her writing was frequently reprinted in the mid-sixteenth century,
it fell into obscurity after the final edition of the Œuvres in 1560.
Through the circulation of her works in print, Crenne makes an im-
plicit challenge to contemporary gender norms that constructed women
as silent and relegated women from beyond the court to obscurity. Crenne
is noteworthy for publishing without the protection of a longstanding
patron and not having access to the networks of a powerful husband or
male relative that were the pathway to print for so many women writers
4 See, for example, Buzon’s extensive discussion in Crenne, 1997, pp. 20–29, which is taken
up in Wood, pp. 57–66.
5 Crenne, 1997, p. 22.
290 Pollie Bromilow
in the early modern period.6 We have no record of Crenne participating in

court life, nor do the dedications of her works suggest that she relied upon
patronage in court circles as a significant source of income to support her
writing.7 Indeed, because Crenne is described in legal documents of the
period as owning properties jointly with her husband, we can assume that
she enjoyed independent wealth that, at least partly, funded her writing
activities. However, given that it was Janot and not Crenne who requests
the privileges of all of the first editions of her works, it seems likely that
it was he, and not Crenne, who financed the publication of the books. We
can glean from the privilege to the Songe that Janot was preoccupied, even
worried, by the potential financial risks that printing this text entailed,
as he asks in good faith for a privilege of three years rather than the more
standard two years in order to see a return on the capital tied up in printing
the work.8 Although the popularity of her corpus suggests that they were
also read at court, more typical readers of Crenne might have been Gilbert
de Hodic and his wife Geneviève Bureau, whom Lyndan Warner describes
as ‘on the lower to middle rungs of the ladder to dignity above the wealthy
merchants but below the officers in the sovereign courts’.9 Two copies of
Crenne’s Epistres familieres et invectives were found in Gilbert’s library when
an inventory was taken in 1549.
A number of questions arise regarding the appearance and success of
Crenne’s works in print: to what extent did their publication result from
strategies of empowerment adopted by the author in resisting cultural norms
that usually prevented living women from circulating their works in print?
What were the characteristics of this empowerment? What kinds of power
resulted from it? Given the collaborative nature of the printing process in
the early modern period, how was this power enabled or undermined by
the printer she worked with?
In order to explore these questions further, I will position myself as a
Foucauldian feminist and use Michel Foucault’s theory of the ‘microphysics
6 Broomhall has established that two of the most important factors for printers choosing
female-authored works were family connections to powerful men, and first-hand experience
of events of particular contemporary importance (p. 98).
7 Broomhall has noted, ‘Only her 1541 translation, Eneydes, is dedicated to a specific patron,
Francis I. This does not suggest that she had a well-developed circle of court patrons. However,
Crenne’s independent wealth and lack of contact with the French royal court left her free to
explore her own choice of literary themes’ (p. 137).
8 ‘Et ce jusques à trois ans: affin que ledict Janot se puisse honnestement rembourser des
fraiz qu’il luy convient faire pour l’impression desdictz livres’, Crenne, 1541, sig. Aiir–v.
9 Warner, p. 43.
of power’ as a conceptual framework by which to analyse Crenne’s power as

an author.10 For Foucault, power is not the exclusive preserve of a particular
social class, but a diffuse and dynamic network that encompasses many
more possible positions and relationships.11 Power is not an inherent property
of a structure, whether bodily or social; it accrues through the adoption of
strategies, dispositions, manoeuvers, techniques, and functions. It is not
possessed, but rather exists in a complex network of relationships that are
always in tension with each other. Domination is not the privilege of the
dominant class, or a cultural elite such as the court, but is the cumulative
and global effect of the adoption of strategic positions that may also be
manifested in, and reinforced by, those who are dominated. Power, then,
is always productive, for both the dominant and the dominated.
Foucault’s def inition of power has received a mixed reception from
feminist theorists. This is largely, but not exclusively, related to its failure
to acknowledge gender as a category of difference when elaborating the
operation of power. Ultimately, if power is not possessed by men, then
this also counters central tenets of feminist thought, such as the view that
women are oppressed by power illegitimately held by men.12 In this chapter,
I align myself with the approaches of feminist scholars who have brought
Foucault’s theories into productive dialogue with female acts of resistance to
norms.13 In particular, I follow Margaret McLaren’s analysis of the Mothers
of the Plaza de Mayo, who used the gender norm of the mother to oppose
the repressive Argentinian government of the 1970s and 1980s.14 I will show
that by adopting Foucault’s more fluid and dynamic definition of power,
we can open up Crenne’s career to the possibility that the author used the
print circulation of her works to empower herself. This empowerment, I
10 I borrow the term ‘Foucauldian feminist’ from Sawicki, p. 13.

11 ‘Or l’étude de cette microphysique suppose que le pouvoir qui s’excerce [sur le corps] ne
soit pas conçu comme une propriété, mais comme une stratégie, que ses effets de domination
ne soient pas attribués à une “appropriation”, mais à des dispositions, à des manœuvres, à des
techniques, à des fonctionnements; qu’on déchiffre en lui plutôt un réseau de relations toujours
tendues, toujours en activité plutôt qu’un privilège qu’on pourrait détenir; qu’on lui donne
pour modèle la bataille perpétuelle plutôt que le contrat qui opère une cession ou la conquête
qui s’empare d’un domaine. Il faut en somme admettre que ce pouvoir s’exerce plutôt qu’il ne
se possède, qu’il n’est pas le “privilège” acquis ou conserve de la classe dominante, mais l’effet
d’ensemble de ses positions stratégiques — effet que manifeste et parfois reconduit la position
de ceux qui sont dominés’, Foucault, p. 31.
12 On these and other problematic aspects of Foucault’s theories for feminism, see
Ramazananoglu.
13 For further case studies exploring the usefulness of Foucault’s theories for feminist thought
see, for example, Taylor and Vintges.
14 See McLaren, pp. 221–23.
292 Pollie Bromilow
will argue, resulted from the numerous productive ways in which Crenne
used her status as a woman to challenge the general curtailment of women’s
voices in print in early sixteenth-century France. I will demonstrate that,
by understanding power as dynamic rather than static, and accumulated
rather than possessed, as feminist scholars we can circumvent the very
male-dominated structures that restrict the visibility of women in social
constructions, such as the court, and instead create flexible models of
interpretation whose boundaries are more permeable to female historical
figures.
Developing an Authorial Persona in Print
One of the principal ways in which Crenne’s publications differ from those
of other women writers in the first half of the sixteenth century is how
she develops an authorial persona across her works. This was particularly
innovative and ambitious given the popularity at the time of including
only short pieces by women writers in anthologies where male-authored
works predominated. Crenne’s first work, the Angoysses douloureuses, an
autobiographical fiction in the form of a prose novel that told the story of
the unchaste love of the married heroine Helisenne for a younger man,
was her most frequently reprinted text in sixteenth-century France.15 It
was followed the very next year by the Epistres familieres et invectives, a
collection of personal and invective letters, which demonstrated to the
reading public the author’s knowledge of the themes and techniques of
humanist writing and provided her with a generically acceptable way of
advancing challenging ideas as a female author. The Songe, an allegorical
dream sequence on the nature of virtue and vice, further developed the
ideas of love and the relationships between the sexes, and appeared in 1540.
Like the first editions of Crenne’s other works, her final book was printed
by Janot in Paris. It represented a break with the author’s previous works
in a number of significant ways. Firstly, it was a translation rather than an
original composition. It therefore represented something of a departure from
the first three works that had all been situated within the same fictional
universe. However, the reading public’s taste for vernacular translations had
grown during the reign of François I (1515–1545).16 The choice of text, the
15 For a full bibliographical description of the sixteenth-century editions of Crenne’s works

see Crenne, 1997, pp. 43–69.
16 On this point see Marshall, pp. 45–54.
first four books of Virgil’s Aeneid, also mitigated the potential commercial
risks of this change. Not only was it a key humanist text with the potential
for popular appeal, it also allowed Crenne to explore the experiences of
a tragic heroine overwhelmed by an ill-fated love, from the distinctive
viewpoint of a female translator.17 The same scenario had been the central
focus of much of her first and most successful work.18 The market for a
male-authored translation of the Aeneid had been tested by the publication
of the translation by Octavien de Saint Gelais (1468–1502) by Antoine Vérard
(fl. 1485–1512) in 1509. This translation of the whole work was reprinted five
times and remained the most widely circulated translation until 1547. All
of the previous editions of Crenne’s texts had appeared in octavo format
but, in contrast to this, the Eneydes was printed in folio format in 1541.
Books in folio projected a greater sense of permanence. They also provided
a wide margin suitable for note-taking but lacked the portability of their
octavo counterparts, which by the 1530s had become firmly associated with
reading for leisure.19 This may suggest that Janot was hoping to target a
more scholarly readership with the translation than had been the case for
the works attributed solely to Crenne. Perhaps reflecting the change in scale
of this larger format, the Eneydes were decorated with a different range of
woodcuts than were the first three works.20
In addition, the Eneydes was the only work to be dedicated by the author
to an individual. The popular Angoysses douloureuses had based its appeal
on a claimed readership of compassionate but learned women. Crenne does
not repeat this explicit appeal to a female readership in either the Epistres or
the Songe. In the former she claims to have gathered together her letters for
ungendered readers (‘lecteurs’, ‘gentilz espritz’, ‘gens prudens’).21 In the preface
to the Songe, Crenne talks of ‘noble readers’.22 This may reflect a growing
confidence in addressing readers of both sexes, a view certainly reinforced
17 For an overview of the publication of early French translations of Virgil’s Aeneid see
Worth-Stylianou.
18 On the similarities of the Angoysses douloureuses and the Eneydes see Wood, pp. 135–51.
19 As Richardson explains: ‘A folio was a bulky object, to be consulted in one place, while an
octavo or smaller format allowed one to slip a book in one’s pocket and carry it around, consulting
it where and when one wanted, for study or in moments of leisure and it could be cheaper if a
smaller typeface allowed economies in the amount of paper used’ (p. 125).
20 Re-use of woodcuts was common in sixteenth-century French printing and a number of
them had been repeated across the Angoysses douloureuses, the Epistres familieres et invectives
and the Songe, which added to the coherence of these volumes. For an overview of the practice
of reusing woodcuts see Rothstein, pp. 85–94.
21 Crenne, 1996, p. 61.
22 ‘nobles lecteurs’, Crenne, 1541, sig. Aiiiv.
294 Pollie Bromilow
by the Epistres, in which both men and women appear as inscribed readers
within the texts. For her final work, Crenne chose to associate her authorial
persona with the king, François I. In addressing the monarch, Crenne may
be utilizing her growing power and authority. Alternatively, the dedication
may reflect her aspiration to have her texts circulate in courtly circles, even
if this was not in reality the case. Lastly, but not insignificantly, the Eneydes
was the only one of Crenne’s works never to be reprinted.23
Crenne’s reputation as an author transcended these first appearances in
print, however, as the publication of new editions suggest that her works
enjoyed commercial success in the libraires of Paris and Lyons beyond Janot’s
own shop.24 The Angoysses douloureuses was printed in Lyons by Denis de
Harsy (fl. 1522 onwards) as early as 1539 (in violation of the privilege held
by Janot and therefore undated on the title page), and Pierre Sergent also
printed a new edition in Paris in 1541. From 1543, Crenne’s three original
compositions were printed in the much smaller sextodecimo format by
Charles l’Angelier (fl. 1543–1563) in Paris under the title of Œuvres. These
collected works were the first to be printed in the French language by a
living author and claimed on their title page to be an improved version of the
original text that had been ‘newly printed by the order of the said Lady’.25
From 1551, a version with spelling revised by Claude Colet formed the basis
of an edition printed by Étienne Grouleau (fl. 1551–1563).26 Colet claimed
that he revised the spelling of Crenne’s works after two young women had
asked him for guidance on reading the text after a dinner at their home.
Although ultimately Janot may have controlled the speed with which the
first editions of Crenne’s works appeared in print, her texts were carefully
positioned so as to maximize their appeal to the book-buying public. The
way in which Crenne’s texts circulated initially as single works with the
author’s name clearly identified on the title page suggests that this gendered
23 I note, as do Ehrling and Karlsson, that the Eneydes is the only of Crenne’s works not yet to
have been edited by modern scholars (Ehrling and Karlsson, p. 271). This reflects the importance
of ‘originality’ to modern-day scholars who are less keen to study translations than original
compositions. Doubtless the scarcity of surviving copies of the work has impeded its study
as well. Surviving copies are held in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, site de l’Arsenal;
Geneva, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire; and Berlin, Staatsbibliothek.
24 For a discussion of the potential commercial opportunities afforded by women’s writing in
early modern France, see Chang, esp. Ch. 1.
25 ‘Le tout mieulx que par cy devant redigées au vray, et imprimées nouvellement par le
commandement de ladicte Dame’, Crenne, 1543, title page. This volume of collected works did
not include the woodcut illustrations of Janot’s first editions.
26 See Crenne, 1997, pp. 663-65.
authorial identity was valuable to the marketing of those works.27 This

was distinct from the ways in which the majority of women writers in
sixteenth-century France saw their texts appear in print — in anthologies
where their authorial status was eclipsed by male-dominated material and
literary contexts in which their works were circulated.28
The sense of cohesion across Crenne’s four works went beyond the literary
and intellectual to encompass likely patterns of production and consump-
tion. The fact that Janot mentioned both the Epistres familieres and the
Songe in the privilege to the former, for example, demonstrates that there
was a degree of forward-planning in the appearance of Crenne’s works in
print.29 We can speculate that they may have been produced according to
a pre-established timetable agreed between the author and her printer-
collaborator, which was designed to maximize sales. This is consistent with
the appearance of other women authors’ works in print in sixteenth-century
France, which tended to be grouped in a concentrated time period as if the
purchase of one text created a market demand for another.30
Taken together, this outline of the print publication of Crenne’s works
offers us numerous insights into the possibilities for discursive, literary, and
creative agency available to her as a woman writer in 1530s France. They show
us that an apparent choice to circulate one’s writings in print was possible,
although rare, for a woman writer. Once printed, if their success with the
book-buying public was established, works would then be printed and read
in centers beyond the capital. The appearance of Crenne’s works in rapid
succession suggests that she viewed writing as a sustained and structured
activity. Although rare amongst women writers of her time, Crenne seems
to have sought recognition as a writer as her primary occupation. Evidence
for this is found in the fact that the most commercially successful of Crenne’s
works was the first printed. The Angoysses douloureuses differs from its
intertexts in constructing the act of reading rather than the act of writing as
central to the progression of the plot. This is true in the passing of the letters
27 Chang has argued that there are, in fact, two narrators to the Angoysses douloureuses (‘de
Crenne’ and ‘Dame Helisenne’) and that these multiple authorial personas compete with, and
undermine, each other (pp. 139–74). For a reply to this see Bromilow, 2013.
28 On this point see Ellinghausen, esp. Ch. 1.
29 ‘Ledict suppliant ait recouvert deux petites copies composes par ma dame Helisenne qui
a compose les Angoisses d’Amour. En l’une desquelles copies sont continues plusieurs epistres,
tant familieres que invectives, et en l’aultre est contenu ung songe, le tout compose par ladicte
dame’, Crenne, 1996, p. 59.
30 Broomhall has noted also, with respect to Jeanne de Flore, that there is a pattern of women’s
writings appearing in print in concentrated bursts, suggesting that a market could be found,
but that long-term interest could not be sustained (p. 123).
296 Pollie Bromilow
between Helisenne and her lover Guenelic and also in the way that his friend
Quezinstra recuperates the manuscript of the book from beside Helisenne’s
body and gives it to Mercury who has it read by the Gods. Jupiter’s opinion that
the text should be printed in Paris prefigures how the text will be consumed
by readers as a printed book and authorizes its distribution in this medium.
Her other works followed in quick succession, seemingly to capitalize on
readers’ interest in the Angoysses douloureuses. This was especially likely
concerning the Epistres familieres et invectives and Songe, which were situated
in the same fictional universe as the first work.31 It is easy to imagine that the
enjoyment of the first book, a relatively racy tale of adulterous love, fueled
readers’ enthusiasm to purchase the second and third. This is one way in
which the form and content of her works overlapped with likely patterns
of consumption. With the appearance of each subsequent book the author
developed and consolidated her discursive power; as her reputation grew,
Crenne displayed increasing confidence in addressing male and female readers.
The Female Voice and Exemplarity
The success of Crenne’s works in print was, then, at least partly self-
determined and the female author actively sought ways to maximize her
discursive agency which were both innovative and remarkable at the time.
An author who was well-versed in both contemporary and classical literature,
Crenne resisted the norms of sixteenth-century literary culture which
sought to silence women, by identifying narratives where the addition of
the woman’s perspective offered new insights into the text’s themes.32
This was a common feature of works by female authors. In the Angoysses
douloureuses, Crenne re-works male-authored intertexts to create an
autobiographical fiction in which the identity of the protagonist and that
of the author are deliberately merged. Whereas in the Fiametta by Giovanni
31 According to Wood, the f irst two works ‘were intended to be read together, as comple-
ments’. She adds that ‘the volumes [the Angoysses douloureuses, the Epistres and the Songe]
were undoubtedly displayed side by side in Denis Janot’s shop in the rue Neuve Nostre Dame
and in his stall in the Galerie des Marchands of the Palais de Justice, Deuxième Pilier. The
complementary nature of these works becomes even more obvious in the 1543 edition when the
novel, letters, and allegorical dream sequence appear in the same volume, printed by Charles
Langelier. Subsequent sixteenth-century editions recognized the self-referentiality of the three
works by continuing to publish them together’ (p. 79).
32 As Janet Smarr has remarked: ‘all of Helisenne’s works […] deal with the problems caused
by passion and the relations between the sexes and do so in an interconnected manner’ (p. 140).
Boccaccio (1313–1345), for example, the reader is aware that they are reading
a female protagonist’s voice ventriloquized through the male narrator,
Crenne creates the impression of the authentic narrative by implying that
the authorial persona, Dame Helisenne, is recounting her own story. The
illicit nature of the love affair adds to the strong sense of identification
with the narrator that the reader feels in response to a story that has been
dedicated to their moral improvement.33
In the Epistres familieres et invectives, Crenne uses the form of the letter
to craft correspondence between the narrator Helisenne and a variety of
male and female recipients. In the Epistres familieres, she draws on works
such as the De conscribendis epistolis by Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536)
which had been circulating since 1522 and included chapters on the letter
of consolation, of asking and giving advice, and the invective letter.34
Within this adaptation of the humanist letter, Helisenne demonstrates
publicly her ability to console, counsel, and advise her acquaintances, all
of whom are presented as her correspondents. In the Epistres invectives,
Crenne takes advantage of the acceptability of the letter form as a means of
communication for women to advance her most challenging ideas, defending
herself against detractors, accusing her husband of misogyny, and defending
the female sex against his attacks. She also writes two letters defending
literary women and, in particular, her own writings from the criticism of
an individual reader-correspondent, and of the readers in a fictional town
named Icuoc. She skilfully uses the slippage between the letter and the
oration to ‘voice’ ideas in print. She also exploits the possibility of using
letter form to stage a confrontation of ideas in which the letter is the only
link with the correspondent whose ideas are being challenged.35
Hélisenne de Crenne presents herself as an example for readers, especially
female readers, to follow. Although she starts the Angoysses douloureuses
with the conventional claim of the inadequacy of her writing owing to her
weak mental and physical state, this should be seen as an apologia for the
act of having one’s works printed.36 In the dedication of the work to the
inclusive and broad category of ‘all honest women’, it is the narrator’s wish
33 Here, and throughout Crenne’s first three works, the narrator doubles as ‘the person both
in need of moral advice and able to offer it’, Smarr, p. 141.
34 Nash describes the De conscribendis epistolis as ‘un ouvrage très important pour Crenne
[…] que personne jusqu’ici n’a rapproché’, Crenne, 1996, p. 24.
35 According to Smarr, ‘letter writing was more acceptable for women than participation in
public gatherings or face-to-face meetings with men’ (p. 153).
36 The dedication in the Angoysses douloureuses to ‘toutes honnestes dames’ twice evokes the
frailty of Dame Helisenne’s hand as it traces across the page: ‘cela me cause une douleur qui
298 Pollie Bromilow
that in reading the text they use the heroine’s own experience as a counter
example and thereby avoid the agonies of unchaste love themselves:
O dear ladies, when I consider that in seeing how I was caught, you will
be able to avoid the dangerous snares of love, by resisting love from the
outset, without persisting in amorous thoughts[.]37
Crenne further legitimizes the project of circulating her exemplary text

in print by disrupting the conventional relationship between printing and
unchasteness. She achieves this by representing the project of printing the
book for the learned people of Paris as authorized by the Gods and therefore
divinely ordained. The printed book is further valorized over manuscript
circulation by the representation of letters exchanged between the lovers
as a means to advance their love affair. This destabilizes the conventional
hierarchy between scribal publication as limited and chaste, and print
publication as more accessible and unvirtuous.
Furthermore, an overarching exemplary model is present in the works
in a more diffuse manner: that of the virtuous and erudite woman engaged
in the acts of reading and writing. This is an obvious theme in the Epistres
familieres et invectives, where Crenne draws attention to the act of read-
ing and writing the letters in order to emphasize the materiality of the
epistolary exchange. She also displays her knowledge of classical exempla,
and, through the form of the letter she links exemplary models to the lives
of her correspondents and readers. In the Songe, the narrator contextualizes
the reading of her own work by describing the reading of the Scriptures
that is an established part of the reader’s life. She wakes from her dream
poised to write the dialogues in which she has taken part, thus displaying,
however briefly, the writing process to the reader. This exemplum of the
learned woman exceeds any single text, to encompass the author figure
as well as her books. It reveals that the aspiration to educate the reading
public came hand-in-hand with self-fashioning.
Thus, we can understand that Crenne intended a civic purpose for her
writing.38 This aligns Crenne’s aspirations for her writing to those of a group
of sixteenth-century English poets whom Richard Helgerson has called
excede toutes aultres, en sorte que ma main tremblante, demeure immobile’, and ‘à soustenir
ma debile main, pour vous le scavoir bien escripre’, Crenne, 1997, p. 97. See also Larsen.
37 ‘O tres cheres dames, quand je considere qu’en voyant comme j’ay esté surprinse, vous
pourrez eviter les dangereulx laqs d’amours en y resistant du commencement, sans continuer
en amoureuses pensées’, Crenne, 1997, p. 97.
38 See Helgerson, esp. ch. 1.
the ‘laureates’: professional poets who ascribed a usefulness and timeless

quality to their writing in order to erase either the purely commercial ends or
amateurish origins of their printed works. This aspect of her work achieves its
fullest expression in the Eneydes, in the dedication to François I.39 Although
works were frequently dedicated to the king, this dedication, along with
the folio format of the book, one of only three works to be printed by Janot
in this large format in his active years, mark Crenne as a significant author
relative to others published by that printer. As Janot would become official
printer to François I in 1543, this edition was perhaps a convenient way to
display the quality of his printed books to the king. In the dedication, Crenne
describes how the inadequacies of her writing and the monarch’s erudition
had long prevented her from acting on her desire to translate the work that
she had planned to complete with him in mind. She explains that he will
notice that she has made some additions to the second book in the form
of a description of the death of Hector, from whom she claims François is
descended, reflecting the literary myth, widespread in late medieval and
Renaissance France, that the nation was founded by Hector’s son Astyanax. 40
Crenne describes how the virtuous Hector was killed by the treachery of
Achilles, who prevailed in spite of his inferior skill at arms. Crenne’s own
commentary on Homer intrudes here, and again during her presentation
of his narrative in Book Two, as she questions the credibility of his account.
She claims that Homer was mistaken in favoring the Greeks, as Hector’s
superlative chivalry meant that he could only have been killed by Achilles
through treacherous means. This denigration of Homer and praise of Hector
compounded the effect of the four different accounts of Hector’s death by
supplementing the Virgilian source text with a prehistory of the Kingdom
of France. In the dedication, she states her preference for the eyewitness
accounts of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius over Homer’s which was
written after the fall of Troy. Thus, not only does the comparison with
Hector serve to flatter François and ultimately France, but the inclusion
of the multiple accounts of Hector’s death shows Crenne to be capable of a
scholarly rigor and critical judgment rivalling, or exceeding, that of her male
counterparts. 41 Through her self-representation as an example for readers
to follow, the development of the exemplary model of the reading and
39 Janot would become official printer to François I in 1543.

40 For Wood ‘the text contains two simultaneous layers of erudition, Renaissance humanism
with its desire to spread the classics overlaid with medieval scholarship and subjectivity’ (p. 136).
41 Wood describes how, for example, Crenne’s fourth source, Guyon de Coulomne, is not
mentioned by Jean Lemaire de Belges in his Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye; its
inclusion in Crenne’s work is a result of her thorough research (p. 141).
300 Pollie Bromilow
writing woman, and her aspiration to rewrite the mythological prehistory

of France, Crenne demonstrates the civic purpose that drives her writing,
simultaneously foregrounding the shift in her power from the discursive
sphere to the domain of practical application.
Visualizing Female Authorial Power
Whilst we can consider the printed book as an agent of the author’s power,
we must also acknowledge that control of the production process usually
resided with the printer and the artisans in his workshop. In this case, as
all of the privileges of Crenne’s works were made out to the printer rather
than the author, we would assume that Janot controlled format, typography,
illustrations, and the use of woodcut initials, for example. Of course, Crenne
may have played a part in these aspects of book production. In addition,
the choice of woodcuts, fonts, and decorated initials was limited to those
in the printer’s stock. It was even possible for the mise en page to provide
alternative interpretations and meanings beyond those suggested by the
words of the text itself. 42 The author’s self-empowerment was in constant
tension with the practical and commercial constraints governing the work
of the printers who were partners in disseminating the text.
Given that the success of the Angoysses douloureuses would have facilitated
Crenne’s approach to other printers, we can assume that her relationship with
Janot was a good one. This partnership, which lasted for the publication of all
four of her works, ensured that the first public appearance of Crenne’s texts
occurred under the protection of Janot’s long-standing and good reputation.43
Janot’s printshop ensured that the name ‘de Crenne’ was emblazoned in a
distinctive large roman font across the title pages of all the first editions
of her works, ensuring that her authorship enjoyed prominence and vis-
ibility. Janot also illustrated the fact of Crenne’s authorship with a number
of woodcuts. Although these were not necessarily commissioned specifically
to illustrate her works, they suggest that the Janot workshop viewed Crenne
42 Indeed, it was possible for the addition of a woodcut to change the overall interpretation
of the text. For an overview of the role of woodcuts in creating meaning in the Angoysses
douloureuses see Réach-Ngô, pp. 263–74. For a case study of how the insertion of a woodcut
modified the meaning of the Angoysses douloureuses, see Bromilow, 2012.
43 Broomhall has established that collaboration with a reputable printer was even more
important for female authors than for their male counterparts, as to some extent this mitigated
the questioning of their virtue provoked by their excursion into the public realm (pp. 112–17).
as an authoritative figure.44 This page layout sympathetic to the promotion

of the female author was essential in empowering Crenne to maximize the
potential of the medium of print for her own self-fashioning as an author.45
A woodcut showing a woman in classical dress holding a book represent-
ing female literary creativity featured as the opening image to Books One
and Two of the Angoysses douloureuses, thereby unmistakably identifying
the work as female-authored. 46 The classical dress, and historical, rather
than contemporary, buildings in the background create the impression of
timelessness. This was undoubtedly a generic woodcut used by Janot to
illustrate many other scenes in addition to Crenne’s authorship. 47 Another
striking woodcut was used as the opening woodcut to Epistres familieres
et invectives. 48 It shows a woman seated at a desk handing a letter to a
messenger. Although it is also a generic image, used also in the Angoysses
douloureuses, interestingly this representation gives solid physical presence
to the woman writer seated at her carved desk. Her quill in hand, we see
the lines of handwriting while the messenger in mid-stride appears at
the threshold of the room, the movement of his body suggested by his
outstretched hand. Whereas the male figure connotes texts in transmission,
the woman at her desk suggests both prestige and permanence. Warner has
explained that this woodcut did not first appear in Crenne’s works and was
used to illustrate a range of texts produced in Janot’s workshop from its
first use in 1537. 49 Nevertheless, when it was placed in this context by the
compiler of the book, it represents Crenne’s authorship, although it may not
originally have been commissioned to this end. This is especially the case in
the first edition of the Epistres familieres et invectives in which it is the only
woodcut. It is worth noting that both these woodcuts have been used on
front covers of modern editions and scholarly monographs, owing to their
rarity as visual representations of women and books in France in the period.
44 On the multiple ways Janot supported Crenne’s construction of her own authorial persona,
Dame Helisenne, see Bromilow, 2013.
45 On the page layout of the Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’amours see Réach-Ngô,
esp. chs. 4 and 5.
46 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k70526g/f9.image.r=helisenne%20de%20crenne (accessed
11 November 2016).
47 Crenne, 1997, pp. 97, 228. It also appears when Guenelic addresses Venus before he and Quezin-
stra enter a tournament for which they are ill-prepared (p. 298). Wood describes how this striking
image was also used by Gilles Corrozet in his Hécatomgraphie. It was accompanied by verses highly
critical of the Angoysses douloureuses as a self-revelatory, widely distributed narrative (pp. 43–49).
48 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8609511v/f14.image.r=helisenne%20de%20crenne
(accessed 11 November 2016).
49 Warner, pp. 21–23.
302 Pollie Bromilow
The frontispiece to the Eneydes provides us with another noteworthy image

reflecting Crenne’s authorship.50 It shows a woman kneeling before a monarch
and offering him a large book in front of a crowd of courtiers.51 Sharon Marshall
has argued that the woodcuts for the narrative of Eneydes are relatively poor
quality copies of woodcuts used in an earlier sixteenth-century edition, which
remained popular across Europe for the next 50 years.52 This allows for the
possibility that all of the woodcuts for the Eneydes were commissioned at
the same time, but that for stylistic reasons, Janot preferred to use woodcuts
illustrating the diegesis copied from an early sixteenth-century antecedent. By
contrast the frontispiece was carved in a much more contemporary style. At
the very least, the compiler of the book selected this first woodcut from Janot’s
stock to represent Crenne’s authorship. Indeed, it is even possible, given the
evidence discussed above of the forward-planning in the printing of Crenne’s
texts, that Janot instructed the woodcut artist with the express intention of
using it in the Eneydes, irrespective of whether it was initially used elsewhere.
The image stages the moment of the presentation of the book to the mon-
arch at the court. It is a dramatic scene. Placed within the opening lines of the
dedication, there can be no doubt in the reader’s mind that the author of this
weighty, and beautifully bound, volume is a woman. Her poise evokes a gift that
is voluntarily placed in the monarch’s outstretched hand. He is represented in
contemporary dress, which is different from the other woodcuts in Eneydes,
where the images draw more heavily on the medieval tradition. This woodcut
is significant in the staging of Crenne’s authorship because it provides a visual
representation of the courtly reception of her work. The details of the woman
and the monarch’s dress convey a sense of reality that is very different from
the other two woodcuts where her authorship is represented as symbolic or
confined to the domestic realm. This dramatic image shows the widespread
reception of the female author’s work and courtly recognition of her writing.
It confirms that Janot had a specific interest in visualizing female authorship;
50 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15101304/f15.item.r=helisenne%20de%20crenne (ac-
cessed 11 November 2016).
51 Davis has read this as a representation of Crenne’s presentation of the work to François I
(p. 96). Wood, however, considers this as another generic image, claiming that this woodcut
was first used the previous year to illustrate the Amadis de Gaule, newly translated from the
Spanish by Nicholas Heberay des Essarts and printed by Janot (pp. 63–64). Rothstein lists only
one 1540 edition of the Amadis de Gaule (p. 166). I have consulted the 1540 edition of the first
book of the Amadis; of the fourteen woodcuts included, none matches this one. However, this
image is in the same style as the Amadis woodcuts, whereas the woodcuts to the Eneydes are
all in a different style. Therefore, I do not rule out Wood’s hypothesis that this scene was first
used elsewhere and was subsequently used by Janot to illustrate different scenes.
52 Marshall, p. 141.
this distinguishes the volume from male-authored works that he published

which share many typographical features, such as the first volume of the
Amadis printed in 1540. The Crenne frontispiece stages the moment when
the author’s self-empowerment has resulted in representational power. The
printer, with his carefully crafted book in the king’s hands, has succeeded in
conveying the quality of his work to the viewer. Janot and Crenne may have
had different motivations for wanting to participate vicariously in court life,
yet this image conveys the mutual benefit of their partnership.
Conclusion
Hélisenne de Crenne adopted numerous strategies that resisted normative

discourses aimed at silencing and obscuring women in sixteenth-century
French society. Her self-empowerment stemmed from her adoption of a
multiplicity of positions: adviser, advisee, example, and counter example. She
located her voice in textual precedents that were male-authored, highlight-
ing the previous absence of the female viewpoint in literary paradigms. In
her original compositions, Crenne wrote not just as a woman but used the
very fact of her gender to deepen the text’s appeal to the female reader. She
constructed herself both as needing education, and as having the ability
to educate others. To this end she offered herself as an exemplum of lived
experience, both of the potentially dangerous experience of love, and of the
writing (and reading) woman. The overall perspective projected by her texts
suggests her aspiration to move beyond simply entertaining the reader to
contribute to the common good. This is achieved through her attempt to
educate the lay reader, particularly the female reader, whose perceived needs
the texts addressed directly. By using exemplary models, especially that of the
erudite author herself, Crenne’s works contributed to the education of women.
Crenne’s self-fashioning as an author was informed by contemporary
gender politics. She strived to show that she was better read than her male
contemporaries. Furthermore, she could create texts that would serve a
range of applications in the reader’s own life and perhaps serve as a model
for writing in their own lives. Thus, the empowerment of the reader moved
beyond the printed page to become a political act of resistance and change.
Through their representation as readers, women were inscribed in book
culture, making them visible as a group in ways that were both innovative
in print and empowering. The success of these ventures relied upon Crenne’s
disruption of the association between print publication and unchaste-
ness. Although the illicit nature of Helisenne’s love in the first book of the
304 Pollie Bromilow
Angoysses douloureuses must certainly have had its attractions as reading

matter, the project of printing the book for the learned people of Paris is
presented as a work of educational merit for readers and one sanctioned by
the Gods. This aspiration for the moral and political utility of her writing
culminates in the Eneydes, where she supplemented Virgil’s text with four
accounts of Hector’s death to propose a culturally and politically expedient
view of the prehistory of the kingdom of France. Crenne’s relationship
with Janot reinforced her self-representation as an authoritative figure.
The compiler of her works included woodcuts portraying female literary
creativity in a positive light. The most significant was the frontispiece to
the Eneydes, in which Crenne is depicted presenting her work to the king.
Through the printed page, albeit not in reality, then, Crenne empowered
herself to take part, however vicariously, in the cultural life of the court.
Works cited
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d’amours (1538)’. Renaissance Studies, 26, 2012, pp. 399–416.
—. ‘Fictions of Authority: Hélisenne de Crenne and the Angoysses douloureuses
qui procedent d’amours (1538)’. Authority in European Book Culture 1400–1600.
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BROOMHALL, Susan. Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth-Century France.
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France. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2009.
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—. Œuvres. Paris: Charles l’Angelier, 1543.
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—. Les Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’amours. Ed. Christine de Buzon.
DAVIS, Natalie Zemon. The Gift in Sixteenth-Century France. Oxford: Oxford
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Virgil’s Aeneid: Hélisenne de Crenne’s Version of the First Four Books’. Allusions
and Reflections: Greek and Roman Mythology in Renaissance Europe. Ed. Elisabeth
Wåghäll Nivre. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2015, pp. 271–85.
ELLINGHAUSEN, Laurie. Labor and Writing in Early Modern England 1567–1667.
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HELGERSON, Richard. Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser, Jonson, Milton and the

Literary System. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
LARSEN, Anne. ‘“Un honneste passetems”: Strategies of Legitimation in French
Renaissance Women’s Prefaces’. L’Esprit Créateur, 30, 1990, pp. 11–22.
MARSHALL, Sharon M. ‘The Aeneid and the Illusory Authoress: Truth, Fiction and
Feminism in Hélisenne de Crenne’s Eneydes’. PhD diss. University of Exeter, 2011.
McLAREN, Margaret A. ‘Foucault and Feminism: Power, Resistance, Freedom’.
Feminism and the Final Foucault. Ed. Dianna Taylor and Karen Vintges. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2004, pp. 214–34.
RAMAZANANOGLU, Caroline, ed. Up Against Foucault: Explorations of Some
Tensions between Foucault and Feminism. London: Routledge, 1993.
RÉACH-NGÔ, Anne. L’Écriture éditoriale à la Renaissance: genèse et promotion du
récit sentimental français (1530–1560). Geneva: Droz, 2013.
RICHARDSON, Brian. Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge:
ROTHSTEIN, Marian. Reading in the Renaissance: ‘Amadis de Gaule’ and the Lessons
of Memory. London: Associated University Presses, 1999.
SAWACKI, Jana. Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, Power and the Body. New York:
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SMARR, Janet. Joining the Conversation: Dialogues by Renaissance Women. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010.
TAYLOR, Dianna, and Karen VINTGES, eds. Feminism and the Final Foucault.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.
WARNER, Lyndan. The Ideas of Man and Woman in Renaissance France: Print,
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WOOD, Diane S. Hélisenne de Crenne: At the Crossroads of Renaissance Humanism
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About the author
Pollie Bromilow is lecturer in French at the University of Liverpool, UK.

She is the author of Models of Women in Sixteenth-Century French Litera-
ture (Edwin Mellen Press, 2007) and the editor of Authority in European
Book Culture (Ashgate, 2013). She has also held a visiting fellowship to the
University of Edinburgh.
Part IV
Economies of Power and Emotions
11. The Life and After-Life of a Royal
Mistress
Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes
David Potter
Abstract
Anne de Pisseleu, Duchess of Étampes, was maîtresse en titre of François I,
one of the first really high profile figures in such a position. This chapter
provides a number of perspectives, combining profound suspicion of non-
royal women in political power and assumptions about women, marriage,
and political power. Artists and writers provide one perspective. Cellini
was notoriously sour about her; poets celebrated her favors; architects
found in her a patron. Another emerges from her unusual ‘afterlife’, since
she lived nearly half her lifetime after the death of François I (until her
death in 1580). In that period, she recovered from personal and political
disaster in 1547 and became an energetic businesswoman, promoter of
her family’s interests, and a notable Protestant.
Keywords: Anne de Pisseleu, networks, financial transactions, religious

reform, religious engagement, royal mistress
Power in early modern France was, at the summit, constitutionally mascu-

line, defined by the accumulation of a set of ad hoc assumptions that came
to be defined as ‘Salic law’ by the end of the sixteenth century. Yet, in reality,
there was much debate about this and rule by female regents was in any case
a recurring feature of political authority, accepted, if often grudgingly, as
necessary.1 Less formal influence was exercised by the women who shared
1 Barnavi, pp. 332–33; Viennot, 2006, Chs. 11, 14; Viennot, 2008, pp. 23–25; Cosandey, 2000,
Part II.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch11
310 David Pot ter
the king’s intimate life at a time when royal marriages were often less than
satisfactory.2 Influence exercised by such women was widely criticized and
the end of such influence usually accompanied by a damnatio memoriae
and the stripping of accumulated privileges. Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly
(1508–1580) was the first major example of such a woman in the political
history of early modern France as mistress to François I (1494–1547). Daughter
of a middle-ranking Picard noblemen, Guillaume de Pisseleu, lord of Heilly,
after the marriage arranged for her by the king to Jean de Brosse-Bretagne
(1505–1564), Anne became Countess of Penthièvre (1534), then Duchess of
Étampes (1536) and thus attained high status in the social hierarchy. Her
downfall in 1547 has often been seen as the terminus of her career. This
study aims to juxtapose controversy generated by the wealth and favor
accumulated in her youth with a long fightback in which she appears to have
used her natural ability to build a new life for herself after the king’s death.
La belle Heilly would have been no more than eighteen when (as the
traditional story has it) she became François’s mistress in 1526. Paulin Paris,
who relied heavily on the poems of François that he assumed were addressed
to Anne, made the strange suggestion that François had established his
liaison with her as early as 1523–24, when she would have been only fifteen
or sixteen.3 Arnoul Le Ferron writing in 1554 relates that François, on his
sad return from captivity, saw Anne in the company of his mother and
much enjoyed her conversation. 4 The biographer and memoirist Pierre de
Bourdeille de Brantôme (c. 1540–1614) confirms that François took her as
his mistress on his return from Spain and adds that the king may have had
other dalliances but she was his ‘chief morsel’. Though Brantôme considered
women generally unreliable, he thought ‘Heilly’ an honest person who never
abused her favor.5 By 1527 Anne had become, according to the English envoy
Anthony Browne, one ‘whom above others, as the report is, he favoreth’. She
accompanied Louise de Savoie (1476–1531) as a member of her household
for the negotiations at Cambrai in 1529.6 By the time of the entry of new
queen, Eleanor of Austria (1498–1558), into Paris in 1531, Anne was publicly
displayed by François at a window as his companion, ‘whych was not a lytyll
2 Both at Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau Madame d’Étampes had a ‘logis’ with com-
municating stairs or passages to the king’s (Chatenet, pp. 77–80).
3 Paris, II, pp. 209–15.
4 Le Ferron, fol. 121 r: ‘delectatus est eius comitate & suavitate’, trans. in Du Haillan, II, p. 344.
5 Though the king may have loved others, she was his ‘principal boucon […]. Ceste dame
pourtant fut une bonne et honneste dame, et qui n’abusa jamais de sa faveur envers le monde’,
Brantôme, 1867, p. 244.
6 St.P., VI, p. 599; Cambrai meeting: Paris, II, p. 240.
The Life and Af ter-Life of a Royal Mistress 311
marvelyd at of the beholders’, reported Henry VIII’s envoy, Francis Bryan.7

Thereafter, her influence, for instance concerning patronage, grew into real
political power in the 1540s.
In the late nineteenth century, when Paulin Paris wrote the first serious
historical study of Anne, he got her story wrong in some crucial ways. His
intuition about her good sense and level-headedness, of their love affair
shading into steady friendship, is sensitive and convincing. On the other
hand, his determination to absolve François from the disgrace of being
influenced by a mistress leads him astray. He insisted that she was not
seen to exercise any serious influence in public affairs; the romantic image
of her influence on the distribution of royal favor was pure invention. He
was not even sure whether Anne remained at court in François’s last year.
The biography by Desgardins, often referred to, lacks detail and clarity of
sources.8 Some of the more widely accepted testimonies to the extent of her
influence over François I were argued by Paris to derive from the invective
of her husband Jean de Brosse, Duke of Etampes (d. 1564) in the course of
a legal dispute during the 1550s over gifts of property made by Anne to her
younger sister Charlotte, Countess of Vertus (d. 1604).9 Jean de Brosse had
married Anne in 1532 in a bargain with François I by which he recovered his
ancestral title of Count of Penthièvre and was later made Duke of Étampes.
Subsequently, he considered that Anne had used her favor with the king not
only to build up her own fortune but also to diminish his.
Anne’s political influence and her role in influencing the king during the
1540s are no longer in doubt. Her relations with the king’s close advisers Anne
de Montmorency (1493–1567), Philippe Chabot de Brion (1492–1543), Claude
Annebault (1495–1552), and François de Tournon (1489–1562) were pivotal in
the last decade of the king’s reign. To take a few telling examples: her brother
assumed she would read his report on a fortress in Picardy and ensure that
the necessary funds were made available.10 The Imperial ambassador in 1541
reported that no councillor dared approach the king about anything without
checking first with Madame d’Étampes if she approved it.11 The following
7 St.P., VII, p. 291. Knecht, pp. 484–85, 555–58.

8 Paris, II, pp. 239, 204, 311. Paris, on the basis of misunderstood documents, suggests that
she cannot have been a Protestant. See pp. 316–17, where he attributes a letter of the Duchess’s
niece to her and uses this as evidence (now in SAP, Chartrier d’Heilly, 57, nos. 38–43). Desgardins,
passim.
9 Paris, II, pp. 318–23.
10 Adrien de Pisseleu to Mme d’Étampes, Hesdin, 24 May [1541?], BnF, fr. 2996, fol. 30.
11 Saint-Vincent to Charles V, 7 May 1541, Vienna HHSA, Belgien, P.A.41, fol. 47 r. ‘Madame
d’Étampes’ was the usual way she was referred to in her lifetime.
312 David Pot ter
year, though the king was with the army in Languedoc, despatches from
the front in Flanders were forwarded to her at Lyons.12 Her intervention in
the appointment of Jean du Bellay as Archbishop of Bordeaux in 1544 was
widely commented on at the time.13 In this period she employed the standard
political tactics of a Renaissance politician: the placement of friends and
allies at court, many drawn from her extensive kindred on her father’s side
and from the relatives of her mother, the Sanguins. These included Antoine,
Cardinal de Meudon (1493–1559), her uncle, who held a high place among
the royal councillors late in the reign, as did Nicolas Bossut de Longueval
(d. 1553), possibly a kinsman.14 Modern historians have been willing to accept
that part of the romantic tradition that allowed for the possibility of female
influence behind the scenes.15 There was doubtless some exaggeration by
foreign observers but they universally understood her influence on the
king. They widely deplored this and ignored the fact that Anne was using a
modified form of the political influence that all courtiers used in order first
to gain ‘favor’ (a term deployed generally to convey access to royal power)
and exercise influence.16 Her status is reflected by her inclusion — as the
only non-royal woman — in a series of fifty or so woodcuts created by Hans
Liefrinck the elder at Antwerp, which included the most powerful dynastic
figures of the day (Fig. 1). It was the only one specifically done au vif and must
date from Anne’s visit to Brussels with the Queen of France early in 1545.17
This study places Anne’s influence in a wider biographical and cultural
context. The carving of David and Bathsheba in the choir stalls at Auch, so
reminiscent of François and his mistress, testifies to the necessarily oblique
nature of public comment. What has been argued to be a programmatic
assertion of female assertiveness in court life, Primaticcio’s decor for the
chamber of Madame d’Étampes at Fontainebleau was scarcely for public
consumption.18 There was some reticence on the part of contemporary
writers about her, which reveals common assumptions about irregular
female political influence. Though the statesmen and ambassadors of the age
were convinced of her importance, she is never mentioned in the memoirs
of Guillaume and Martin du Bellay, written in the 1540s and 1550s, one of
principal contemporary sources for politics in the reign of François I. The
12 Da Thiene to Ercole II of Ferrara, 11 August 1542, ASM, Francia, busta 18 (no pag.).
13 Scheurer, III, pp. 277–78.
14 See Potter, 2007; Potter, 2011.
15 For example, Knecht, passim; Michon, passim.
16 Le Roux, Ch.1.
17 Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum RP-P-1932-140. See Landau, p. 221.
18 Smith and Bentley Cranch; Wilson-Chevalier and Viennot, pp. 203–36.
Figure 11.1 Hans Liefrinck the elder, Anne de Pisseleu, 1545
Woodcut after a drawing by Cornelis Antonisz., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, cat. RP-P-1932-140. (By
permission of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).
314 David Pot ter
great essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) commented wryly on a his-

tory which, though by a contemporary, said nothing to the detriment of the
king and often stayed silent about matters everybody knew.19 Brantôme, in
his Dames galantes, written in the 1570s, wrote with relish of the petite bande
of women around the king.20 Brantôme sometimes seems to give the impres-
sion that the court of François was a kind of royal seraglio,21 though both
in his biography of François and in the Dames galantes, he emphasizes the
civilizing role of women at court, in contrast to the introduction of putains
(whores) by earlier kings. Brantôme, responsible for so many scandalous
stories, tells us that François, on his accession, thought that women were
the entire adornment of a court ‘for in truth a court without ladies is like
a garden without flowers’.22 For Brantôme, François was no Heliogabalus,
but rather encouraged ladies of good family and of reputation to his court;
if it was true that some took lovers, the king was hardly to blame. So, for
Brantôme, a court without ladies was hardly worth the name: it would be
‘a court without courtiership’.23 Brantôme is also curiously reticent about
telling stories involving Madame d’Étampes, recalling little more than a story
about the dignified way Françoise de Foix (c. 1495–1537), the king’s earlier
mistress, dealt with François’s desire to get back gifts of jewellery and give
them to Anne.24 The later biographer Antoine du Verdier (1544–1600) in 1573
argued that François simply esteemed Anne for her grace and vivacity and
that the relationship went no further.25 The historian François de Mézeray
(1610–1683) related that François fell into the captivity of a fair lady, while
both he and Antoine Varillas (1624–1696), the first serious historian of
François I, recorded that Louise de Savoie deliberately placed Anne in his
way.26 Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), the philosopher and dictionary compiler,
blackened her reputation.27 Jules Michelet was to embellish these accounts,
heedless of chronology, with anachronisms.28 As for the accusations that she
betrayed secrets to the Emperor Charles V, in most cases these go back to the
seventeenth century, though it seems to have been François de Beaucaire
19 Montaigne, II.10, p.143.

20 Brantôme, [1857], p. 345.
21 For example, Brantôme, [1857], pp. 174, 256, 248, 348–49.
22 ‘une cour sans dames c’est un jardin sans aucunes belles fleurs’, Brantôme, 1842, I, p. 257.
23 ‘une cour sans cour’, Brantôme, 1867, pp. 127–28.
24 Brantôme, [1857], p. 367.
25 Du Verdier, III, p. 2347.
26 Mézeray, IV, p. 324; Varillas, II, p. 101.
27 Bayle, VI, pp. 300–12.
28 Michelet, VIII, p. 296.
(1514–1591) who first invented the idea that she and Longueval betrayed
France to the Emperor in 1544.29
With the greater visibility of women in public life at court in the early
sixteenth century, the role of women in that domain and the basis of female
authority came more sharply into focus.30 It has been argued, controversially,
that the general decline in the independent status of women in the Renais-
sance period encouraged them to use more informal routes to the acquisition
of power. There is no good reason to suppose that such informal influence
was new or, indeed, that the formal power of women was any greater before
the sixteenth century.31 Nevertheless, it is clear that the influence of female
princesses and aristocrats was taken for granted. Marguerite de Navarre
(1492–1549) was the object of regular observation by foreign ambassadors
as a figure of influence, whose evident charm had to be ‘decoded’.32 Yet
the court poet Clément Marot (1496–1544) in 1542 was to observe, in a
coq-à-l’âne (savage satire) that was particularly ferocious in its satire of
public corruption, that he had never read a book that said that women
should govern.33 This was a view that shaped the reports of most of those
ambassadors and statesmen and even some of the artists who came into
contact with Anne. It was assumed that, as a woman and one not born to
rule, she was a prey to passions and vengefulness, that she could have no
consistent ‘policy’ (as though many male statesmen had such consistency).
For Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), who saw too much of her for his own
peace of mind, she personfied fortuna in all its caprice.34 For the papal
nuncio Hieronimo Dandino (1509–1559), who saw a great deal of her and
noted her dislike of gossiping Italians, the king in 1543 was more a prey than
ever to his lasciviousness and under her sway. He thought the secret of her
success was the spirit of contradiction, always saying the opposite of what
others did.35 For the Imperial envoy Nicolas Villey de Marnol, Anne had
been légière (unstable) all her life.36 This was the same view as that of the
Venetian envoy Marino Cavalli (d. 1572), who reported in 1545 that, despite
her previous preference for peace with England, she was pressing for further
29 François de Beaucaire, pp. 741, 761, cited in Paris, II, pp. 300–01.

30 Chatenet, ch. VI.
31 For this debate, see Kelly; Wiesner; Poutrin and Schaub; Wilson-Chevalier and Viennot.
32 Prescott; Vose; Reid, II, pp. 499–501.
33 ‘Je ne leuz jamais en nul livre, / Que une femme deust gouverner’, Marot, 1962, p. 171.
34 Cellini, second part, p. 433.
35 ANG, III, pp. 22, 26–27; May 1543, ANG, III, p. 220.
36 HHSA, Frankreich 10, ‘Villey-Karl V, V–VIII’, fol. 4 r.
316 David Pot ter
war, hoping that failure would undermine Admiral Annebault, her rival.37
Literary views were similar; for instance, Rondabilis, the protagonist of the
1546 Tiers Livre by François Rabelais (1494–1553), views all women as frail,
variable, capricious, and inconstant.38
There is plenty of evidence for criticism of her position in widely available
satirical poetry, while the coqs-à-l’âne of Marot alone would be enough to
measure the venom of contemporary literary comment. Such political and
literary comment should be expected in a male-dominated world, but this
makes it more difficult to estimate the reality of her position. We therefore
need to separate out the ‘facets’ of Anne’s life, the way she was perceived by
different groups and individuals. According to these, she could be viewed as
an ornament to the court, a grasping favorite, a desired patroness, an able
businesswoman, later on as a pillar of the reformed church and cantankerous
old woman. At different times and over a long life, Anne de Pisseleu played
all these roles.
The period of Anne’s supremacy was marked by extensive public debate
about female power and coincided with the literary querelle des amyes,
which brought this into sharp focus. François I commissioned the French
translation of Il Cortegiano by Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529), which
appeared in 1537 and gave popular currency both to the idea of the woman
of the court and to the interpretation of platonic love of Marsilio Ficino
(1433–1499). In 1541, Bertrand de La Borderie took up the theme of Castigli-
one’s third book in his Amye de Court, ostensibly a cynical portrayal of a
young court woman, surrounded by lovers, who rejects platonic love and
seeks independence — ‘my heart, its own master’ — while not refraining
from the exploitation of the game of courtly gallantry.39 Naturally, no direct
mention is made of Anne de Pisseleu but court morals were clearly a major
talking point; the Amye declared that it was wise not to refuse a prince’s
largesse to an ‘honneste femme’. 40
The work sparked off a major literary battle when, in 1542, Antoine Héroët
(c. 1492–c. 1567), a member of Marguerite de Navarre’s circle, published La
Parfaicte Amye, a simple reply. The following year saw the Contr’Amye de
Court of Charles Fontaine (1514–1570?). Paul Angier (possibly a pseudonym
for La Borderie) contributed Expérience in 1544, ostensibly a defence of
37 ASV, Consiglio dei Dieci, Ambasciatori, Francia, busta 10: Marino Cavalli to Council of Ten,
3 February 1545 (CSPV, V, no. 327).
38 Rabelais, Tiers Livre, ch. 32, pp. 242–49.
39 ‘mon Coeur de soy maistre’, Screech, pp. 114–15.
40 Screech, p. 124.
La Borderie but better described as a defence of marriage as a remedy for

fornication.41 The whole affair has been variously interpreted by Émile Telle
as a court debate on Neoplatonism or as a feminist confrontation between an
aristocratic view of love (the quest for freedom from subordination to men)
and a bourgeois ideal, revolted by court scandal. 42 The querelle des amyes
formed part of a wider debate on female power linked to public corruption.
A collection of contemporary pasquils about politics in France, now in the
Bibliothèque municipale of Lille, represents a fair range of satire at Anne’s
expense. In one she is made to declare that she would shed not a tear in
enjoying her pleasures, ‘the king’s heart is at my mercy’. In one, François I
is compared to Paris, Anne to Helen, the Duke of Étampes to Menelaus. 43
That Anne was the object of scurrilous public vilification is also demon-
strated by the extraordinary coq-à-l’âne of 1542 known as Le Grup de Clément
Marot and confidently, if erroneously, attributed by Georges Guiffrey to
the great poet. Marot is portrayed in this work as attributing the problems
that led to his second exile for religious opinions to Madame d’Étampes’s
hatred of him. The work contains an extensive and savage critique of public
corruption linked to female influence. It instanced the ups and downs at
court, justice denied, corrupt judges, excessive royal liberality leading to
higher taxes and oppression by the military, war imminent for foolish desire
to acquire territory.44 In this satire, never of course printed at the time, the
author likens the Duchess to the ever hungry monster ‘Chicheface’ from a
sculpture at Saint-Martial of Limoges. 45 Guiffrey suggested that Marot’s
line, ‘she kicked me out of court’, could also refer to the Duchess and that
she was the mysterious figure blamed for his first arrest in l’Enfer. 46 In
words of unusual scurrility, he goes on: ‘this devil of a cunt / maker of so
many cardinals / so many bishops and new abbots’. 47 Guiffrey, in the light
of royal gifts and ecclesiastical benefices acquired by her relatives, was
convinced that the subject of the satire could be none other than Madame
d’Étampes. As evidence for Marot’s authorship, though, he offers simply an
41 Screech, Introduction.
42 Telle; Albistur and Armogathe.
43 ‘le coeur du Roy sy est la myenne proie’, LBM, MS 623, fol. 50.
44 Marot, 1962, pp. 168–74.
45 Marot, 1920, p. 443.
46 ‘Elle m’a chassé de la court’. On the identif ication of the f igure in l’Enfer of ‘Luna’ with
Mme d’Étampes, see Marot, 1920, pp. 444, 454. Though unlikely, it was taken up inconclusively
by Becker. ‘Luna’ was also linked by Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy, in his 1731 edition of Marot, to
Diane de Poitiers, again without much reason. Marot, 1958, p. 20.
47 ‘Mais voy tu ce diable de con, / Qui a tant faict de cardinaux, / Force euesques, abbez
nouveaux’, Marot, 1920, pp. 452–54.
318 David Pot ter
anecdote that the poet had been heard to remark of François I, ‘he’s only
Étampes sand, good for polishing an old pot’.48 Sablon d’Étampes certainly
was an agent for polishing copper or pewter but that Marot should have
thus attacked a patroness who had formerly protected him is unlikely, even
though the saying was obviously going round. 49 Le Grup stands, however, as
a startling example of public vilification of the royal mistress which could
scarcely be mistaken by contemporaries.
A very different literary dimension (from within the court) emerges from
Marot’s verse in honor of the newly created countess, beginning: ‘this pleasant
vale called Tempé’, now no longer in Thessaly but with us transported by
Jupiter to France. In the Estrenne of 1538, Marot praised Anne’s beauty and
loyalty to the crown.50 The court poet Charles de Sainte-Marthe (1512–1555)
dedicated his works to her in September 1540, praising her great beauty and
great honnesteté.51 Marguerite de Navarre’s discussion of courtly love, La
Coche (The Coach) (1541–42), was dedicated to Anne. The relations between
Marguerite and Anne were complex. Sometimes described as rivals, they
often shared tactical objectives in court politics and, though Marguerite
was waspish about many others in her talks with foreign envoys, she never
was about Anne. There was clearly also some sympathy between them in
matters of religion, which in Anne’s case developed later into Protestantism.52
Marguerite’s poem is a discussion about the miseries and pains of love, which
are submitted by Marguerite to the arbitration of Madame d’Étampes in the
absence of her brother the king. The text also contains an extended eulogy
of Anne (though not named directly) in which she is likened to ‘a sun midst
stars who spares nothing for her friends, nor stoops to vengeance on her foes’.53
Marguerite addresses her as cousin and mistress. There are several illuminated
copies, the best known in the Musée Condé showing Marguerite presenting
the work to Anne.54 It has been argued that the work sought to use Anne as
48 Marot, 1920, II, pp. 453–54n; Colletet, p. 20: ‘Il n’est que du sablon d’Estampes pour faire
reluire vn vieux pot.’
49 The point was made long ago by Guy, p. 303. Mayer, though, in his edition of Marot, 1962,
pp. 37–38, leaves the case open: ‘possible, mais loin d’être certain’. For Marot’s verse in praise
of Madame d’Étampes, see Marot, 1966, Étrennes, VIII: ‘Vous reprendrez, je l’affie, / Sur la vie /
Le tainct que vous a osté / La Deesse de beaulté / Par envie’.
50 ‘Ce plaisant val que l’on nommoit Tempé’, Marot, 1919, II, p. 43; I, p. 481.
51 Sainte-Marthe, Recueil de poésies, épistre, Dedication, pp. 4–6: ‘debonnaireté de ta noble
nature’ of one who was ‘des belles treserudites, des erudites tresbelles’.
52 On their relations, see Reid, I, p. 701; II, pp. 506–12.
53 ‘un soleil au milieu des estoilles […]. Pour ses amys elle n’espargne rien, / Et des meschants
ennemis ne se venge’, MC, MS 522, fol. 43v.
54 For a fuller discussion, see Lundquist, pp. 199–200.
a vehicle through which Marguerite could win back the favor of François at
a time (in 1541) when their interests were sharply opposed over the marriage
of Marguerite’s daughter.55 The explanation of this work remains difficult.
One of the most interesting features of Madame d’Étampes’s life is the
way she coped with disgrace. Her life after 1547 reveals an ability to deal
with extreme hostility and also to use her acumen to rescue her financial
fortunes and establish a new independent role for herself. General histories
note her disappearance from the public scene, yet she went on to live a long
and active life; under 40 at the time of her disgrace, she lived to the age of
72 and not quietly. François I died at Rambouillet near Anne’s château of
Limours, on 31 March 1547, having at least twice recommended Anne to his
son’s protection.56 Anne left Rambouillet for Limours two days before.57 On
3 April, it was reported that she sent to the new king, Henri II (1519–1559), to
ask for her old lodgings at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in order to take her leave
of him. He replied that she should go to Queen Eleanor, implying that she
had wronged her in the past. Her followers were being rapidly dismissed
from their posts.58 The Venetian ambassador was clear by 16 April that all her
followers at court had been dispossessed.59 In May, it was said that Anne had
met her husband at Étampes on his way to court, to ask him tearfully to take
her into his protection. The duc d’Étampes, once arrived at court, had been
told that he could have his wife’s property as a reward for having been so long
cuckolded by her. Anne’s sister, Péronne, Mme de Cany (c. 1505–after 1555),
was condemned to return certain grants; many others were stripped of their
royal grants.60 The Venetian ambassador reflected on her fall early in June. She
had been, he reported, in great terror of losing everything she had acquired
over the years and likely to be prosecuted in the courts by her enemies in the
new council. Henri II had encouraged her husband to ruin her and reduce her
to misery. All those with a grudge had been heard and she had been ordered
to pay out 100, 000 écus. The king had been convinced that she held a mass
55 Marguerite de Navarre, pp. 36–38.

56 Potter, 2013, nos. 3, 4, 5, 9, 12; ASM, Cancelleria, Estero, Ambasciatori, Francia, busta 24, fo. 46
(decipher) Alvarotti to Ercole II, Paris, 15 March 1547 on the king’s words to his female favorites;
30 March 1547, ibid., fo.108 on the removal of Mme d’Étampes to a chamber further from the
king because of the sound of her lamentations; 31 March 1547, ibid., fo.123: Mme d’Étampes has
gone to Limours ‘luogo suo con dui paggi soli et uno suo fratello’; 3 April 1547, B 24, fasc. ii, fo.10,
François’s recommendation of Mme d’Étampes to his son. (My thanks are due to Jean Sénié and
Marcello Simonetta for photographs of these documents.)
57 Potter, 2013, nos. 13, 15.
58 Potter, 2013, no. 15.
59 Francesco Giustinian, 16 April 1547, BnF, it. 1716, p. 105.
60 To Mary of Hungary, 20 May, Potter, 2013, no. 22.
320 David Pot ter
of crown jewels and ordered the inventory of all her possessions. Anne had
offered, through the cardinal Jean de Lorraine (1498–1550), to give up all
her jewels but begged not to be proceeded against with full rigor. Lorraine
obtained the grace that she would not be put on trial but that her husband
should come to court immediately and decide what to do with her. Anne
was still not out of trouble, as the two cardinals, Odet de Coligny (1517–1571)
and Charles de Lorraine (1524–1574), were determined still on her ruin.61
Anne’s fate was a matter of wry satisfaction to foreign observers. There
was talk of public penance at court as well as her return of royal jewels.
Giulio Alvarotti reported in May (and quoting Virgil’s gloomy judgment
about the depths to which lust for gold would lead) the story that Anne
had handed over to her husband 1000 marcs of silver and 50 in gold that
she had in Paris and that the couple had agreed so well when they met at
Limours that they had slept together for three nights. As a result, the duke
had been looked at askance when he returned to court since he had always
asserted that he would never take her back. Nevertheless he had removed
her household and given her no new servants. By June it was reported that
she was under her mother-in-law’s control at Les Essarts (Vendée) and was
being forced to submit to her husband’s management of her property.62
At the end of June there was further news: her sister, Countess of Vertus,
had been sent under guard to Poitou, Anne to a castle of her husband’s in
Brittany for her ‘insolences’ to him. There she had been pressured to give
up her jewels. The king had not wished to proceed further because of his
promise to his father but left it to the duke to punish her.63 A declaration by
her brother, Adrien de Pisseleu-Heilly, in May 1548 notes that the doctors
had diagnosed a recurrent daily fever and that her place of confinement,
La Hardouinaye, was ‘very damp and injurious to her health’.64 She had
expressed the desire for a change of air at Lamballe, north-west of Rennes,
61 This narrative is drawn from the despatch of Giustinian, 8 June, BnF, it. 1716, pp. 177–82.
62 Giulio Alvarotti to duke of Ferrara, 26 May 1547, ASM, Francia, B 24, fasc. ii, fo.198 (decipher):
‘In fatti dicono che Madama d’Estampes con havere dato al marito 1000 marchi d’argento et
cinquanta d’oro che si trova ad havere qui in Parigi ha acconci seco i fatti suoi talmente che’l
marito dormì seco tre notti in Limors et quando tornò alla corte non fu molto ben veduto per
haver sempre fatto professione di non volerla mai per moglie, ma quid non mortalia pectora cogis,
auri sacra fames’. ‘Occurens’, 15 June, Potter, 2013, no. 26; Giustinian, 3 July: ‘Madama di Tampes
è stata querellata di molte cose, la quale perchè il Re Christianissimo a rimesso a discretione
del marito, et perche esso la tiene hora come sua prigioniera ad un castello in Bertagna, non è
stata atata altrimenti’, BnF it. 1716, pp. 203–04.
63 Potter, 2013, no. 27.
64 ‘est fort aquatic et contrere à sa santé’. Declaration signed by ‘Antoine’ de Pisseleu, seigneur
de Heilly, la Hardouinaye, 26 May 1548, copy, sold: 18 November 2014, Ader-Nordmann, lot 37.
not wishing to be taken to Moncontour, and Heilly undertook on his honor

to Étampes’s maître d’hôtel to bring her back once her health had improved.
The picture conveyed is a somber one.
Yet for all this, it seems that a formal separation of property had been
effected by 1550 and financial sources reveal Anne in the 1550s energetically
concerned with the defense of her property portfolio and the management
of her money. François I had showered her with gifts, often in the form of
grants of property between 1538 and 1542, confiscated from those condemned
during the governmental upheavals of the 1530s.65 Then in October 1545,
François transferred to her the properties south of Paris confiscated from
former Chancellor Guillaume Poyet (d. 1548).66 The Duchy of Étampes was
conveniently situated to absorb Limours, which had been the property of
one of the financiers who had been attacked in the 1530s. Jean Poncher (who
died in 1535) had been condemned to a fine of 380, 000 livres tournois and
his children were probably forced into a transaction with the king which
enabled him to grant Limours to Madame d’Étampes in June 1538. François
stayed there in July 1540.67 At the same time, Anne acquired the seigneurie
of Challuau.68 There, François commissioned around 1542 a hunting retreat
on a grand scale, in many ways reminiscent of the château de Madrid and
La Muette. The Duchess enjoyed possession here of what the Ferrarese
ambassador described in 1546 as a palazzo.69
Though the estate of Meudon had been acquired by Anne’s maternal Sanguin
grandfather, there were still other claimants to the seigneurie, notably her
cousin Claude Sanguin (d. 1545) and his wife, who abandoned their claims in
1542. In the acts conveying their rights to Anne, it was noted that the château,
then still occupied by her uncle, the cardinal Antoine Sanguin de Meudon
(1493–1559), was one in which, according to a contract of 1542, she ‘takes great
pleasure and builds fine and sumptuous edifices’.70 In effect, the ancestral
home of the Sanguins was transformed for Anne into a real palace with two new
grandiose wings. Further to the south-west was Angervilliers, also inherited
from the Sanguins, and both Dourdan and Limours formed a compact group
The copy is a hastily written one and mistakenly transcribes ‘Antoine’ for ‘Adrien’ de Heilly.
Desgardins, p. 71, mentions this but says nothing of the source.
65 CAF, III, 499, 9807; 562, 10097; IV, 360, 12690; IV, 441, 13073; IV, 95, 11440.
66 Compardon and Tuety, no. 1899.
67 CAF, III, 561, 10094; ANG, I, p.579; IV, 81, 11372.
68 CAF, III, 652, 10497; 562, 10095; III, 352, 9140.
69 Chatenet, pp. 52, 302.
70 Compardon and Tuety, no. 780 (7 August 1542); 822 (30 August, 3 September 1542): ‘prend
plaisir et y faict faire beaulx et sumptueulx édifices’.
322 David Pot ter
of properties conveniently close to the domain of Étampes. The king himself

had come to stay there in January 1539 and June, July, and October 1540.71
The Guise were major financial beneficiaries of Anne’s fall and in 1554–55
she was energetically defending the rights of another niece, Jossine de Pisse-
leu (c. 1520–1580), to the Lenoncourt succession, which they were attempting
to acquire.72 In 1554, Anne ceded by exchange the lordships of Limours and
Beyne to her successor as royal mistress, Diane de Poitiers (1499–1566).73 In
fact the acquisitions made by the Lorraines of Meudon and Limours had to
be paid for but the process was tortuous. Meudon had been transferred by
the Duke and Duchess of Étampes to the Cardinal of Meudon in 1537 and
then leased back for 20 years for 1200 livres tournois a year and the seigneurie
transferred back to them in June.74 This needed to be sorted out. Complicated
financial transactions by the Cardinal of Lorraine and an Italian financier
allowed the Guise to pay Anne for part of their property purchases, for
example the moveables of the château of Limours and the ferme of Meudon,
amounting to 14,000 livres tournois made in 1552.75 1556 saw the sale of the
seigneurie of Coussac to Jean d’Escoubleau, lord of Sourdis (d. 1569).76
So, despite her difficulties after 1547, Anne de Pisseleu seems to have been
able to fight back. In 1556 she was still dame d’Égreville, Bransle, Challuau, et
Villemur Saint-Ange.77 The 1544 gift to Longueval by the Duke and Duchess
of Étampes of the lordships of Challuau and Bransle was revoked after
Longueval’s death in 1553.78 Anne’s substantial assets in this period are
partly indicated by the receipts, dating from the 1560s and 1570s, for rentes
bought either from the municipality of Paris or acquired from individuals
between 1553 and 1559, which indicate a total capital investment of 47,615
livres tournois, probably more.79 She was also acquiring other property in
71 CAF, VIII, Itinéraire, July 1540; ANG, I, p. 435, 566, 611 (27–31 October) (none of these stays
are recorded in the Itinéraire).
72 Anne de Pisseleu to Duke of Guise, Paris, 11 March [1555], BnF, fr. 20470, fol. 191: ‘ayant entendu
le contract fayct pour le conte de Nanteul entre monsyeur voutre frere et madame la contesse,
quy sanble fort prejudycyable a mon nepveu filz ayne et ses enfans’, i.e. Robert de Lenoncourt,
husband of Jossine de Pisseleu.
73 AN, MC/ET/XIX/104 (13 March 1554).
74 AN, MC/ET/III/13 (12 July 1537); AN, MC/ET/III/6 (3 June 1537).
75 AN, MC/ET/VIII-85 fols. 571v–573r (24 January 1559); 591 r–v (27 January 1559); fols. 592r–593v
(21 January 1559). AN, MC/ET/LXVIII-20 (1554–55); AN, MC/ET/LXVIII-25 fols. 23r–25r (16 April
1559).
76 AN, MC/ET/LXVIII/20 (6 and 8 March 1556).
77 AN, MC/ET/XIX/200 (11 March 1556).
78 AN, MC/ET/CXXII/1282 (29 May 1553).
79 These rentes were: 1000 livres sold by Paris in January 1553–54 (BnF, pièces orig. 2291, fr.
28775, doss. 51786); 1000 livres sold in May 1555 (ibid., nos. 43, 45, 46); 800 livres sold in December
Paris by lease.80 In 1559 she was negotiating to buy the lordship of Menetou
from Marguerite de Bourbon, Duchess of Nevers (1516–1589) but baulked at
the asking price of 30,000 livres tournois, having seen the last statement of
revenues and in the absence of a declaration of noble fiefs depending and
a full statement of forest rights.81 She seems to have managed all this by a
combination of astuteness and perhaps continuing good will on the part
of influential figures.
The middle years of the century saw Madame d’Étampes using her native
acumen and contacts to rescue what she could of her property. Her strategy
could be judged as one in which she shifted from exercising political power
to exercising power in the private sphere among her family and friends;
there seems no doubt that she saw herself at the center of a large extended
kinship. The last decades of her life also saw her playing part in the world
of political Protestantism, also preoccupied with the disposition of her
property, favor or disfavor towards her relatives, and the fighting of law suits
being part of her strategy. In that context, the fact that she was a childless
substantial landowner comes into play.
February 1559 saw the death of her eldest brother, Adrien, who died in
captivity after his capture at Ham following the battle of Saint-Quentin. She
commented in a letter at the time that he was ‘the best brother I had and
whom I loved the most’.82 The terms of his ransom were to be a problem for
some years. For the first marriage of her nephew Jean de Pisseleu (d. 1581)
in 1552, to Françoise de Scépeaux (d. by 1569), she gave a rente of 1200 livres
tournois per annum or 30,000 in a lump sum (a useful comparison with the
legacy to her niece, Diane de Barbançon (d. 1566)). The Duchess, in fact, fell
into dispute with Jean over some debts which she claimed she owed her
sister, Péronne de Pisseleu, and she obtained a seizure of his lands, which
he reversed by royal letters in December 1563.83 This, as will be seen below,
seems to have left no lasting bitterness.
1559 (ibid., no. 34); 500 livres acquired from Nicolas de Pellevé; and by him from Pierre Hotman
(ibid., nos. 35, 37); 542 livres acquired from Anne Meigret (ibid., no. 36); 125 livres 16s. 8d. acquired
from Antoinette, Duchess of Guise (ibid., no. 40). A total yield of 3967. 16. 8, being interest of 8
1/3 per cent, gives a capital of 47 615 livres. We know also of a rente constituted by her to Antoine
Mynard, president of the Parlement, AN, MC/ET/XIX/200 (11 March 1556).
80 AN, MC/ET/XIX/107 (5 October 1555).
81 Anne to Duchess de Nevers, Paris, 14 May 1559, BnF, fr. 3114, fol. 126.
82 Friant, pp. 171–80: ‘le meilleur frère que j’eusse et que plus j’aymois’; Villebon to Humières,
12 September 1557, BnF, fr. 3128, fol. 130; will of Adrien de Pisseleu-Heilly, SAP, Ch. Heilly, 58/I,
no. 22; ransom of Heilly, ibid. 60.
83 Compardon and Tuety, 3 September 1552, no. 4159; marriage contract, SAP, 52, no. 9 (2 Sep-
tember 1551); AN, AB XIX, 781, mandement of Charles IX, 9 December 1563.
324 David Pot ter
On 19 March 1560, Anne ceded her seigneurie of Challuau to her niece

Jeanne (d. after 1613), daughter of Louise de Pisseleu (d. c. 1563) and Guy
Chabot-Jarnac (1514–1584), in favor of her marriage to René d’Anglure (d. 1562),
reserving the usufruct for her life.84 This was part of a pattern during her
later life of making provisional dispositions of her property, while keeping a
degree of control over the heirs. Her dispositions could be revoked and she
did indeed do this. On 1 March 1560, she donated 114, 000 livres tournois, ‘in
contemplation’ of the marriage of her favorite niece, Diane de Barbançon,
daughter of her sister Péronne, ‘for the dear love she bears her […] whom she
has brought up since childhood’ to Jean de Rohan, sieur de Frontenay (d. c.
1571), cousin of Jeanne d’Albret (1528–7152), queen of Navarre.85 She reserved
most as usufruct but 24, 000 directly in the form of rente on the hôtel de ville
assigned on her seigneuries of Angervilliers and Égreville. The 90,000 livres
tournois which would come to the couple eventually would be divided in half
in the event of there being no children: half to Frontenay and half to the sons of
Anne’s brother Adrien. Alongside this she gave Diane her claims to seigneuries
she still disputed with Diane de Poitiers.86 Madame d’Étampes, having had
to be cautious about her religious sympathies under François I, was by now
quite open about them. The marriage contract was signed and the ceremony
took place at Argentan on 28 September 1561, at the high tide of Protestant
self-confidence at court, sponsored not only by the Queen of Navarre but also
Louis, prince of Condé (d. 1569), admiral Gaspard de Coligny (d. 1572), and
the Rohan clan. It was a very public statement by the Protestant nobility that
they could hold major religious ceremonies in public. The chronicler Nicolas
Brulart (d. 1593) called it a great scandal against the Christian religion and
the historian Étienne Pasquier (1529–1615) thought that the marriage ‘thus
accomplished, almost at the gates of Paris and of Saint-Germain where the
king was staying, done with impunity, greatly strengthened the hearts of
the ministers’.87 Diane’s brother François became a commander in Condé’s
army and was to be killed at the battle of Saint-Denis (1567). The Rohan
84 AN, MC/ET/XIX/115 (19 March 1560).

85 ‘pour le bon amour qu’elle a porte […] laquelle elle a nourrye dès son enffance’, SAP, Ch. Heilly,
no. 52/ xi. S.A.P. 52, no. 11 (also copy in AN, MC/ET/LXVIII/20), the ratification of 28 September
1561 containing a draft of the contract of 1 March 1560 with notes of acceptance of the terms by
Jean and Antoine de Pisseleu dated 29 November 1566 and 11 April 1567. Copy of the contract of
28 September 1561 in AN, Y 107, fol. 309.
86 SAP, Ch. Heilly, no. 52/ xi. S.A.P. 52, no. 11.
87 Secousse, I, 54. Pasquier, IV, lettre IX, p. 69: ‘ainsi fait, presque aux portes de Paris et de Saint
Germain en Laye ou le Roy sejournoit, n’ayant esté contrôlé, a grandement accreu le coeur des
Ministres’.
family were to be crucial in the Protestant cause. Diane died in September

1566, very much the victim, according to her aunt, of a violent and controlling
husband who had ruined her life, stolen her money and ultimately poisoned
her.88 Madame d’Étampes pursued her niece’s husband single-mindedly
and assembled her family with her. In the spring of 1567, she was joined by
her sister Charlotte de Pisseleu and niece Marie de Barbançon (d. 1601) in
bringing a case against Frontenay before the Parlement of Paris. This was
no doubt intended to prevent his laying hands on the funds included in the
Duchess’s donation of 1560. Frontenay was arrested in May 1567 but, though
he survived until 1571, the outcome of the case is uncertain. Her attack on
her favorite niece’s husband, though, had been energetic.
Thus, Anne de Pisseleu continued to occupy the high profile already
observed in her participation in the Protestant marriages of 1561. Naturally,
this made her vulnerable during the civil wars. It seems that, because of
the fighting, she took refuge, some of the time with Diane, at her castle of
Égreville in Gâtinais.89 There had been war in this district in 1562, where
Catholic commanders were aided by Spanish troops. Nevertheless, as she
wrote to her nephew Jean, lord of Heilly (d. 1581), the French in the army
‘did me all the courtesy they could, saving my land and taking nothing from
me’, though no thanks to her neighbors in the region.90 The first war over,
she was observed by Sir Thomas Hoby, who visited her at Paris in 1566 and
found her ‘a grave, godlie, wise sober and courteious lady, one of the staies
of the refourmed religion in Fraunce, one that thinketh aswell of the Q.
my sovereign and all her refourmed dooinges […] offring enie service she
can’.91 In 1565, Jean de Brosse died, still legally her husband though long
separated. Declaring his Catholic faith and his devotion to royal service,
his words about his wife were bitter to the end: ‘since she would never take
her place as my wife she can demand no endowment’.92 Yet he appealed
to the fact that they all had to face their end, not to continue to hold what
she held wrongly in their divided property and to do right by his heir, the
vicomte de Martigues (d. 1569).93
88 Potter, 1990.
89 ‘pour les esmotions civilles’, Potter, 1990, p. 13.
90 ‘m’ont faict tout le plaisir qu’ilz ont peu et ont sauvé toutes mes terres que l’on ne m’a rien
pris’, Anne de Pisseleu to Heilly, 5 March [1563], BnF, n.a.fr. 23167, fol. 42.
91 T. Hoby to Cecil, Pans, 21 June 1566, TNA, SP 70/84, no. 417, fol. 327 v (CSPF, II, no. 512).
92 BnF, Clair. 355, fol. 22. The manuscript breaks off but can be supplemented by Morice, III,
cols. 1343–45, signed at Lamballe, 25 January 1565: ‘n’ayant poinct voullu server ny tenir lieu de
femme elle ne peult demander douaire’.
93 BnF, Clair. 355, fol. 22.
326 David Pot ter
The affairs of her family and inheritance continued to preoccupy Anne,

concerned as she was to exercise her authority over the succession to her
property. When Jean de Pisseleu came to marry Françoise de Pellevé in
1569 it was Anne who acted as intermediary. Writing to the lady’s uncle
and guardian, she expressed her assumptions about a marriage alliance,
writing that her nephew had come to her to discuss his desire for it.94 In
July 1569, she was trying to obtain payment of her interest on investments
(rentes) on the Paris municipality and, denied payment, she was helped,
without any earlier obligation, by Jean Ébrard de Saint-Sulpice. She claimed
that she had been obstructed by other members of the duc d’Anjou’s council
‘by the malice of some members of that council who wish me no good’.
During the 1570s there is little information on Anne’s life available, though
the effects of the Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew on her sense of security
must have been profound. The lawyer-historian Jacques-Auguste de Thou
(1553–1617), who married in 1587 one of Anne’s favorites in these years,
Marie de Barbançon, stated in his personal memoir that his wife’s mother
and father had returned to the Church, though in the case of François de
Barbançon, this cannot have been the case since he had been killed in
battle in 1567. Thou’s desire to stress the Catholic credentials of his wife is
all too apparent and he makes no mention of Madame d’Étampes among
the many relatives involved.95
We can learn a certain amount about her late household from enquiries
undertaken after her death.96 The château of Égreville, south of Fon-
tainebleau, was laid out on a smaller scale but along the lines of any great
aristocratic residence. In the main corps de logis, her chambre on the first
floor was equipped with a cabinet which housed the cupboards containing
her jewels and title deeds within the tour neuve and a garderobe. The floor
above that had room for guests and servants. Below was the salle and there
were other towers with suites of rooms, including the keep. Rooms also
existed over the main gate.
94 Anne de Pisseleu to [Nicolas de Pellevé; Archbishop of Reims], Égreville, 21 June 1569, copy;
SAP 57, no. 38. The marriage contract was signed on 27 June; see SAP, Ch. Heilly, 52, no. 14.
Françoise was the heiress of the eldest of the Pellevé brothers, Jean (d. 1558), the Archbishop’s
brother.
95 ‘plus par la malice de quelques uns dudit conseil qui ne me veult gueres de bien qu’aultrement’,
Anne de Pisseleu to Saint-Sulpice, 4 July 1569, sold: Thierry de Maigret lettres et manuscrits
autographes – archives talleyrand, 5 December 2017, lot 55; Thou, 1734, I, pp. 118–19.
96 ‘Ensuyvent ls deppositions des gentilzhommes, damoiselles, serviteurs et servantes domes-
ticques de deffuncte, noble et puissante dame Anne de Pisseleu’, December 1580, AN, MC/ET/
III/404.
What do the long and detailed examinations of the Duchess’s domestic

servants in 1580 (conducted in the light of quarrels over inheritance) reveal
about the relationship to their mistress? The first point that stands out is
that this elderly (and perhaps by now difficult) woman was surrounded by
the young. The gentlemen and maitres d’hôtel of her household were all in
their twenties and thirties, her demoiselles even younger, ranging from 14 to
30. She had a number of gentlemen, including the eldest, Richard Sanguin,
maître d’hôtel, aged 50, who was her cousin, natural son of the Cardinal de
Meudon.97 Two other gentilshommes domestiques in particular stand out,
Denis and Pierre Roullin, both entitled écuiers and sieurs de Mignonville,
a fief of Égreville. There seems little reason to doubt that these brothers,
Mignonville, were Protestant activists, captains in the armies of the Prince
of Condé in 1585 and Henri de Navarre from 1587, one of them killed at Dreux
in 1590.98 Otherwise there were members of the regional gentry connected
with these: Prégent Popine, lord of Frolles, aged 39 and Jacques du Val,
lord of Vaulx, aged 26. There were six demoiselles, mostly in their teens.99
The domestic servants included a femme de chambre and her husband, an
argentier, two cooks, a page, sommelier and two valets de chambre.
Madame d’Étampes signed her last will on 6 February 1580, possibly at
Paris though this is not clear.100 Her simple statement of belief was that
having prayed to God ‘by his son Jesus Christ to order her actions by the
holy spirit […] pardoning the faults she might have committed’. She ordered
her body to be buried ‘peacefully and without pomp’ either at the priory
of the Bonshommes of Amiens next to her father or at Angervilliers in the
parish church should she die there.101 The terms show both her generosity
to her domestic staff and also a determination to repay those whom she
thought had slighted her; it was a final instrument of her family power.
97 Royal letters conf irming his right to 100 livres tournois a year from the property left by
cardinal de Meudon to his niece and heir, Péronne de Pisseleu, Madame de Cany, 28 March
1561 and transcript of distraint of the property of Madame de Cany in Paris as she had no cash
to pay, 9 August 1561, BnF, Dupuy 606, fols. 288–89.
98 Mornay, p. 114; Thou, 1740, VII, p. 243; Aubigné, VI, p. 250; A.M. de Mignonville had been
gentilhomme de la maison to Guy XIX de Laval in 1577: see Broussillon, IV, p. 304.
99 A sister of the Mignonvilles, Elize Roullin, Mlle de Mignonville, 25, and her nieces Anne
Roullin, 14–15 and Esther de Leveston, 14; Renée d’Escolliers, 30, daughter of the sieur de Chesnay;
Marie Bude, daughter of the sieur de Rancy; finally, Marie de Barbançon, the Duchess’s great
niece, 13–14.
100 BnF, Dupuy 606, fols. 222r–223v.
101 ‘et l’avoir prié de par son fils Jesus Christ vouloir regir et dresser ses actions par son sainct
esprit […] luy remectant et pardonnant les faultes et offenses qu’elle peult avoir commises’
‘paisiblement et sans pompe’, BnF, Dupuy 606, fol. 222r–v.
328 David Pot ter
Her sister Charlotte, Countess of Vertus, was disinherited along with her
son by her second husband, Jacques Brouillard sieur de Lizy, the sieur de
Badouville.102 Her nephew Jean de Barbançon was also disinherited for having
brought a court case against her. His brother Charles was provisionally
awarded Angervilliers as long as he refrained from his brother’s case. The 1560
agreement that her sister Louise’s descendants should inherit Égreville and
Challuau was denounced because she insisted it had been extorted from her
under false pretences. Louise’s son René d’Anglure de Givry had been killed
at Dreux in 1562 fighting for the Guise and his son, Anne d’Anglure, lord of
Givry, had entered Égreville ‘in order to murder the lady Renée d’Escolliers
one of her demoiselles, whom he sought to shoot with an arquebus’, leaving
Renée with a disabled arm.103 Thus, a case had been launched by Anne against
Givry and his step-father and tuteur, Claude de La Châtre, the later marshal,
Catholic follower first of the Duke of Anjou, then of Guise. The echoes of the
case against Frontenay are strong. On the positive side, she left 6000 écus
to her great-niece and demoiselle, Marie de Barbançon, three-quarters of
the property to her nephew in Picardy, Jean de Pisseleu, lord of Heilly, and
the other quarter to her great-nephew Louis de Barbançon, Lord of Cany.104
Madame d’Étampes clearly intended to hand out rewards and punishments
in this will and dictate the course of her succession.
Anne de Pisseleu was at Égreville when she fell ill on 13 November 1580
at the age of 72. Her illness lasted eight days and became dangerous on
19 November. At midday, a doctor at Sens was sent for. At 9 o’clock the
night before her death, her cook was called from his lodging in the village
to prepare a dish of almond milk for her in her room. She was given it at
10. At an hour after midnight, with the Duchess sinking fast, the doctor
was called for again. She lost the power of speech and died at two minutes
after midnight on 20 November. Most of her domestic servants were in the
room, the demoiselles d’honneur, femmes de chambre, the maîtres d’hôtel
and a number of the gentlemen. Present, too, was one of her heirs, Louis de
102 Badouville was a Huguenot captured along with Nemours’s natural son the prince de Genevois
in 1577 by Mayenne, in danger of their lives but released on the orders of Henri III: L’Estoile, II,
p. 113.
103 ‘pour tuer et et metre à mort damoyselle Renee d’Escolliers l’un de ses damoiselles, ce qu’il
a pensé executer d’un coup d’arquebuse’. This does not easily accord with the later reputation
of Givry as ‘gentilhomme doué de tant de bonnes et rares qualités qu’il s’en trouvait pas de
semblable en France’, quoted in Villedieu, p.119.
104 There is reason to think the Barbançons had converted to Catholicism, since they were
high in Catherine de Médicis’s favor and Cany married his daughter to Gaspard de Schomberg,
himself a convert, in 1588 (Thou, 1734, I, 133).
Barbançon, seigneur de Cany, and his sister Marie, one of the demoiselles,
who had slept on a bed in the Duchess’s room during her illness. Those
present wept and said prayers for the departed for about three-quarters
of an hour. There then followed an unseemly intervention by Cany in
commandeering the keys to coffers held by the demoiselles and keys kept
by the Duchess herself at her bedside. With these he entered the cabinet
and had the boxes and cupboards opened, taking out a certain number of
valuable jewels and plate. On the Monday, Cany was seen riding away and
the surgeons arrived to embalm the corpse. The bailli of Égreville arrived to
apply seals to the property and by Wednesday, La Châtre’s guards had been
posted.105 On 28 November the English ambassador Lord Cobham (1527–1597)
reported that La Châtre had sent a company of servants to challenge for the
inheritance in the name of his wife, Jeanne Chabot.106
Cany’s high-handedness in assuming his control of the inheritance clearly
had implications for the executors, but given the nature of the account, there
is little sentiment about it. The death of the head of the household was a
major event and there were some tears wept, as was to be expected. The
whole household gathered round the bedside as soon as it was known that
Anne was dying. But otherwise, nothing is said about religion and there
are no extravagant outpourings of grief recorded. Her will had specified,
should she die at Paris, burial at the Bonshommes of Amiens next to her
father, with bequests to the friars. Death at Angerville would be followed
by burial in the parish church next to the lords her predecessors, peacefully
and without show; aristocratic seemliness trumped religion.107
Anne de Pisseleu had exercised a form of power that was intrinsically
extra-institutional and dependent entirely of the king’s favor; her role was
clearly understood by political insiders. Criticism took the form of conven-
tional hostility to the role of women in power, yet in the king’s lifetime had
to be circumspect and oblique. However, she lived more than half her life
after the death of the king whose love had given her power and wealth. In
this, she weathered the storm of disgrace remarkably effectively, carved for
herself a new role and ended her life a moderately wealthy woman whose
assets became a matter for ferocious competition among her relatives.
105 This sequence of events is established from the enquiries in December over the high-handed
actions of Cany, AN, MC/ET/III/404.
106 ‘Madame d’Estampes is deceased this laste weke, and Monsr de Chartres [sic], follower of
Monseigneur [Anjou], hath sent a company of his servants who entred her castle and seased
on her goodz, challenging to be one of her heirs by the right of his wife’. Henry Cobham to
Walsingham, 28 November 1580, TNA, SP 78/4B, fol. 181.
107 BnF, Dupuy, 606, fol. 222v.
330 David Pot ter
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About the author
David Potter is Emeritus Reader in French History, University of Kent. His

most recent books are: Renaissance France at War: Armies, Culture and
Society, c.1480–1560 (Boydell and Brewer, 2008); Henry VIII and Francis I:
The Final Conflict, 1540–47 (Brill, 2011); and A Knight of Malta at the Court
of Elizabeth I: The Correspondence of Michel de Seure, French Ambassador
1560–61, Camden Society, 5th Series, vol. 45 (Cambridge University Press, for
the Royal Historical Society, 2014 ). On Mme d’Étampes he has published:
‘Politics and Faction at the Court of Francis I: The Duchesse d’Étampes,
Montmorency and the Dauphin Henri’, French History, 21.2 (June 2007), pp.
334 David Pot ter
127–46; ‘Marriage and Cruelty among the Protestant Nobility of Sixteenth-

Century France’, European History Quarterly, 20 (1990), pp. 5–38; ‘Anne de
Pisseleu, duchesse d’Etampes, maîtresse et conseillère de François Ier’, in
C. Michon (ed.), Les conseillers de François Ier (Rennes, 2011), pp. 535–56 as
well as other studies of the French court in the sixteenth century.
12. ‘The King and I’
Rhetorics of Power in the Letters of Diane de Poitiers
Susan Broomhall
Abstract
This essay explores the gendered performance of power in the letters of
Diane de Poitiers (1499–1566), particularly during the period when, as
mistress of Henri II (1519–59), she wielded considerable political influence
at court. It argues that her power was established and enacted through
performances of authoritative behaviors and rhetoric that were inflected
by contemporary understandings about gender and explores a number of
distinct strategies embedded in Diane’s correspondence. These techniques
reflected the corporeal and sexual nature of her access to consideration
as a political interlocutor but also aimed to position her status as a figure
of social and economic influence beyond this original means to power.
Keywords: Diane de Poiters, letters, royal mistress, emotions, networks,

financial transactions
This essay explores the performance of power in the letters of Diane de

Poitiers (1499–1566), particularly during the period when, as mistress of
Henri II (1519–1559), she wielded considerable political influence at the court.
For Diane, power was exercised in a number of forms, at different historical
moments, and with varying degrees of success. It included emotional influ-
ence on political interlocutors, involvement in decision-making regarding
the French kingdom, communicating political and military information,
liaising between factional leaders, increasing economic security in lands and
titles both directly for herself and also for her extended family, and accruing
greater recognition for her descendants in elite dynastic networks. As this
essay explores, Diane’s ability to claim some of these capacities shifted
over her lifetime and in regard to her personal circumstances. Some kinds
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch12
336 Susan Broomhall
of power displayed rhetorical longevity in her missives, while the assertion

of other influences waned, particularly after the death of Henri II.
Diane’s power was enacted and demonstrated in many contexts, including
through activities such as patronage and courtly positions for her favorites.
It was visualized in artworks and constructed in built monuments including
châteaux at Anet and Chenonceau. However, this essay draws upon Diane’s
extant letters as a key source for examining how her power was performed
rhetorically. Judith Butler’s conceptualization of gender as performative has
been a powerful analytical tool for historians studying Diane’s contemporary,
Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589).1 However, Diane’s activities and writings
have not been studied in such a light to date. Considering Diane’s epistolary
practices of power through the lens of performativity, though, demonstrates
how her power was established and enacted through performances of
authoritative behaviors and rhetoric that were inflected by contemporary
understandings about gender. This analysis explores a number of distinct
strategies embedded in Diane’s correspondence, from the range of networks
created and maintained via the work of letters, the nature of the political
matters that she addressed with interlocutors, to the positioning of particular
phrases within the letter text that asserted her proximity to influence, and
techniques of unique autograph letter-writing that demonstrated her access
to power both within the court and extending beyond it. It also included
distinctive emotional tones, different offers of service, and wide-ranging
matters for discussion raised with the diverse recipients of her letters. These
techniques reflected the corporeal and sexual nature of Diane’s access
to consideration as a political interlocutor but also aimed to position her
status as a figure of social and economic influence beyond this original
means of power. Through textual, material and spatial mechanisms within
epistolarity, Diane de Poitiers demanded and exerted consideration as a
political protagonist at the court across a wide range of matters.
Building Networks
The established record of Diane’s extant correspondence is patchy and

provides an incomplete picture of her strategic activities at the court. For
This research has been supported by the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship:
FT130100070.
1 Butler, 1996; Butler, 1999. This is applied to consideration of Catherine by ffolliott; Crawford,
2000; Crawford, 2004; Broomhall, 2017b; Broomhall, 2018b.
‘ The King and I’ 337
example, no letters as yet uncovered are addressed to her two daughters,

Françoise (1515–1577) or Louise de Brézé (1521–1577), to Henri II or to Cath-
erine de Médicis.2 Yet we know from her movements and positions at court,
and from her letters to others, that these were individuals with whom she
interacted intimately at the court. For the whole of Henri’s reign, Diane
enjoyed direct access to the royal couple as one of the foremost ladies-in-
waiting to the queen. Epistolary communication was by no means the only
transmission pathway for information therefore. Nonetheless, the bulk of
Diane’s extant letters do concern the period of her acknowledged political
influence, during the reign of Henri II from 1547 to 1559, and can therefore
help to elucidate her distinctive epistolary strategies in her most prominent
years at the court.
These letters reflect a range of Diane’s relationships at and beyond the
court during the reign of Henri II. Some of her correspondents are those
who occupied positions key to Diane’s own influence at court. A man Diane
regularly addressed as ‘my ally’ (mon allye), Jean II, seigneur de Humières
(d. 1550), had enjoyed an illustrious career in close proximity to the royal
family from the reign of François I (1494–1547). He had been Henri’s governor
as dauphin and that of his elder brother before him. Humières was named in
turn the governor of the children of Henri and Catherine in October 1546.3
Both before and after his death in 1550, Diane also corresponded with his
wife, then widow, Françoise de Contay (d. 1557). 4
Other correspondents were members of key political dynasties with whom
Diane was establishing strategic alliances, or indeed those who were hoping
for the same from her. These included both male and female correspondents
from among France’s elite families. In July 1558, for example, Diane thanked
Marguerite de Bourbon, Duchess of Nevers (1516–1559), who had sent her legs
of ham as a gift.5 Chief among her political allies, however, was the House
of Guise, led by Claude de Lorraine, Duke of Guise (1496–1550), then his son
François (1519–1563). In August 1547, Diane had wed her younger daughter,
Louise, to the duke’s third son, Claude (1526–1573). Diane inserted herself
into the Guise communication network, passing letters from Marguerite
de Valois, Queen of Navarre (1492–1549), to François, then Duke of Aumale.
2 Likewise, no letters are addressed from Catherine de Médicis to Diane de Poitiers although
we do have letters from Henri to Diane. See Broomhall, 2018a.
3 Potter, pp. 131–32.
4 Letters from Diane to Contay before her husband’s death are no longer extant, but in Diane’s
letters to Jean, it is clear that she is also corresponding to his wife. See for example, BnF, ms fr.
3155, fol. 18r–v and BNF, ms. fr. 3128, fol. 12r.
5 Poitiers, pp. 151–52, citing BNF, ms. fr. 4711, fol. 31, Rheims, 29 July [1558].
338 Susan Broomhall
Conveniently for Diane, these particular letters demonstrated not only

Marguerite’s good wishes for her allies, but also the queen’s respect for
her personally.6 When the new duke’s uncle, Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine
(1498–1550), died in May 1550 shortly after his father Claude in April the
same year, Diane’s letter, ostensibly of condolence, promised her assistance in
helping François and his brothers to manage the succession of his properties.
‘[Y]our brothers must not be forgotten’, she wrote, ‘and even though I believe
that the King will proceed as he has done in the past, I will still bring it to his
attention by my letter, even though I know he will do it’.7 Although insisting
that her intervention was not necessary, Diane nonetheless promised to
assist the duke and his brother in managing their transition to power.
During the later 1550s, however, Diane astutely expanded her allegiances
at court and this may explain an increase in extant letters to the Mont-
morencys at this period. Letters to the Constable Anne de Montmorency
(1493–1567), a man who was Henri’s senior and a deeply trusted military and
political adviser, formed another significant, but more complicated, network
at court. Henri bestowed a widely noted affection on the older man who was
a powerful influence on his political thought, especially in the final days
of the Italian Wars.8 While the Guise dynasty favored a hawkish policy
in the campaigns against the Spanish king, Philip II (1527–1598), during
the late 1550s, Montmorency’s captivity under Habsburg surveillance led
the statesman, and eventually Henri, to favor peace. Diane corresponded
directly with both the Constable and his wife, and eventually forged a
marriage between her grand-daughter Antoinette de la Marck (1542–1591),
and Montmorency’s son, Henri I, Duke of Damville (1534–1614), in 1558.
Diane’s autograph letters to the imprisoned Constable during this period
reflected these ambitions, as she expressed her ‘hope’ to him that the peace
negotiations would soon see Montmorency return to court.9
While these networks do not reflect the full extent of Diane’s activities
as these are revealed in other archival sources, they do chart the broad
lines of her influence that was exercised among the highest echelons of the
French aristocracy, for whom the kind of power that Diane wielded, as we
shall explore, was most likely to be of interest. On the other hand, they do
not bear evidence of strong international networks beyond this domain of
6 BnF, ms. fr. 20537 (formerly Gaignières 425), fol. 32r.

7 ‘il ne fault pas oublyer messrs voz freres aussy croy je que le Roy suyvra les choses quil a faict
du passe, je l’en ramenteverary encor par ma lettre bien que je sache quil le fera’, Anet, 21 May
[1550], copy, BnF, ms. fr. 23236 (formerly Gaignières 2871), fol. 101 r.
8 See Broomhall, 2018 a.
9 See BnF, ms. fr. 3021, fol. 94 r.
the kind that was often exercised by foreign-born queens such as Eleanor
of Austria (1498–1558) and Catherine de Médicis. In this respect, Diane’s
power base remained firmly French.
Voicing Authority
The contents of Diane’s letters demonstrate, perhaps better than do the

recipients of her extant letters, the nature and extent of her power. Her letters
ranged over a wide variety of subjects, but her discussions on child-rearing,
on contemporary military strategies, and on courtly political manoeuvers
were significant domains in which she claimed authority. This assertion
of an advisory role on key matters of national significance translated into
power to influence decision-making. Significantly, the means by which
Diane claimed authority were all marked by her gender. Advising on the
health and wellbeing of children were legitimate matters of discussion for
a woman who was an experienced mother, as also was her offer to supply
favors and services for leading elite correspondents. Thus, the framework for
establishing and performing Diane’s power was informed by contemporary
expectations of her sex.
A focus of Diane’s correspondence with Jean de Humières, governor of
the royal children, and his wife, was the matter of managing the health and
wellbeing of their young charges. Diane proposed advice on wet-nurses,
diet, air, and sanitation of the chambers of the children. She sought and
queried information about their accidents and illnesses, and demanded
higher degrees of communication at key moments.10 In general, Diane
offered little explicit evidence as to why the couple should follow the
sometimes firm health recommendations laid out in her letters, views
that were clearly marked as her own views: ‘it seems to me that you would
do well to…’; ‘it seems to me that…’.11 She did not explicitly refer to her
experiences as a mother of two adult daughters nor that conversations with
medical professionals at court gave weight to her advice, although she did
suggest that the latter would share her ideas: ‘I think that the doctors will
be of the same opinion’.12 Diane’s close attention to the royal children gave
widespread recognition to her activities at court in this domain. It was this
work that medical authors praised publicly in dedicating publications to her.
10 See Broomhall, 2004, pp. 191–98.

11 ‘il me semble que feries bien’, ‘me semble que’, Oiron, 20 May [1551], BnF, ms. fr. 3208, fol. 127r.
12 ‘je croy que les medecins seront de ceste opinion’, BnF, ms. fr. 3208, fol. 127r.
340 Susan Broomhall
Guillaume Chrestien (1500–1558), physician to the king and his children,

offered his 1559 translation of Jacques Sylvius’s work on menstruation to her.
Chrestien argued that Diane might be particularly interested in his text,
specifically lauding her attention to the royal children; that is, her ‘care not
only for the conception and birth of them, but also to have them duly fed by
robust, healthy, well complexioned wetnurses’.13 Diane was also the targeted
recipient of work by Claude Valgelas (fl. 1554–59), who in 1559 translated into
French the Commentaire de la conservation de santé, et prolongation de vie
of Hierosme de Monteux (c. 1495–1560).14 Diane’s child-rearing and medical
knowledge might have legitimized authors’ claims to her patronage, but it
was also her proximity to power that these authors, and her correspondence
in this domain, made evident.
Diane insisted that the Humières should attend more diligently to
greater communication not with her but with the dauphin. In this respect,
Diane’s message made clear, without being absolutely explicit, her intimate
knowledge of Henri, and more particularly his sentiments, desires, and
keen interest in his children. When Monsieur de Humières failed to explain
clearly a decision in the royal nursery, Diane informed him that Henri
‘was most annoyed about it’.15 Similarly, when Henri’s daughter, Claude
(1547–1575), fell ill with measles, Diane warned Humières that ‘the King
was stunned that you have not advised him of it’. In these letters, Diane
could also demonstrate her capacity to protect those whom she favored,
continuing: ‘but I told him that it must be that your letters were lost, so you
would do well to make your excuses as best you can’.16 In this context, the
advice Diane proffered suggestively became, by association, advice with royal
assent. However, extant correspondence from both the children’s mother,
Catherine de Médicis, and their father, Henri, demonstrated the assiduous
degree of attentiveness of the royal couple to their children, coupled with
many independent recommendations. What role then was Diane’s own
advice intended to play? In most cases, Diane’s recommendations mirrored
and supported those offered by Henri, sometimes in contradiction to advice
13 ‘auez eu soing de la conception & natiuite d’iceux, mais aussi à les faire deuement nourrir
par femmes nourrices vigoureuses, saines, bien complexionnees’, Chrestien, p. 107.
14 Broomhall, 2004, p. 193.
15 ‘il ma semble que monsr en estoit tout fasche’, Joinville, 27 October [1546], BnF, Ms. fr. 3155,
fol. 18r.
16 ‘le Roy a este bien esbay que ne len avez adverty mais je luy ay dit quil failloit que voz lres eus-
sent este perdues parquoy ferez bien de faire voz excuses le myeulx que pourrez’, Fontainebleau,
27 December [1547], BnF, ms. Fr. 3128, fol. 20r.
from Catherine.17 However, its strongest message and intent was perhaps
to demonstrate and remind her readers of her unique significance as a
mediator to and for the royal couple.
Another facet of Diane’s epistolary discussion was her intimate knowledge
of the campaigns of the Italian Wars and of the personal movements and
actions of the king. She was clearly exceptionally well informed. Analysis
of Henri’s letters to her present a clear picture of the high level of strategic
military information to which she was privy directly from the king.18 Once
again, correspondence provided a mechanism through which Diane could
demonstrate her power and intimate knowledge of the king’s business.
Her dissemination of military news was not limited to senior men. To
Madame de Humières, Diane wrote of how the latest information from
the war’s frontline ‘could not have been better: the taking of Metz, which
fell two days ago, so that our people are now inside’.19 Even where she had
little new to report to her network of friends and allies, Diane did not fail
to suggest her proximity to potential sources of information. While Henri
was away at the front near Boulogne, Diane observed to Jean de Humières,
‘I have no other news from the camp than what I sent you, except that that
evening, I was told that only Follambert was left to be taken and all the
other strongholds had been taken. If I know of any other news, I will not
fail to let you know’.20
War offered Diane the opportunity to use her correspondence with
far-flung servants of the king in order to present herself as a mediator.
She assured those on campaign that she could employ her physical and
emotional proximity to the monarch to remind Henri of their important
contribution. This included the Duke of Guise who, from the frontline at
Metz in 1552, was seeking reassurance from a number of courtly advisers
of the king’s recognition of his service and forthcoming royal assistance
towards the costs he had personally incurred.21 Diane’s correspondence
with Guise provided a useful delay for Henri’s finances, as she assured the
17 See Broomhall, 2004, pp. 191–98.

18 Broomhall, 2018 a.
19 ‘ne sçauroient estre meilleures cest de la prinse de mays que sest rendu il y a deux jours de
sorte que noz gens sont dedans’, Joinville, 12 avril [1551–52], BnF ms. fr. 3124, fol. 53r.
20 ‘je nay point heu de nouvelles du camp que ce que vous en mandis si ce nest que ce soit la
on me manda encores quil ny avoit aprandre que Follambert et que tous les aultres fortz estoit
pris. Si jen sçay quelques autres nouvelles je ne faudray vous en advertir’, Anet, 29 August [1559],
BnF, ms. fr. 3208, fol. 115r.
21 See also the letter from Cardinal de Lénoncourt, 7 September 1552, copy, BnF, ms. fr. 23236
(formerly Gaignières 2871), fol. 195r–v.
342 Susan Broomhall
Duke that ‘the lord King thinks of nothing other than to aid you’.22 Likewise,
she supplied important emotional management on the king’s behalf in her
correspondence to François I of Cleves, Duke of Nevers (1516–1561), which
enabled the king to delay a range of decisions and costs:
I receive the letter you wrote in which I saw what you had written. I spoke
of it to the King, who assured me of his great contentment with you and
your good duty to his service. He said to me that he could not think of
it now, putting me off until after his campaign and assuring me of the
strong friendship that he holds for you.23
Later when the king required a number of noblemen to supply wood from
their estates, Diane was among those whose correspondence helped to
smooth relations between the king and his frustrated courtiers. To the
Duke of Nevers, she gave pledges of Henri’s appreciation of their sacrifices.
Recognizing the ‘quantity of wood from your forest, which is no small thing’,
Diane assured the Duke, ‘[…] he asks for nothing more […]. His Majesty is well
satisfied with your service’.24 In these exchanges, Diane provided the king
with an important service of emotional labor on his behalf, making herself
an indispensable component of his political communication and strategy.
Diane sustained a lengthy correspondence with Henri’s marshal and
governor of Piedmont, Charles de Cossé, Count of Brissac (1505/6–1563). Here,
her letters discussing war formed an important part of the royal strategy of
communication. From Turin, Brissac sought assurances of his continued favor
with Henri, which Diane’s correspondence supplied. She not only provided
Brissac with news of the king’s military activities, ‘informing you that the
King is about to depart’ for the frontline of the conflict, but also promising
him ‘that the said Lord carries for you much goodwill that it is not possible
22 ‘Je vous asseure que led. Seigneur Roy ne panse qu’a vous secourir’, [1552], copy, BnF, ms. fr.
23236 (formerly Gaignières 2871), fol. 269r.
23 ‘j’é reseu la letre que m’avez escrite, où j’é veu se qui vous a pleu me mander, j’en ay parleé
au Roy, lequel m’a asseuré du grant contentement qu’il a de vous, & du bon devoir que vous
fètes pour son servisse; il m’a dit que maintenant il n’y povèt panser, men remetant après ses
guerres, & qui m’asseurèt de la bonne amytyé qui vous porte’, Poitiers, p. 114, citing BnF, ms.
fr. 4711, fol. 25 [Compiègne, December 1552].
24 ‘j’ay recue les letres que vous m’avés escriptes, & entendu, par ce porteur, la quantité de boys
que l’on avoyt mise sur vostre forest, qui n’estoit par petite chose; toutesfoys le Roy, quant je luy
en ay parlé, it n’entendoyt pas vous y fère tort, mais byen ayse de l’invention qui luy a [été] baillé
pour les marchans quy luy délivreront le boys; il ne demandoit autre chose […]. Sa Majesté est
byen satisfaite de vostre servise’, Poitiers, p. 147, citing BnF, ms. fr. 4711, fol. 21 [Paris, 27 February
1557–58].
to have more and relies entirely on you for matters over there […] I know
that he has exactly the opinion of you that you could hope for’.25 With Brissac,
Diane employed a suggestive language of particular friendship, in which she
not only promised to provide Brissac with up-to-the minute information
‘as he who I esteem one of my best friends’, but also to serve his interests at
the court ‘with a good heart’.26 Indeed, a particular intimacy between them
was perceived by subsequent generations, who speculated as to why Henri
had sent Brissac away from court, tasked with the governance in Turin. This
was reflected in Madame de La Fayette’s La Princesse de Clèves in which the
fictional Diane de Poitiers conducts an affair with Brissac unbeknownst to
the king.27 Whether or not Diane and Brissac enjoyed a particular emotional
bond, her communicative assistance to the distant courtier and governor
secured an ally on relatively achievable terms.
As is evident in Diane’s letters to Brissac and as can be seen across a
wide range of her letters to the aristocratic elite, Diane offered to do her
correspondents favors at court and with the king. To Antoinette de Bourbon
(1493–1583), the dowager Duchess of Guise, Diane insisted in a handwritten
letter that ‘if I had the honour to be your very own sister I could not have
more desire to serve you in some way’.28 She concluded another letter to
François, Duke of Guise, reminding him that if ‘there is a service that I
could do for you, I beg you not to spare me, as she who will hold herself very
happy to do something that is agreeable to you for the desire that I have to
remain your humble [friend] to do you service’.29 Diane even justified her
advice to the Duchess, that he send her brother to court to assist the king,
by explaining that her recommendation was offered because ‘the desire that
I have to do service to all your House made me write of it to you’.30 Diane’s
25 ‘pour vous faire entendre que le Roy est sur son partement’, ‘que le dict Sgr vous pourte si
bonne vollenté qu’il n’est possible de plus, & se repose entièrement en vous des affaires de par de
là; […] je congnoys qu’il vous a à une tell oppinion que le pouvés souhaicter’, Poitiers, pp. 94–95,
citing BnF, ms. fr. 20451 (Gaignières 325), fol. 129, Joinville, 4 April [1551–52].
26 ‘comme celluy que j’estime de mes meilleurs amys’, ‘d’aussi bon cueur’, Poitiers, pp. 120–21,
citing BnF, ms. fr. 20451 (Gaignières 325), fol. 179, Paris, 13 April [1552–53]
27 See Letts, pp. 147–71; Grande.
28 ‘sy javes lonneur destre vostre proupe seur que je ne sares avoyr myleure anvye de vous
servyr an queque chouse’, [November 1552?] BnF, ms. fr 3237, fol. 13r.
29 ‘Sy par deça il y a service que je vous puisse faire, je vous prie ne m’espargner, comme celle
qui se tiendra tousjours bienheureuse de faire chose qui vous soit agreable pour l’envye que jay
de vous demeurer Vostre humble a vous fere service’, [1552], copy, BnF, ms. fr. 23236 (formerly
Gaignières 2871), fol. 269r.
30 ‘lanvye que je de fere servyse a toute vostre meson mest le vous écryre’, [November 1552],
BnF ms. fr. 3237, fol. 9r.
344 Susan Broomhall
promises of service, let alone what she may have done for her clients and
friends, suggested in themselves her powerful capacity to achieve favors.
Whether discussing the royal children or political and military affairs,
Diane’s authority to offer advice and insight to her varied correspondents
was positioned in her letters, implicitly and explicitly, as stemming from
a single source — her proximity to the royal couple and her particular
intimacy with the thoughts, wishes, and feelings of the king. This clearly
generated a great deal of political credit that enabled her to interact with key
political factional leaders, to offer them services and unique communication
conduits within the courtly political sphere.
Phrasing Power
Diane’s letters used a range of common phrases with her correspondents

that marked her particular access to power through the king. Some common
statements made clear to readers how close Diane was to the center of royal
power. Her letters often presented claims to know the feelings or wishes
of the king based on close observation. Such claims formed an important
part of her missives to the Humières couple managing the household of the
royal children. She could warn Jean de Humières of Henri’s frustration at
not receiving news of his children, ‘it seemed to me that he was very angry
about it’, as well as his delight on other occasions.31 After the arrival of
the young Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), at the French court, Diane
could inform Humières that Henri ‘particularly wants Madame Ysabel and
the Queen of Scotland lodged together’.32 ‘I advise you that the King was
marvellously pleased with the good welcome that monsieur the dauphin
made for the Queen of Scotland’.33 In such ways, Henri became a constant
presence in much of her correspondence.
However, Diane also made her proximity to the king explicit in ways that
demonstrated the particular intimacy of their relationship. To Antoinette
de Bourbon, mother of the Duke of Guise, Diane closed one handwritten
letter thus: ‘In finishing this letter, the king has arrived, and commands
31 ‘il ma semble que monsr en estoit tout fasche’, Joinville 27 October [1546], BnF, ms. fr. 3155,
fol. 18r.
32 ‘Ledict Sr veult nommement que madame Ysabel et la Royne d’escosse soient logees ensem-
bles’, Tarare, 3 October [1548], BnF, ms. fr. 3128, fol. 10r.
33 ‘je vous advise que le Roy a este merveilleusement aise du bon recueil que monsr le Daulphin
a faict a la Royne d’Escosse […]. Moulins, 20 October [1548], BnF, ms. fr. 3128, fol. 14 r.
me to make his recommendations to you’.34 To the Constable, whom Diane

carefully offered respect, letters also explicitly reminded him of her access to
the king’s thoughts and feelings. In acknowledging receipt of the Constable’s
letter to her during his captivity in 1558–59, Diane made clear that she
had in fact more significant conduits to knowledge of his activities. ‘I was
very pleased to hear your good news, even though I knew it well, for the
king had written to me of his happiness in seeing you and how well you
were’.35 It was not that Diane was simply close enough to the king at court
to observe his responses to particular situations; her letters gave her readers
clear evidence of her own involvement as a source of information for him
too. In an early letter to Jean de Humières while Henri was still dauphin,
for example, Diane could write:
I want to advise you that in reading your letter, monsieur le dauphin

[Henri] took it, looked at it and found within it how you had decided to
leave for St. Martin […] he found it a little strange […] and he asked me
[why].36
According to Diane’s description of these events in her letters, Henri embed-

ded her in his communication strategy. These phrases positioned Diane as
a valued component of, and a conduit for, the king’s political networking.
One remarkable letter rendered the intertwined political and emotional
relationship of Henri and Diane entirely explicit through both its material
and textual representation. During his captivity, Montmorency received
from Diane a short missive that thanked the statesman for his most recent
news. Henri continued the letter in his own hand, thanking the Constable
for finding the time to write personally during the intricate process of
peace negotiations then underway that would culminate in the Peace of
Cateau-Cambrésis. Henri then textually bound himself together with ‘the
secretary who has completed half of my letter’, Diane, in order to ‘recommend
34 ‘An fynant sete lestre le Roy est aryve quy ma commande vous ferere ses recommandacyon’,
[December 1552], BnF, ms. fr. 3237, fol. 7r.
35 ‘jay ete byen fort ayse dentendre de vos bones noveles encores que je la seusse byen car le
Roy mavoyt mande layse quil avoyt eu de vous voyr et come vous vous portyes,’ [St. Germain
en Laye, 20 Feb 1558–59], BnF, ms. fr. 3139, fol. 76r.
36 ‘Je vous veulx bien advertir que en lisant vostre lectre monsr le daulphin la print et la regarda
et trouva dedans comme vous avyez deslibere de partir ala St Martin pour le venir trouver […] il
la trouve ung peu estrange de voeir que vous vous ennuyez sy tost la/ Et ma demande le plusfort
du monde que se povoit ester Je ne luy en ay sceu rendre raison […].’, Joinville, 27 October [1546],
BnF, ms. fr. 3155, fol. 18r–v.
346 Susan Broomhall
ourselves to your good grace’. Diane was left to close the letter, wishing God’s
blessing upon their recipient, with Henri penning the complimentary close
‘Your ancient & best friends’. Each author then signed their name.37 There
is no further extant evidence of a regular pattern of joint authorship of this
kind between Diane and Henri, despite claims reproduced in many works
on Diane. That Montmorency should be the recipient of the only known
example of this material demonstration of power may be significant: he
was widely understood to be Diane’s greatest rival for the affection and
influence of the King at this period.38
Transferring Power
While Diane’s immediate source of authority and influence lay with her
physical and emotional proximity to the king, a fact made clearly and
repeatedly to her recipients, her letters also demonstrate concerted efforts
to translate this influence into other, more long-lasting domains of power,
namely, economic strength, administrative networks of personnel, and dy-
nastic advancement. In doing so, Diane sought to transform gender-specific
access to power via sexual and emotional services to the king to standard
forms of authority and control utilized by aristocratic men and women.
A considerable amount of Diane’s extant correspondence concerns her
growing economic portfolio, notably tax incomes and land assets for herself
and her children.39 Diane was an experienced financial manager. She had
sought and received from François I the right not to have a male guardian
appointed to manage her assets during widowhood. Furthermore, she had
persisted in a lengthy case and secured from the Parlement of Paris the right
to hold the domains of her husband for her two daughters, without reversion
to the crown. 40 Additionally, she engaged in a particular negotiation with
her cousin René de Batarnay, comte du Bouchage, over the sale of land at
Rouveray, near Loches, around 1550, the full and final price of which, and
the rights associated with it, generated a large correspondence. The lack
of clarification of the terms of the sale prompted the production of letters
adopting a very different tone to those with which Diane had addressed her
37 ‘la segretère quy achève la moytye de ma lestre et moy nous recoumandons a vre boune
grase’ ‘vos ansyens et mylleurs amys’, BnF, ms. fr. 3139, fol. 26r.
38 Broomhall, 2018 a.
39 On the gifts she was given by Henri in taxes and special payments, see Cloulas, pp. 157–58.
40 Cloulas, pp. 87–88.
courtly interlocutors. Indeed, Du Bouchage was to discover that his ‘obedient,

good cousin’ could readily voice anger and frustration in this context:
I am wondrously annoyed to see such a long time to bring our affairs to

conclusions, which makes me send this porter to beg you to send your
deliberation and what you want me still to wait on, for, from me, I want
to tell you clearly by this letter, if within ten days you do not bring this
to an end, I will secure it by another means, for I do not want to remain
without knowing in what capacity I am there, for this has dragged on
too long until now. 41
These letters lacked the particular niceties and subtleties of hierarchical inter-
play displayed in Diane’s correspondence with men at court and aristocratic
women. Her claim to authority in these letters was explicit and demanded
a compliance from her recipient that, in fact, had not been the case.
The employment of feeling in Diane’s letters typically avoided the strong
emotional rhetoric that was present in many letters of her contemporary,
Catherine de Médicis, for example, but Diane did establish distinct moods
and tones in her letters, partly through her emotional expression. 42 However,
in this case, the articulation of strong feelings, particularly anger, which was
more typically the expressive purview of governing men, may have formed
part of a strategy to assert power over her cousin, rather than a reflection
of it. 43 The focused attention to concrete detail in this resolutely practical
side of her correspondence has generated much, generally critical, response
from most of her scholars. Diane’s mid-nineteenth-century editor Georges
Guiffrey, for example, argued that the correspondence reveals a ‘hardness
of form, this aridity of sentiment’ of a woman ‘imperious and pressuring to
demand her due, while elsewhere we see her dextrous at finding pretexts to
delay when it came to loosening the strings of her purse’.44 In a similar vein,
her more recent biographer, Ivan Cloulas, considering a crayon portrait by
41 ‘obeissante bonne cousine’, ‘je suys merveilleusement marrye de veoir sy grant a mectre fin a
noz affaires qui me faict vous envoyer ce porteur pour vous pryer me mander vostre desliberation
et ce que voullez que jatende encores Car de moy je vous veulx bien advertir par ceste lectre sy
dedans dix jours vous ny mectrez une fin je y pourvoyre par autre moyen car je ne veulx plus
demourer sans sçavoir en quoy jen suys, car cecy a trop trayne jusques icy’, Brie-Comte-Robert,
27 August [1550?], BnF, ms. fr. 3145, fol. 49.
42 Broomhall, 2015, pp. 67–86; Broomhall, 2017a; Broomhall, forthcoming (a). The author is
currently working on a monograph study about emotions in Catherine’s letters.
43 Pollock; Broomhall and Van Gent.
44 Poitiers, pp. lxxxviii, 54 n. 1.
348 Susan Broomhall
Jean Clouet, suggests that in widowhood Diane acquired a ‘more calculating’

gaze. 45 But Diane’s certainly very precise attention to economic aspects
of power helped to secure long-term gain from what could be potentially
short-term royal favor, particularly as she had not borne the king children
who could be promised entitlements into the future. Diane fought hard
to secure these land rights, and then successfully passed them on to her
daughters.
Interestingly, we see far less discussion in her letters about the visual
and material production of power through her extensive architectural and
artistic investments, particularly at Anet and Chenonceau. 46 None of the
letters that remain are addressed to architects or craftsmen. The details of
these material symbols of status are primarily documented for posterity in
contemporary accounts, the publications of their architects and, particularly
at Anet, in the artistic details of the buildings that visualized a narrative of
the interwoven identities of its creators Henri and Diane throughout. Their
meaning as demonstrations of power were attested by eye-witnesses, such as
the English ambassador William Pickering who visited Anet in March 1553
and declared it ‘so sumptuous and prince-like as ever I saw’. 47 Nevertheless,
one letter to Montmorency in which Diane discussed her building program
at Anet asserted her claims to creative significance and innovation in its
construction. ‘I do not know how to talk about anything but my masons.
I am not losing a single hour and hope that when you come here that you
will find something new to take pleasure in’. 48 Diane presented herself as
responsible for this creative demonstration of her status. In this respect,
her letter bears similarities with the concerns of other women on her era
to establish status as creative agents. 49 Of particular note are the letters of
her close contemporary Catherine de Médicis, which keenly asserted the
central role of the queen in all stages of the material process.50
A further area where Diane’s letters demonstrate a strategy of power
conversion was in relation to appointments of her political networks. Diane
celebrated victories when those among her network received appointments,
as in her letter to Claude d’Urfé (1501–1558), writing that she was ‘very pleased
45 Cloulas, p. 88. ‘le regard s’est fait plus calculateur’.

46 Chevalier, 1864, Chevalier, 1866; ‘The Chateau d’Anet’; Roussel.
47 Turnbull, 253–60.
48 ‘je ne vous scauroys parler que de mes massons ou je pertz une seulle heure de temps /
Et espere que quant viendres icy que vous y trouveres quelque chouse de nouveau / ou vous
prandres plaisir’, BnF, ms. fr. 3038 fol. 50r.
49 Broomhall, forthcoming (b).
50 Broomhall, 2018b.
that the abbey of St. Denis de Liseulx fell into the hands of my relative’.51 With
her close allies, she discussed attempts to secure positions for them, in doing
so demonstrating the extent of her influence on the king. In order to reserve
a benefice of the abbey of St. Barthélemy that had been earlier promised to
Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Châtillon (1517–1571), Diane explained to Jean
de Humières that Henri had
already made a promise of another that, instead of this one, was given to
the Cardinal de Châtillon, in recompense for one that he had given to the
brother-in-law of Mademoiselle de Surgères; by this means, I recovered
this one.52
There was no mistaking the role Diane expected her recipient to understand
she had played in this process. Likewise, in a letter to the Duke of Guise,
Diane foregrounded her significance in securing appointments via her
networks, explaining that François de Meuillon, Baron de Bressieu and
de Ribiers, had written to her as a conduit to the Duke, seeking a position
for his brother. ‘[F]or love of me, recommend him to the king’, she wrote.53
Managing the marriages of her daughters and grand-daughters into
France’s most powerful families would also provide advancement of her
line. Indeed, via these marriages, her descendants would, in just over a
hundred years, marry into the royal family itself.54 While negotiations
for these marriages are not represented in Diane’s extant letters, the rela-
tions that she was forging first with the Guise and then the Montmorency
dynasties can be seen in the significant number of letters addressed to
these recipients and the tone of such missives. In one, Diane wrote to the
Duke’s mother, Antoinette de Bourbon, asking her to consider Diane like
‘your own sister’ and one ready to do her favors.55 Material qualities also
conveyed the close relationships that Diane hoped to forge within this family.
51 ‘Ayant esté bien aise de ce qu’avez faict tumber l’abbaye de St Désir de Liseulx entre les mains
de ma parente’, Poitiers, p. 62, citing 5 June [1550] copy in BnF, Moreau 774 (formerly Collection
de Fevret de Fontette 23), fol. 51.
52 ‘le dict Seignr avoit desja faict promesse dune autre qui en lieu de ceste cy a este baillee
au cardinal de chastillon en recompense dune quil a baillee au beau frère de mademoiselle
de Surgeres par ce moyen jay recouvert ceste cy’, Vauluisant, 25 April [1548], BnF, ms. fr 3028,
fol. 103r.
53 ‘pour lamour de moy le veulles avoir pour recommande / et en faire la requeste au roy’,
[Rheims, 8 July 1554], BnF, Clairambault 347, fol. 249.
54 When her descendant, Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie (1685–1712), married Louis, Duke of
Burgundy, Le Petit Dauphin (1682–1712) in 1697, giving birth to the future Louis XV in 1710.
55 BnF, ms. fr 3237, fol. 13r; see note 28 above.
350 Susan Broomhall
Among these was autograph correspondence. On an occasion in August

1552 when Diane was ill, she apologized to the Duke of Guise that she was
not able to write in her own hand.56 Diane’s correspondence during the
war with one of Henri’s closest friends, Montmorency, presented a marked
emphasis of deference. It was clear to contemporaries that Henri had formed
a special bond with the older courtly figure, bestowing upon him many
courtly privileges. Montmorency was also leader of an opposing dynastic
faction to the Guise. However, Diane’s correspondence reflected a rhetoric
of humility in discussions of military engagement with the statesman.
Diane, Montmorency’s ‘humble friend’, expressed concern about Henri’s
safety at the front, advising that the king needed to be ‘better guarded than
ever, as much from poisons as from artillery’.57 These were quasi-wifely
concerns that situated Montmorency as the superior in his relations with
Diane, but nonetheless insisted implicitly upon her right to information and
consideration among the king’s intimate circle. By the end of the period in
which she was influential, Diane had ensured that her descendants were
tied to this powerful dynastic family.
In the days after Henri’s death, when Diane had retired from the court, it
was precisely these networks that she sought to activate through letters to
assist her. She wrote to Montmorency more than once to seek his assistance
to ensure the financial security of her family. ‘I wrote to you before to beg
you to aid my son Aumale [the son of the Duke of Guise] and my daughter
Bouillon, regarding the gift that the late king Henri had made to them before
on salt, so as to have the gift confirmed’, she wrote in the months after the
king’s fatal accident.58 Indeed, one of Diane’s letters demonstrated what
appears to be rare acknowledgment of just how her position of immediate
access and thus influence had transformed after the king’s death. To the
Duke of Guise, who had by the early 1560s risen to become Grand Master,
she wrote deferentially, ‘I beg that my letter not be an occasion to bother
you, coming from a place which is now so troublesome’.59 Nevertheless the
56 Poitiers, pp. 106–07, citing Villers-Cotteretz, 30 August [1552], BnF, ms. fr. 20515 (formerly
Gaignières 403), fol. 122.
57 ‘le myeux garder que jamès, tant des poyssons que de l’artylerye’, ‘vostre humble bonne
amye’, Poitiers, pp. 101–02, citing [June 1552] BnF, ms. fr. 2974, fol 83.
58 ‘je vous ay cy-devant escript pour vous supplier ester aydant à on filz d’Aumalle & à ma
f ille de Buillon, touchant le don que le feu roy Henry leur a cy-devant faict sr le sel, aff in de
faire confirmer le don’, Poitiers, p. 177, citing Paris, 25 Nov [1559], BnF, ms. fr. 20507 (formerly
Gaignières 395), fol. 97.
59 ‘je vous suplye, que ma lestre ne soyt aucasyon de vous annuyer, venant dung lyeu quy est
mentenant sy fâcheux’, Poitiers, p. 187, citing [1563?] BnF, ms. fr. 20507 (formerly Gaignières 395),
fol. 147.
missive simultaneously sought to enact advantage from the very networks

that her former power had enabled her to create. Diane continued to seek
means to provide services and favors to these dynastic families. She wrote to
Madeleine de Savoie (c. 1510–1586), wife of Montmorency, to announce that
she could help procure a piece of land that she had heard the Montmorencys
wanted: ‘begging you to believe that what I do is nothing more than the
goodwill that I have to see you accommodated with that good and to give
pleasure to you in anything that is ever possible for me to do’. The missive
made clear that she could do so, by relying on a network of supporters that
she had developed at the height of her power, having, by her own account,
instructed d’Urfé to sell the land to them. ‘I wanted to write a little word
about it to him, advising him to put it in your hands’.60 These latter letters
to the Guise and Montmorency family members provide evidence of Diane’s
continued expectations of reliance on their support in her latter years and
the sustained impact of the elite network that she had cultivated during
her years at the apex of courtly power.
Conclusion: Writing Power
An analysis of the letters of Diane de Poitiers provides important insights into

the epistolary strategies of a woman whose status, authority, and influence
emerged not from a formal position but a far more precarious source, the
affections of a king. As such, they demonstrate particular attention to rhetori-
cal positioning that made explicit the intimate and emotionally powerful
nature of the relationship that Diane shared with the king. Diane’s missives
show the specific ways in which a mistress could insert herself into matters
of national significance that extended from overseeing those tasked to the
royal nursery and the courtly machinations surrounding appointments, to
international political negotiations and European battlefields. They also
reveal the way in which letters could be used to reveal, sustain, and expand
a significant network of allies who, it was hoped, could be relied upon in
potentially changing (and detrimental) circumstances, as indeed occurred
in Diane’s case. Correspondence became then, for Diane, another tool in
60 ‘vous suppliant de penser que ce que jen faiz nest que bonne volunte que jay de vous veoir
accommodee de ce bien la et de vous faire plaisir en tout ce qui me fera james possible’, ‘je luy
en ay bien voullu toucher ung mot, luy conseillant de la mectre entre voz mains’, [1564?], BnF,
ms. fr. 3119, fol. 66r.
352 Susan Broomhall
a strategy to transfer psychic power to more stable and long-term forms,

particularly economic security and dynastic advancement.
However, Diane’s letters also bear out similarities with other contempo-
rary women at the apex of courtly influence such as queens and regents,
because some aspects — assumptions and activities — of the experiences
of women with courtly power were more widespread. The performance of
power was gendered, and thus the nature of women’s influence was often
most clearly exercised in unofficial capacities that were well recognized
by contemporaries as vital components of the political system. Many of
these roles, which included conveying and exchanging information, offer-
ing services that advanced the careers of men and placed them in official
appointments from where they could offer support to women, and through
emotional work that smoothed, enhanced and fostered relationships, were
conducted, and remain most visible to historians, through correspondence.
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Motherhood’. Sixteenth Century Journal, 31.3, 2000, pp. 643–73.
—. ‘Catherine de Médicis: Staging the Political Woman’. Perilous Performances:
Gender and Regency in Early Modern France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2004, pp. 24–58.
ffOLLIOTT, Sheila. ‘Catherine de’ Medici as Artemisia: Figuring the Powerful
Widow’. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early
354 Susan Broomhall
Modern Europe. Ed. Margaret W. Ferguson, Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy

Vickers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 227–41.
GRANDE, Nathalie. ‘La Représentation de Diane de Poitiers dans les fictions nar-
ratives françaises du xviie siècle: Villedieu, Lafayette, Fontenelle’. Storicamente,
12, 2016, art. 21. doi: 10.12977/stor638 (accessed 8 June 2017).
LETTS, Janet. Legendary Lives in La Princesse de Clèves. Charlottesville: Rookwood
Press, 1998.
POITIERS, Diane de. Lettres inédites de Dianne de Poytiers. Ed. Georges Guiffrey.
Paris: Veuve Jules Renouard, 1866.
POLLOCK, Linda A. ‘Anger and the Negotiation of Relationships in Early Modern
England’. The Historical Journal, 47.3, 2004, pp. 567–90.
POTTER, David. War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy 1470–1560
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
ROUSSEL, Pierre. Histoire et description du château d’Anet depuis le dixièeme
siécle jusqù’à nos jours, précédée d’une notice sur la ville d’Anet, terminée par
un sommaire chronologique sur tous les seigneurs qui ont habité le château et
sur ses propriétaires et contenant une étude sur Diane de Poitiers, Paris: Pierre
Jouaust, 1875.
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[accessed 9 April 2018].
About the author
Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University

of Western Australia. She is author or co-author of eight monographs and
ten edited volumes exploring women and gender, power, and most recently
emotions and material culture, from late medieval to nineteenth-century
Europe, although the particular focus of her work is early modern France
and the Low Countries. She has published Women and the Book Trade in
Sixteenth-Century France (Ashgate, 2002), Women’s Medical Work in Early
Modern France (Manchester University Press/ Palgrave, 2004), Women and
Religion in Sixteenth-Century France (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), and most
recently (with Jacqueline Van Gent), Gender, Power and Identity in the Early
Modern House of Orange-Nassau (Routledge, 2016), and Dynastic Colonialism:
Gender, Materiality and the Early Modern House of Orange-Nassau (Rout-
ledge, 2016). She holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship,
researching emotions and power in the correspondence of Catherine de
Médicis. From this research, she has published a series of book chapters and
articles, and is currently writing a monograph on emotions in Catherine de
Médici’s letters for Brill. From 2018, she leads a major Australian Research
Council project, with Carolyn James and Lisa Mansfield, ‘Gendering the
Italian Wars, 1494–1559’.
13. Catherine de Médicis Tested by the
Virtue of Charity (1533–1559)
Discourse and Metadiscourse
Denis Crouzet
Abstract
If Catherine de Médicis presented as a princess embodying the fertility
of French blood and claimed thus to possess a benevolent, feminine side,
her situation during the reign of Henri II seems to have been marked by
ambiguity. Adopting a posture of withdrawal in relation to the manage-
ment of affairs, her feminine identity was staged in the exercise of the
virtue of prudence. But this policy of distance should not obscure the fact
that she acceded several times to a position of authority. With prudence
came the virtue of fortitude, without, however, renouncing her female
identity. We must review the current historiography: the Catherine of
before 1559 anticipates the Catherine during her widowhood, in her alli-
ance of moderation and authority.
Keywords: Catherine de Médicis, queenship, regency, emotions,

self-representation
Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589) is a challenging historical subject because

each of the phases of her life has been historically reconstructed, and thus
fabricated after the fact, by a dark legend that was constructed notably post-
1574. This defamatory account accused her of being the primary culprit of the
great ‘misfortunes’ that befell France from her arrival in 1533. A poisoning
queen, scheming murderer and liar, ambitious Italian, foreign magician,
abusive mother, devotee of Machiavelli, Catherine was stigmatized as an evil
figure manipulating religious and political forces around the kingdom to
dominate or even annihilate them, in order to establish her total authority.
Press, 2018.
doi: 10.5117/9789462983427/ch13
358 Denis Crouzet
Until the 1980s, historiography was dominated by this unfavorable portrait

exploiting all the stereotypes of political misogyny, interpreting the events
at the time of the wars of religion through a prism of feminine psychology
that was unequivocally negative. The approach to Catherine de Médicis’s
thinking and acts has substantially changed today. The mother of the Valois
is portrayed now as a humanist princess whose efforts focused on defending
the royal state, especially in accounts of her management of the crisis pitting
Catholics versus Protestants that began in 1559. During her widowhood she
strove to remain at the heart of this political–religious game in order to
better defend royal power, and the sphere in which it was exercised, against
competing forces. This was the haut coeur of Catherine de Médicis, to employ
the expression of Estienne Pasquier searching to define the immense will
of a queen mother attempting to impede the descent into violence.1
In fact, historians have focused little on the question of her role prior to
the death of her husband Henri II (1519–1559). This role has been studied
from the angle of a prudential study in power, a strategic perspective positing
that Catherine had been patiently waiting for her turn. This raises questions
about continuity or discontinuity, namely: did Catherine take on politics
in a limited and sporadic manner, discreetly masking boundless ambition
that was waiting to express itself, or should this ambition be viewed as
already operational, albeit often metadiscursively, in the mediator role she
subsequently sought in the religious conflicts that came to the fore after
1559? Indeed, one may ask whether Catherine aspired to a power that she was
careful to portray as distinct from the very male power that she sought to
appropriate, mobilizing all the resources of a political strategy that exalted
her role as a widow and mother distinct from male forms of legitimacy?
The Ambiguities of Caution
It will be valuable to begin with what we know about Catherine de Médicis’s

link to the res publica prior to the tragedy of Henri II’s death. Her situation
appears marked by an ambiguity that was doubtless as imposed on her
as it was controlled. On the one hand, she adopted what seems to have
been a background position, distancing herself from the conduct of public
affairs, preferring rather to influence certain decisions involving foreign
relations or even military strategy concerning Italy, by playing on the support
provided to a micro-society of clients and regular Italian visitors such as
1 See Crouzet, 2005; Crouzet, 2008; Crouzet, 2009; Crouzet, 2011.

Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charit y (1533–1559) 359
members of the Gondi and Strozzi families and by defending what she
believed was due to her children by birth right. Despite her likely fellowship
in an Erasmian evangelical culture, she does not seem to have attempted
to temper the repression of religious reform that marked her husband’s
reign. She made no statements to that effect. Religion was only important
to her when it threatened the integrity of royal decisions or specifically
when it threatened public order. Only at the end of Lent in 1552 do we
see her writing to Cardinal Charles de Bourbon (1523–1590) to report that
potentially seditious sermons had been delivered in Paris that may have
raised questions of ‘affairs of state’. In Notre Dame, a Cordelier had preached
aggressively, while in the Church of Saint-Paul, a Jacobin had disparaged the
alliance between the king of France and Protestant German princes, and the
monarch’s decision to finance the war by ‘tak[ing] twenty livres per village
on the revenues and gold plate of the churches’. Moving the masses toward
sedition was what ‘we must guard against, even more so than against fire
or the plague’.2 This appears a life-long obsession for Catherine, to maintain
an impenetrable barrier between the spiritual and temporal: in no event
should royal power be challenged in the name of faith. The king represents
God on earth, and he alone makes the law.
Signif icantly Catherine’s female identity is expressed, and initially
presented, by exercising the virtue of prudence, calculated to take her out
of the spotlight with regards to religious tensions and games jostling for royal
favor. This self-control, however, should not obscure the fact that, very likely
thanks to both her prudence in thus placing herself in a neutral position in
regards to such games, and the king’s perception that she was integral to
the system of balance that he would establish while away at war, she would
reach a position of authority on several occasions. First, in 1548, Henri II
temporarily placed his council under her theoretical responsibility, and on
three occasions, in 1552, 1553, and 1557, he granted her what appeared to
be a regency, that she characterized herself as training. Caution may thus
signal submission, by her accepting a delegation of shared authority either as
part of a council or with an important figure such as the Constable Anne de
Montmorency (1493–1567) or an expert such as Chancellor Jean de Bertrand
(1482–1560).3 In such a context, she expressed her desire to learn the art of
power, to study it in all its breadth, such as, for example, the ‘commissary
of provisions’ of which she claimed exhaustive knowledge. ‘I can assure
2 ‘prendre vingt livres pour clocher sur les fabriques et joyaux des Eglises […] nous debvons
plus garder que du feu et de la peste’, Médicis, 1880, p. 50.
3 Broomhall, p. 3.
360 Denis Crouzet
you that I am turning into quite the expert, for from one hour to the next
I study but that, and occupy most of the Keeper of the Seal’s time’. 4 Her
correspondence reveals a queen performing like an actress in a specific role:
seeking initiation while initiating herself in politics, accepting this fact and
stating that she merely wanted to be of proper service to the king.5 This
did not prevent her from also claiming that, in order to best carry out her
training and provide such service, all information should be reported to her.
In keeping with Susan Broomhall’s analysis, we note that Catherine’s
rhetoric did not exclude, at the same time as her submission as a trainee,
advising and thus exceeding the role that she accepted or adopted. In letters,
she gave Henri II ‘a subtle form of counsel’ or portrayed herself as playing
a decisive role in following, and supporting from a distance, his military
operations.6 Over the years, she would alter her posture from a woman
undergoing training to one trained to play a pivotal role in the king’s absence.
As Broomhall argues, this was a way for her to underline that she temporarily
symbolized a fullness of authority while persuading others that she was
the authority, and that when she commanded, she should be obeyed as
if the king were expressing himself through her. In this way, she became
actively involved, for example, in exposing the delays with which edicts of
the Parlement of Paris were registered.
Thus, Catherine’s role shifted from listener to speaker, yet she maintained
a cautious strategy. Her life began to gravitate toward the spoken word. It
was Catherine who, in August 1557, after the defeat of Saint-Quentin, left
the northern border of the kingdom without protection, and prided herself
on maintaining order in the capital and the Ile-de-France region by taking
the floor during an extraordinary session of the Assemblée bourgeoise and
obtaining a vote promising 300, 000 écus intended to finance a military
force. It was also Catherine who, with the Guise family, crystallized a hub
of discontent against the decision to make peace with Spain that Henri II
made under the influence of Montmorency and the royal favorite, Diane
de Poitiers (1499–1566). Her caution was thus matched with the virtue of
fortitude. The standard historiographic interpretation therefore merits
revision.
The Catherine before 1559 anticipated the widowed Catherine in her
articulation of a practice of moderation that assigned her to the political
4 ‘je vous asseure que je m’en vais maistresse passée; car d’heure à autre je n’estudie que cela,
et y occupe la pluspart du temps Monsieur le garde des sceaux’, Médicis, 1880, p. 56.
5 See Gellard.
6 Broomhall, pp. 12–13, 19.
background and in the development of the authority which she laid claim
to and promoted. Her voice could push her to protest, as in 1553 when she
allegedly went to the king in tears because she was not consulted on an
alliance concerning her cousin Cosimo de’ Medici (1519–1574) ‘saying that
one had no regard for her’.7 More radically the year before, in 1552, she had
complained that council decisions were made collectively and yet when
Louise de Savoie (1476–1531) had been regent, she had not been required to
have a ‘companion’ in that rank. For this reason Catherine refused to have
published a regency declaration in Parlement and at the Chambre des Comptes
that ‘would detract from rather than enhance the authority others perceived
in her, having the honor to be that which the king possessed’.8 The tasks that
fell to her during the regencies, however, as Ivan Cloulas argued, were no
less ‘subordinate’, save after the Saint-Quentin defeat.9 A further example of
this relatively marginal situation was her failure to prevent the peace accord
signed on 3 April 1559 with Philip II of Spain (1527–1598) at Cateau-Cambrésis
that she had condemned since it allowed Spanish hegemony on the Italian
peninsula by relinquishing all French territorial claims.
The Necessity of Knowledge
Catherine de Médicis’s strategy of caution, however, functioned on another

level. Everything transpired as if she had interiorized a compensatory game
played through a mastery of language: ‘she said and spoke French very well’.
She was a princess who ‘made her speech clear to great men, foreigners
and ambassadors’. Her speech displayed ‘beautiful grace and majesty’,
founded in oratory skills.10 Her contemporaries were unanimous. These
oratory skills had a moral purpose that must be read between the lines of
her contemporaries commenting on her use of speech: to convince those to
whom she spoke, through her rhetorical virtuosity and related persuasive
techniques, to follow her way of thinking. A Venetian emissary wrote: ‘she
is so loved by all the court and all the peoples’.11 In a letter of December
7 ‘disant qu’on n’avait nul égard pour elle’, cited in Cloulas, pp. 97–98.
8 ‘diminuerait plus qu’elle n’augmenterait de l’autorité que chacun estime qu’elle a, ayant cet
honneur d’être ce quelle est au roy’, cited in Cloulas, p. 100.
9 Cloulas, p. 111.
10 ‘disoit et parloit fort bien françois’, ‘faisoit fort paroistre son beau dire aux grands, aux
estrangiers et aux ambassadeurs’, Brantôme, p. 450.
11 ‘sì ugualmente amata da tutta la corte e da tuttii popoli’, Matteo Dandolo, cited in Alberi,
pp. 47–48.
362 Denis Crouzet
1544, a Tuscan ambassador highlighted a fact that struck him as significant:

Catherine’s mastery of ancient languages, deemed uncommon in France for
a woman. Not only did she practice Latin, she was ‘very studious, so very
cultured, particularly in Greek, that she surprises men’.12 It is noteworthy
that she possessed advanced knowledge in history, geography, physical and
natural sciences, and even astronomy that she knew how to use against her
adversaries. Knowledge was foundational to her plans for the education of
her own children. In her eyes, governing involved being prepared to make
decisions based on a broad and scholarly base of knowledge, in particular
speaking well through the possession of extensive knowledge. The goal was
to achieve Plato’s dream of a philosopher-king, of power held by a ‘lover
of reason’. This dream was one she certainly applied to herself early on
and one that explains her alternating position of distance and presence,
allowing her to perfect her cognitive skills in the political sphere. For she
considered herself a knowledgeable woman, capable of adding to her skills
learned empirically from her delegations of authority, a science that was
synonymous with reason and that brought her closer to knowing God. This
science was also a symbolic instrument of power because it allowed her to
shape perceptions of a kind of alternative political legitimacy.
This knowledge translated into Catherine’s penchant for book and manu-
script collecting. Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585) observed that, following
the tradition of her ancestors Cosimo and Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492),
early in life Catherine sought ‘the oldest books, Hebrew, Greek and Latin,
in translation or to be translated’.13 An analysis of two late inventories
of her library reveals the extent of this fascination. The 780 manuscripts
included 40 in Hebrew, 437 in theology, philosophy, and Greek poetry and
rhetoric, and 303 in Latin. They reveal an immense range, demonstrating an
eclectic appetite for culture and sacred texts, from the Kabbalah to St. John
Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. John of Damascus. A large
prophetic corpus can be observed, including the oracles of the Sibyls and
Hermes Trismegistus. The manuscripts concerning philosophy demonstrate
a preponderance of Plato, with 32 books and 45 commentaries, in addition
to Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Judah Leon Abravanel, and
others represented. There was also Aristotle, Pythagoras, Homer, Hesiod,
Prudentius, and the historians Thucydides, Xenophon, Livy, and Josephus.14
12 ‘est très attentive à l’étude, elle est si cultivée, en particulier en grec, qu’elle étonne tous les
hommes’, cited in Mariéjol, p. 61.
13 ‘livres les plus vieux / Hebreux, Grecs et latins, traduits et à traduire’, Ronsard, p. 324.
14 Bonaffé.
It bears repeating that her years of training may recall the Erasmian concept
of an accumulation of knowledge covering both sacred and profane subjects,
thus providing life lessons.
There seems to have been, on Catherine’s part, an immediate desire to
publicly pronounce her union with a Valois prince for a specific purpose. She
portrayed herself as having arrived in the French kingdom with a mission
to act as intermediary between the divine and the human. Her motto,
‘she brings light and serenity’, assumed the identity of a mediator. This
impresa was enhanced by the theme of fine weather following the rain
and harkened back to the imagery associated with her great-grandfather,
Lorenzo the Magnificent: il tempo si rinuova (times are changing). The
return of a saturnine golden age was part of the Medicean mythology and
the Florentine princess desired that her presence in the French kingdom
operate as a kind of symbolic translation to such a golden age. Added to that
was the knowledge that Catherine claimed to possess, and which would
allow her to introduce France to a new chapter of its history. With her
came the arrival of light, the light of day both symbolizing the truth of the
Arts brought back to a Florence which the Medici family claimed to have
made a center of rediscovered knowledge, and opening Christian souls to
betterment. Ignorance was understood as that which kept human beings
in the low spheres of reason and passions, and after having long reigned, it
was to be chased away. Ronsard would speak openly about this revival of the
ancient, forgotten virtues, thanks to the treasures of Antiquity. Catherine,
he proclaimed, belonged to a princely race that had already saved Athens
from obscurity and all the great names of Greece — Plato, Socrates, and
Homer among others — ‘would have known an eternal death without the
Medicis’.15 Thus, Catherine’s ‘noble’ blood would lead to the Arts. With her,
henceforth, France would surpass all the other countries in Christendom
in knowledge and science.
From the outset, therefore, it is fundamental to note that Catherine sought
to paint herself as involved in a permanent active fight against a dark side,
against illusions and passions, engaged in the task of ‘conversion’ as Plato
described in The Republic: a conversion of souls to reason and thus to good,
and a passage from darkness to light that would touch men as much as the
government of the earthly city. To this end, she adopted another motto
that announced a certitude of felicity: ‘she brings hope and joy before her’.
Precisely because of the fact that the kingdom would enter a new era by
15 ‘eussent esté occis / D’une éternelle mort sans ceux des Medicis’, Complainte à la Royne
Mere du Roy, cited in Miernowski, pp. 176–77.
364 Denis Crouzet
the providential act of the heir of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the present might be
a time of doubt, hardship, and uncertainty, but this would soon be over;
optimistic certainty predicted that better times were to come.
No less interesting is the distinctive icon, allegedly adopted at the sugges-
tion of François I (1494–1547) himself, which aimed at making the motto both
deeper and clearer. This was the image of Iris’s scarf unfurling, a rainbow
revealing the return of the sun, after dark times of tempests and storms, to
the human world. Thus, Catherine allowed herself to be identified with the
divine messenger of Greek mythology, daughter of Thaumas and Electra,
who was depicted as winged and dressed in a light veil — the messenger
whose arrival would bring a reign of peace fruitful for the realm, foretelling
a golden age. Once again, the Medicean imagination perhaps implicitly
emerges here, since Iris, maidservant to Jupiter, and especially through
the agency of Juno, is sometimes the mother of Eros, god of Love and thus
the union of human beings. Moreover, the iris is the flower symbolizing
spring, the time when life and love are renewed. The theme of fecundity is
inherent in the symbolism of the rainbow, which has just absorbed earthly
waters to fill the clouds so that they might rain down on earth, ensuring the
eternal life of nature. In this system of perpetual communication, air and
water are sources of terrestrial and therefore human life. But the rainbow
with its ‘chameleon-like’ colors also unites the earth to the Heavens, only
appearing thanks to the sun’s fire that lights it and allows its arch to be
supported at both ends by the earth. Catherine’s motto was intended to
signify commitment to tireless activity to ensure that this communication
always operated, so that man would remain faithful to God.
It is no surprise that sources from the period 1533 to 1559 depict a queen
positioning herself as a mediator, an agent of peace on earth and thus in
the French kingdom, playing a traditional female role in the court, that of
intercession. It is not enough to take into account only the immediate means
of expression of her character in the scope of court politics, but also the sym-
bolic self-representation that she herself produced to underline her necessity
to the realm and to its messianic achievement. Symbolism mattered as much
as reality. Was this posture a new form of feminine power, a new culture?
Had Anne de France (1461–1522) and Louise de Savoie already established
the foundations of this ‘self-fashioning’, or did Catherine’s Italianness drive
her to insist on this symbolic staging? In the years leading up to the fatal
accident in 1559, Catherine de Médicis appears in effect to have engaged in
a singular role-play identifiable in fragments of remaining correspondence.
What would become political action after 1559 was already identifiable in
her early assumption of the role and identity as mediator.
Admittedly, this role entailed acts that fell firmly within the sphere of a
dutiful princess who was called upon to perform duties of patronage that
simultaneously constituted means of female court power. These included
duties to protect, to assist with socio-political advances, to solicit pardons,
particularly for those from her natal lands. However, in Catherine’s case,
these accrued a certain tone, as a parallel symbolic means of action, spread
out amongst all the king’s subjects in the name of the common good of the
realm, and that would be then reproduced in a neutralization of religious
antagonisms and marital urges.
Looking for Love
Examined through this lens, power appears to have been seen by Catherine
de Médicis as an example of give and take of ‘love’. Every sign of love called
for love in response or announced it, a chain formed that created perpetual
community. This chain found expression in the epistolary arts because, as
Broomhall notes, they enabled ‘a performance of power’ that combined the
expression of authority with a style that was often emotional.16 On 1 August
1539, for example, Catherine wrote to her cousin, Duke Cosimo (1519–1574),
son of Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and Maria Salviati, of her visitor from
Urbino, Jehan André, ‘who everyday devotes himself to serving me, so much
so that I feel greatly obliged to recognize it both toward him as well as to
his people’. She asked Cosimo to employ André’s brother as chamberlain
‘for love and out of favor for me’, while stressing her ‘willingness to do for
you what I can in any place where you might wish me to be of use’.17 Such
was the formalized approach to politics from which she would never part:
he who gives, receives, and those in power must never forget that they
must give to receive, or withdraw if they fail to receive. Favor creates power
because it creates love, and favor should always act as a corrective that
facilitates continued reciprocal harmonious relations. Only when this system
of reciprocity becomes dysfunctional should she undertake, temporarily,
an act of conflict. Love is the foundation of politics, even more so when a
woman holds and dispenses it.
16 Broomhall, p. 2.
17 ‘lequel s’employe chacun jour à me faire service, de sorte que je me sens grandement obligée
de le recognoistre tant envers luy que les siens’, ‘bonne volunté de faire pour vous ce que je
pourray en tous endroits où me vouldrez employer’, Médicis, 1880, p. 4. Jehan André is likely
Giovanni Andrea.
366 Denis Crouzet
Even more expressive than duty thus def ined, is the request that
rights refused be restituted. In 1545, Catherine wrote to Cosimo about
two merchants from Lucca, Antonio and Luigi Bonvisi, in dispute with
Alessandro Antinori and the creditors of Benedicte Gondy. A sentence
had been handed down that failed to take into account that the two were
not from Florence; they should not have been tried under the ‘statutes
and customs’ of the Tuscan city. Catherine requested that the two men be
retried, this time according to ‘reason and equity, and the law’. This would
be to grant her ‘a great and singular pleasure’. 18 Some months later, she
requested a pardon for Gismondo de Meleto who, responsible for certain
wards, married the widow whose estate he was managing. This had led to
a fine of 1,000 écus that he could not pay and so had been sent to prison.
His friends had asked the queen to intervene, ‘friends’, Catherine wrote to
Cosimo, ‘whom I would like to support’.19 Writing to the Duke of Tuscany,
she saw herself as responsible for performing a duty of rectification: justice
of course exists, but must accommodate itself to the times and players.
This requires being human and flexible. The Duke must not allow what
is humanly unjust.
After 1559, this would be the great theme that guided the queen mother’s
work toward peace. If the law accentuated the tensions between men of
different religions, and if there was a risk of pushing the kingdom into
catastrophe, the need for law must be considered alongside another necessity,
that of preserving life and royal authority. Mitigation of the law is a duty
for those who govern; the good of the governed requires it. And here once
again, the metadiscursive influence of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536)
bolstered the rhetoric of female intercession. Erasmus who, like Guillaume
Budé (1467–1540) in 1508 in his Annotations aux Pandectes, laid claim to
the Latin adage summum jus, summa injuria (extreme justice is extreme
injustice). He called into question the absolute character of positive law,
postulating that there was no unconditional value in life on earth, except
love. Religion was for Erasmus ‘love and concord’: summa nostrae religionis
pax est et unanimitas (the culmination of our religion is peace and concord).20
Catherine demonstrated more directly her own approach in another letter
to Cosimo, obscuring her difficult relationship with the Duke by adopting
feminine language. If Cosimo obtained the release of a certain prisoner,
Anthoine, brother of Catherine Gazette whom Catherine had brought to
18 ‘un bien grant et singulier plaisir’, ‘auxquelz je désire bien subvenir’, Médicis, 1880, p. 10.
19 ‘amys [...] ausquelz je désire bien subvenir’, Médicis, 1880, p. 10.
20 Margolin, pp. 30–32. See Geonget.
France, she would also do the same for his servants if they should find ever
themselves in difficult situations. In a subsequent letter, Catherine thanked
Cosimo for treating her protégé so well, ‘recognizing that you acted out of
thought and love for me’.21 She then added that she hoped Cosimo could
bestow pardon upon the man, since she ‘need[ed] him for certain reasons’.22
Gazette’s husband, Viscount of Mothe-au-Groin, had just died, and his
widow, alone and defenceless in France, wished her brother to be sent to
her. Catherine asked Cosimo to do a ‘charitable deed’.23 Her word choice
was important: mediation was part of a practice in which she considered
virtue played a role. At the individual level, it was a means of protecting
oneself, or one’s loved ones, from hardship, since love was the way paved
by Christ. Charity and faith are indivisible and both must work in service
of humanity. In his powerful analysis, Jacques Chomarat explains:
to be just before God, meaning between opinion and reality, between

appearance and being, like for Plato. Justice, in fact, according to a com-
mon definition, is to respect the law; yet there is a profound difference
depending on whether the subject is the law of man or that of God,
meaning God’s will. The latter is an absolute, it is one and eternal, as
distinct from man-made laws.24
What counted first and foremost was the law of Christ, which was the law of
charity. It is in this context that the motives directing Catherine de Médicis’s
writing should be examined, as much after 1559 as from the beginnings
of the religious troubles when she sought, by the Edict of January 1552, to
impose a religious commingling of denominations in the name of Christ and
thereby to quell the morbid passions of men interested only in killing and
destruction. The metadiscursive mechanism underlying her correspondence
from 1533 to 1559 anticipated in its schemes the political choices she made
during the reigns of her three sons. One can also argue that it also provided
her the means to believe that civil harmony should take precedence over
the dreams of war that drove a number of religious protagonists.
In her letter regarding Catherine Gazette, the queen also noted the
necessity of establishing a ‘good friendship’ that ‘I believe corresponds to
21 ‘saichant que vous l’avez faict à ma contemplation et pour l’amour de moy’, Médicis, 1880,
p. 18.
22 ‘besoin de lui pour quelques choses’, Médicis, 1880, p. 18.
23 ‘œuvre de charité’, Médicis, 1880, p. 18.
24 Chomarat, p. 35.
368 Denis Crouzet
that which I feel for you and your family’.25 This friendship was marked and
maintained by signs indicating virtue: granting a living to a cleric or a service
to a layperson, canceling a fine imposed on a person, compensating for the
adverse consequences of a lost or extended trial. An example of the latter
concerns Jean-Baptiste de Bony, whose trial left him in need: ‘for whom I
mourn and feel compassion in recognition of the services he provided to
our home’.26 Catherine requested of Cosimo a review of the trial, and that
one of Bony’s daughters be taken into the service of Cosimo’s wife, Eleanor
of Toledo (1522–1562): ‘I promise you that, in so doing, you would make me
particularly pleased’.27 It is clear that these calls for moderation were also
calls to charity: the relationships that Catherine built were justified on the
basis of sharing and reciprocating charity, understood as a shared virtue
promoting a peaceful social circle in which he who performed a service
also received, either directly for his own benefit, or indirectly for a loved
one or or an extended loved one, a gesture of goodness. On 14 January 1553,
Catherine wrote to Madeleine de Savoie (c. 1510–1586), the wife of Anne
de Montmorency, concerning a certain Pierre Garnier who was accused
of having killed a stag in the forest near Boissy. Garnier had fled, leaving
his wife and children penniless. Poverty having forced them out on the
street, Catherine begged Madeleine to cancel the punishment or fine to
which Garnier had been (or would soon be) sentenced. She asked for mercy
and forgiveness in the name of his wife and children. A consistent motive
appeared: to carry out ‘an act of charity’.
Charity and Faith
A pardon sought by a third party is an act of charity intended to reduce

the punishment which would be otherwise merited but which may have
repercussions more inhumane than the act that precedes it. One of the
purposes of political action, in terms of individual relationships, is charity,
which relieves the other of threatened sorrows and pleases God because it
is born of faith and fed on hope.28 To quote Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274),
clemency is rooted in reason ‘because it lessens punishments when and
25 ‘bonne amitié’, ‘je pense estre correspondante à celle que porte à vous et à vostre famille’,
Médicis, 1880, p. 17.
26 ‘dont ay dueil et compassion pour la recongnoissance que j’ay des services qu’il a faictz à
notre maison’, Médicis, 1880, p. 17.
27 ‘je vous promects que, ce faisant, vous me ferez ung singulier plaisir’, Médicis, 1880, p. 17.
28 Médicis, 1880, pp. 73–74.
where necessary’.29 These examples demonstrate that Catherine de Médicis’s

identity as a moderator, and the more or less explicit schemes around which
she built her views, approached the Erasmian Christian soldier: the pardon
leads to God. The higher placed the individual, the more she or he must, by
the virtue of charity, be a ‘servant to all’, committing acts of love to reduce
the punishment deserved by neighbors. At the very heart of Catherine’s
letters was the servant modeled on Christ, ministering all, hiding behind
the role of one who intercedes on others’ behalf.
Perhaps what was at work, for Catherine, was a kind of socio-political
calculation whose purpose was serving God. For example, in October 1547,
Catherine wrote to Cosimo regarding André Lepsy, a father involved in a
lawsuit concerning an uncle’s estate. The length of the suit had caused
Lepsy great expense that could lead to ruin. Lepsy had been recommended
to Catherine by ‘certain servants’ and for this reason she requested that
the Duke of Florence order that the trial be held as soon as possible, ‘in
good and quick justice so that I can pray to God, my cousin, once it is over,
to grant you what your heart desires’.30 Clearly, it was not only in terms
of ‘concordance’, soliciting a demonstration of love for herself, that the
queen justified her pleas. Catherine invited the Duke of Florence to view
the pardon that he could extend as a ‘pleasure’ to the person for whom
she had made the request, and a pleasure to her, in exchange for which
she prayed that God would watch over him. Charity must be exercised to
prevent hardship from befalling Lepsy, and holding hardship at bay would
fulfil God’s will. Serving all meant drawing attention to one who needed
help. A service rendered did not only concern the person who received it:
‘all services require recognition, rent and payment before God’.31 A triangle
was thus created: love was not only due to one or another, in an exchange,
but also involves God. Moderation is demanded by a merciful God who
wishes for humankind to live in peace. Even before Catherine found herself
on the frontline of political action amidst rising religious tensions, she was
experimenting with moderation. She would transition its application from
the limited scope of her patronage to a broadening-out to all of the king’s
subjects who had to be protected from rising passions in the French society,
29 Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, III.146.

30 ‘en bonne et briesve justice et l’avoir pour recommandé, qui sera l’endroit où, en faisant
fin, je prieray à Dieu, mon cousin, après m’estre recommandée à vous, vous donner ce que vous
désirez’, Médicis, 1880, p. 21.
31 ‘tous services demandent recongoissance, loyer et payment devant Dieu’, Médicis, 1880,
p. 23. The request was repeated late July 1550.
370 Denis Crouzet
in the name of the benevolentia defending the continuity of a society based

on friendship and love.
Thus, Captain Jheronymo Pepi, a former servant of ‘my’ house, as Catherine
wrote to Ercole II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara (1508–1559), had made a deposit of
700 golden écus with a Florentine merchant called Lorenzo Guichardini, over
five years before. Guichardini had since gone bankrupt and was imprisoned
in Ferrara, his assets, goods and credits having been seized. Everything
should be done, argued Catherine, so that Pepi could recover his money.
She requested that the Duke help do so in any way he can, ‘out of love for
me’.32 Catherine concluded the letter in stating that at the time of writing,
she prayed to God that He would grant the Duke a good and long life.
Throughout Catherine’s correspondence, there was a theme of the need
to pardon, beyond another need which was to never forget the offence. On
1 April 1554, Catherine evoked the memory of the murder of her brother,
Alessandro de’ Medici (1510–1537) by Lorenzino de’ Medici (1514–1548).
Although she would be most justified in holding a grudge, she nonetheless
interceded on behalf of Lorenzino’s younger brother, Giuliano (1520–1588),
who at the time was very young and thus ‘could not have the judgment and
knowledge of such a miserable act, and for which he is innocent’.33 Out of
‘love for me,’ Catherine asked that her cousin Cosimo return his property.34
The past is the past and one should know when to turn the page on such
horrible and criminal violence because, as Erasmus said, he who wants
God to forgive his mistakes must forgive those of his enemies or those who
have done him wrong.
Catherine was especially keen to take on the case of Leon Strozzi, prior
of Capua and Knight of Malta (1515–1554), whose post as general of the
prisons had been withdrawn, probably at the instigation of Montmorency
in favor of his eldest son. Driven by fear of an assassination attempt against
him, Strozzi claimed that he had stabbed to death Jean-Baptiste Casella,
known as Le Corse, one of his trusted servants in charge of managing
finances related to his post. After the murder, he left Marseilles for Malta
to avoid prosecution. Catherine’s letter to her compère Montmorency had
her denying as early as 26 September 1551 that Strozzi had acted out of
malice and instead underlined that his Corsican victim was ‘such a mean
32 ‘pour l’amour de moy’, Médicis, 1880, p. 35.

33 ‘avoir le jugement et congoissance d’un si malheureux faict, et qu’il en est ygnocent’, Médicis,
1880, pp. 38–39.
34 Médicis, 1880, p. 39.
man’ ‘powerful enough to cause him fear or doubt’.35 That Strozzi had
resorted to violence, Catherine repeated incessantly that she was displeased
with, but mitigating circumstances had to be taken into consideration.
Catherine implied that the murderer believed that a conspiracy was being
mounted against him. Moreover, his brother Piero (c. 1510–1558) was a great
servant of the crown, and Catherine was certain that Leon, if pardoned,
would give his life in service to the king: ‘and have no fears of taking him
under your protection, for I tell you that he will never do wrong’.36 Some
days later, she returned to the Strozzi case. He had committed wrong, and
the wrong was an offense to the king, but very quickly Catherine added
that her protégé had realized the grave nature of his error, his ‘despair’
growing day by day, but he must not be driven to serve another prince
than the king of France, in this instance the emperor. To avoid such an act
and her undue suffering from such a decision, Catherine wrote that she
had asked the king to grant Strozzi an audience: ‘not because he deserves
that the king do something for him, for no one knows better than me his
error’.37 It was important that the king hear Strozzi and that he alone
pass judgment as he saw f it. Catherine sought Montmorency’s support
in her request, and she would in turn do the same for him. Afterwards,
when addressing Henri II, she promised that the guilty man, pushed by
his conscience after committing such an act, if pardoned, ‘would rather
die 100,000 deaths’ than ever fail him.38
From Catherine’s letters, a complementary theme of reconciliation also
emerges. In a letter to the Duke of Ferrara, on 26 February 1557, Catherine
cited the ‘indignation’ that the Duke had long felt toward Mr. François
Ville. The latter was her protégé, on account of his virtues: she wrote that
she sought reconciliation ‘out of your good grace and friendship’.39 The
Duke’s resentment, she suggested, should be quelled since it went back so
many years that there was no longer any reason for it, and instead should be
converted into ‘benevolence’ restoring the ties of friendship. 40 One should
forget offences with time in the same way that Christ pardoned those who
had gravely offended him. Ought this ‘benevolence’ be seen as a reference
35 ‘si meschant homme’, ‘eu puissance de luy faire peur ou doubte’, Médicis, 1880, pp. 43–44.
36 ‘et ne craignez point de le prendre en vostre protection, car je responds qu’il ne fera jamais
faulte’, Médicis, 1880, p. 44.
37 ‘non pas qu’y meryte que le Roy fasse rien pour luy, car y n’y an y é poynt quy conese plulx
sa faulte que moy’, Médicis, 1880, p. 45.
38 ‘moura plulx tôt de san myle mort’, Médicis, 1880, p. 45.
39 ‘vostre juste indignation’, ‘en votre bonne grace et amytié’, Médicis, 1880, pp. 105–06.
40 Médicis, 1880, pp. 105–06.
372 Denis Crouzet
to the benevolentia of Erasmus? After all, Catherine, in her large collections

of drawings, owned a very important portrait of Erasmus.
Catherine acted through her correspondence, albeit in the years preceding
1559, by practicing a kind of patronage that in some ways ritually sought
to protect and assist her close relations and friends of her close relations.
But she also sought to enhance the image of a mediator queen, like Iris, to
whom her impresa would refer: a mediator queen between heaven and earth
calling for charity in the service of God, employing a paradigm of avoiding
misfortune that was, in her eyes, the responsibility of any ruler toward her
subjects. This was a mediator queen who considered speech a divine gift
and a means to participate in the divine. For true speech does not turn on
itself and has no value of its own; it is infused with faith and is directed
toward charity, fed by hope. Human wisdom is but a mere hint of wisdom,
as Budé wrote in the Praefatio dedicated to François I, which opened the
De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum. Speech, employed in the desire
to recreate harmony, is part of a desire for God. If it is directed toward the
virtues of hope and charity, it is supported by faith. It is the expression of
faith and its purpose, to produce fellowship between humankind. 41
Power and ‘Doulceur’ (Gentleness)
If, from 1559, there was an epistolary power to Catherine de Médicis’s practice
to defend and successively illustrate the authority of her three sons, it must
be seen from the humanist perspective that, since Petrarch (1304–1374), had
attributed to writing a power of fellowship. The aim was to simultaneously
inform and persuade, but also to maintain despite distance a human link of
amicitia or fraternitas, to stimulate and continually re-stimulate that link to
prevent forces of passion from overcoming the State. Every letter, even the
most innocuous and least political in appearance, even addressing financial
questions or involving the payment of German or Swiss mercenary budgets,
was controlled speech aimed at maintaining, inasmuch as possible, a convivium
threatened by barbarism. When the queen mother responded in 1567 to Laurent
de Maugiron (1528–1588), discontented at his dismissal as Lieutenant General
of the Dauphiné, not only was it to promise him an appointment of comparable
honor as soon as an opportunity arose, but also, in weighing her words carefully,
to communicate her own serenity in order to alleviate any resentment.42
41 Budé, pp. 4–6.
42 Médicis, 1887, p. 9.
Everything had to be done, Catherine repeated incessantly throughout

the religious troubles, to avoid the kind of violence that risked pushing
human order towards evil and hardship. For example, between the Vassy
massacre and the beginning of the first religious war, Catherine wrote
repeatedly to Louis, Prince of Condé (1530–1569) to stop him from deciding
to go to war. Likewise, on the day after 24 August 1572, at the time of the
Massacre of Saint-Bartholomew, Catherine, together with her son Charles IX
(1550–1574), sent multiple missives to the various provincial governors,
lieutenant generals, royal officers, and village magistrates to order them
to prohibit violence against the Huguenots and to continue to apply and
enforce the Edict of Saint-Germain.
Catherine’s political conscience and the different support that this
conscience could draw upon in the years from 1533 to 1559 is expressed
in a letter dated 31 January 1561 addressed to Sébastien de L’Aubespine
(1518–1582). Her conscience was formed over time. The queen mother
began by recalling the closing of the Estates General of Orleans (1560),
then outlined the policies that she had endorsed, claiming for herself, or
liberally adopting, the arguments that had been recently developed by
Chancellor Michel de l’Hôpital (1503/7–1573). Concerning religion, recent
examples proved that a sole remedy would not suffice to heal what ailed
the kingdom. Given ‘recent events’, Catherine wrote, new medicines had
to be tried until a cure was discovered. Politics should be flexible, shift-
ing. For 20 or 30 years, it was believed that cauterization was the best
means to stop the spread of new ideas, but the violence of this remedy
had proved ineffectual; repressive punishments only served to confirm
the new opinions in an ‘infinity of poor people’. The death of followers of
the new opinions, far from changing the minds of the men and women
of the realm, only served to strengthen their Calvinist faith. Things had
reached such a point that the kingdom had become little more than a
giant sedition, fortunately appeased for the moment by the grace of God,
Catherine added. If a new remedy was to be tested following that of violence,
it should be, according to the queen mother, on the advice of the blood
princes and the princes and lords of the King’s Council. They needed to be
even more cautious, for Charles IX was still a minor, and especially since
the cinders of the seditious fires had only just been doused, yet were still
warm. The tiniest spark could result in an even bigger blaze than before.
It was thus out of ‘consideration for the season’ that the change of course
should be made. Another sphere of political rationale would be necessary,
a rationale entered but ‘occasionally’, driven by events, and where one
would be forced to ‘conceal many things that in other times one would
374 Denis Crouzet
not have borne’. 43 Here, Catherine empirically defined politics as training,

as work on a changing world, work on the ‘malice des temps’ (evil of the
times), an aptitude to continually re-think oneself relative to the present
and one’s potential to work toward a harmonious conclusion. Clearly this
peace, in this context, could also be a form of power, the means to find a
way to confirm the necessity of feminine power to meet competing male
ambitions. But for Catherine de Médicis, it would be her femininity itself
that would be synonymous with moderation, of ‘keeping within bounds’,
and thus of peace.
This new cure was an exceptional one that was only used provisionally
and required that a ‘gentle approach’ should henceforth be followed. It
was an approach that entailed ‘honest remonstrances, exhortations and
sermons’ aimed at leading those who strayed back to the faith.44 It was this
desire for ‘doulceur’ that Catherine claimed here was required by politics
that give primacy to speech. On 31 March 1561, this approach became that
imposed by ‘the necessity of time’, 45 a necessity that, on 20 June, became
increasingly great: ‘it pressures and compels us in such a way that we can
do no less’. 46 However, this notion of gentleness could be conceptualized as
a tool for controlling power, a means to possess it or distinguish a female
aptitude for power. The queen mother, faced with the contradictions of
the authority she claimed to exercise as mother of a child-king, took what
appeared a weakness in the male world and turned it into a strength.
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About the author
Denis Crouzet is Professor of History at the University of Paris-Sorbonne,

and director of the UMR 8596 (Centre Roland-Mousnier). His work focuses
on the sixteenth century, oriented around the history of war and peace,
political action and the religious imagination. His principal publications
376 Denis Crouzet
include Les Guerriers de Dieu: la violence au temps des troubles de religion

(vers 1525–vers 1610) (Champ Vallon, 2005); La nuit de la Saint-Barthélemy:
un rêve perdu de la Renaissance (Fayard, 1998); Le ‘haut cœur’ de Catherine
de Médicis (Albin Michel, 2005); Dieu dans ses royaumes. Une histoire des
guerres de Religion (Champ Vallon, 2008). His monograph on Nostradamus
has recently been translated into English as Nostradamus: A Healer of Souls
in the Renaissance (Polity Press, 2017) and his most recent publication is
Charles Quint, empereur d’une fin des temps (Odile Jacob, 2017).
Index
Abbott, Fanny 26 Avis
Adams, Tracy 24, 28, 65–80 Eleanor of Portugal 188
Agrippina, Roman empress 145 Isabel of Portugal 176, 210
Akkerman, Nadine 66 John III, King of Portugal 174, 176–77
Alba de Tormes, Eleanor of Toledo 368 Manuel I, King of Portugal 175, 182, 184,
Albret 186, 191
Henri, king of Navarre 268, 279 Maria, Duchess of Viseu 176–77, 191–92, 196
Jeanne de 23, 31–32, 214–15, 218–19, 229, Avoise, Jeanne d’ 276, 283
233–34, 268, 279–81, 319, 324
Alençon Babou, Philibert 50
Charles IV, duke of 76, 222–23, 268, 270–71 Badoer, Giovanni 152, 154
Françoise d’ 73 Balsac d’Entraigues, Pierre de 242
René, duke of 47, 68, 73 Barbançon
Alvarotti, Giulio 320 Charles de 328
Amalasuntha, Ostrogoth regent 145 Diane de 323, 324–25
Amalthea, mythological foster-mother of Zeus François de 324
143 Jean de 328
Amboise Louis de 328–29
George d’ 142 Marie de 325–26, 328–29
Katherine d’ 125 Batarnay
Anderson, Ruth Matilda 181 Imbert de 141–2
Andromache, wife of Hector 126 René, come du Bouchage 346–47
Angelier, Charles de l’ 294 Bavaria, Isabeau of 15, 71, 73
Anglure de Givry Bayard, Gilbert 50
Anne 328 Bayle, Pierre 314
René d’ 324, 328 Beatis, Antonio de 10, 140, 143, 178
Angoulême Beaucaire, François de 314
Charles d’Orléans, count of 47, 69, 85, 88, 90 Beaufort, Margaret 120, 122–23
François de, see Valois-Angoulême Beaujeu, Pierre de 44–46, 49, 66–67, 69, 74, 241
Marguerite de, see Valois-Angoulême Beaune, Jacques de 50, 142–43, 145
Anne, saint 158, 219–23, 225, 234 Bell, Susan Groag 124–25, 212
Annebault, Claude 311, 316 Bellay
Annonciades, monastic order of the Annuncia- Guillaume du 273, 280
tion of the Virgin Mary 25 Jean du 273, 280, 312
Antonia, Byzantine patrikia 126 Martin du 312
appointments, women’s involvement in 50, Berry, Marie de 213
154–55, 160, 272, 276, 312, 349, 352 Bertrand, Jean de 359
Aquinas, Thomas 368 Binasco, Veronica da 159
Aragon Blaesilla, saint 143
Catherine of 119–20, 122–23, 151–52, 161 Boaistuau, Pierre 218–19
Ferdinand II of 157 Boccaccio, Giovanni 143, 218, 243, 258, 296–97
Luigi d’ 10, 178 Boleyn
Arande, Michel d’ 156, 269, 272, 276 Anne 17, 25, 80, 160, 188, 190, 281
Architectural engagement 13, 19, 155, 348 George 281
Armagnac, Jacques de, duke of Nemours 68 Bohier, Thomas 134
Armstrong, Adrian 242 Boom, Ghislaine de 185
Athaliah, biblical heroine 145 Bossut de Longueval, Nicolas 312, 315, 322
Aubespine Bouchard, Mawy 23, 29, 241–59
Madeleine de l’ 287 Bouchart, Alain 45, 59
Sébastien de 373 Bouchet, Jean 106
Austria, Anne of, see Habsburg Bourbon
Austria, Eleanor of, see Habsburg Antoinette de 343–44
Austria, Margaret of, see Habsburg Charles, cardinal 359
Auvergne, Martial d’ 93 Charles, duke of Vendôme 96
378 Women and Power at the French Court, 1483–1563
Charles III, duke of and constable 97, 154, Burial, women’s 93

161, 163, 232 Buzon, Christine de 289
Christine Marie, duchess of Savoy 18
Elisabeth, queen of Spain 18 Calco, Agostino 75
Gabriellede 69, 125 Caluau, Jean 50
Henri IV, king of Navarre and of France Capet, Louis IX, saint 90, 97–8, 100–2
327 Capito, Wolfgang 278
Henrietta Maria, queen of England, Caputi, Mary 20
Scotland and Ireland 18, 21 Caroli, Pierre 272
Jean II, duke of 50, 68 Castiglione, Baldassare 55, 245, 316
Louis XIV 44 Castile
Louis, prince de Condé 324, 327, 373 Blanche, queen of France 15, 61, 90, 96–8,
Marguerite, duchesse de Savoie 90, 215 100–2, 108–9, 131
Pierre de 75 Charles, Prince of 119–20, 124
Suzanne, duchess of 23, 32, 48, 53, 72, Isabella I 157, 188
76–77, 97, 126, 145, 161, 163, 214–18, 222, Juana 70, 141
225, 232–34 Cavalli, Marino 315
Bourbon, Nicolas, Masters of Arts 80, 279, 281 Caviness, Madeline 213
Bourbon-Montpensier Caxton, William 123
Anne de 77 Cellini, Benvenuto 315
Charles, count of 76–77 Chabot
Louise de 77 Jeanne 329
Bourbon-Vendôme, Marguerite, duchesse de Philippe de 274, 311
Nevers 10–11, 277, 323, 337 Chabot-Jarnac, Guy 324
Bourdigné, Jean de 106–7 Chalons, Jean de, Prince of Orange 68
Brandon Champier, Symphorien 87, 89–91
Charles 32, 124–25, 133–34 Chantereau, Louis 154, 164
Frances, duchess of Suffolk 124 charity, virtue of 24, 53, 160, 163, 283, 357–74
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeilles, seigneur de 11, Chartier, Alain 122, 242–48, 252, 258
56, 67, 108–9, 194, 310, 314 Chaucer, Geoffrey 243
Brasca, Erasmo 75 Chazaud, A.–M. 216, 232
Bretagne/Brittany Chombart de Lauwe, Marc 71
Anne, queen of France 15, 17, 22, 31, 51, 56, Chrestien, Guilluame 340
70, 74–75, 77, 80, 91, 100, 125–26, 140–45, Cleve, Joos van 186, 187, 190–92, 194
149, 157–58, 160, 179, 210, 213–15, 220, 222, Cleves
224, 233–34, 266–67, 282 François I, duke of Nevers 342
François II, duke of 46 William, duke of 279
Brézé Clothilda, saint, queen of the Franks 126
Françoise de 337 clothing 12–13, 75, 88, 90–92, 99, 102, 104, 106,
Louise de 337 124, 126, 181–82, 184, 187–8, 191–92, 194, 196
Briçonnet Clouet
Denis 151, 158–59, 164 François 188, 196
Guillaume 49, 158–59, 164, 268–70 Jean 99, 152, 188, 196, 348
Guillaume, cardinal 158–59 Cloulas, Ivan 347, 361
Bridge, John 71 Colet, Claude 294
Brinon, Jean 50 Coligny
Brodeau, Victor 109 Gaspard de 324
Bromilow, Pollie 23, 29, 287–304 Odet de 320, 349
Broomhall, Susan 335–52, 360 Colonna, Vittoria 24, 282
Brosse–Bretagne, Jean de 310–11, 325 Commynes, Philippe de 45, 68
Brown, Elizabeth A.R. 97 consorts, women’s position as 13, 16–18, 22,
Brown, Cynthia J. 22–25, 29, 100, 209–35 29–31, 120, 139–64, 173–97, 224
Browne, Anthony 310 Contay, Françoise de 337
Brulart, Nicolas 324 coronation, women’s 60–61, 88, 100–1, 149, 158
Bryan, Sir Thomas 179, 311 Cossé, Charles, count of Brissac 342–43
Bucer, Martin 273 Cox, Virginia 245
Budé, Guillaume 142, 366 Crenne
Bueil, Jean de 70 Hélisenne de, Marguerite Briet 13–14, 23,
Buettner, Brgitte 213–14, 234, 29, 32, 287–304
Index 379
Philippe Fournel de 289 evangelism, women’s interests in, see also

Croizat, Yassana 182 Protestantism 17, 25, 27, 142, 144, 156,
Crouzet, Denis 24, 30, 357–74 159–60, 164, 223, 229, 268–71, 273, 275,
Curnow, Maureen 125 281–83, 359
Évreux, Jeanne de 211, 213
Dandino, Hieronimo 315
Daniel, Jean 159–60, 163 Fagnart, Laure 22, 28, 85–109
daughters, women’s roles as 17, 22–24, 29, 32, 44, Febvre, Lucien 265, 283
49, 59, 66, 122, 142–45, 154, 215–229, 234, 267 Ficino, Marsilio 316
David-Chapy, Aubrée 21–22, 28, 43–62 financial management, see also land manage-
Daybell, James 21 ment 13, 29, 31, 125, 322, 324, 347–9
Deborah, biblical heroine 145 Foix
Defaux, Gérard 155 Françoise de 314
Dentière, Marie 24, 282 Odet de, Lord of Lautrec 154, 163
Desgardins, E. 311 Fontaine, Charles 316
Desmoulins de Rochefort, François 54, 56, 88, fortitude, the virtue of 91
147–48 fostering 12
diplomacy, women’s 12, 15, 22, 29–30, 50–51, Foucault, Michel 20, 264, 290–91
78–79, 86, 109, 151–53, 183, 357–74 France, Anne de see Valois
Dinan, Françoise de 142 Francis of Paola, saint 153
Doré, Pierre 278 Fredegund, queen of Soissons 131
Dubost, Jean-François 18 French, John R.P. 245
Dufour, Antoine 100, 143, 145–46, 149
Dunois Gaillard, Michelle 155
François de 47 Galbraith, John K. 244
Jean de 69 Génin, François 265
Duprat, Antoine 50, 96, 103, 270–71, 274 Giddens, Anthony 20
Du Pré, Jehan 100 gift-giving, women’s 12, 22–24, 28, 49, 65–80,
Drusiana, biblical figure 157 132, 152, 155, 160, 183, 222, 224, 271, 277, 311,
337
Earenfight, Theresa 174 Giustinian
Ébrard de Saint-Sulpice, Jean 326 Antonio 139, 151, 153, 160
education, women’s 15–16, 22–23, 52, 67, 98, 120, Brizio 152
122–23, 126–27, 130, 135, 141–43, 149, 156–57, Sebastiano 160
164, 183–84, 191, 212, 214–16, 222, 224–25, Gonzaga
228, 267, 287, 362–63, 374 Federico 58, 182
Elizabeth, saint 153 Ferrante 182
eloquence see speech Gossart, Jan 186
Emilia, Amazon warrior 161–62 Gouffier, Artus 50
emotional management and labor 9–14, 20, 24, Gournay, Marie de 247, 249, 251, 253, 256–57
26–27, 29–31, 69-70, 74–75, 120–21, 128–30, governess 130–31, 141–42, 280
132–34, 161, 179, 184, 191, 197, 245–49, 257, Graville
289, 303, 335, 342, 344–47, 350–52, 357–74 Anne Malet de 12, 14, 16, 23, 29, 32, 160–63,
entries 22, 54, 59–60, 101, 118–19, 149, 151, 241–59, 272, 283, 287
159–60 Louis Malet de, admiral 76–77, 241
epitaphs, women’s 109 Gregory the Great, Pope, saint 156–57
Erasmus, Desiderius 144, 297, 366, 372 Grey, Jane 124
Escolliers, Renée d’ 328 Griffey, Erin 21
Escoubleau, Jean d’ 322 Gringore, Pierre 100-1, 118–9, 149–50
Este Grouleau, Étienne 294
Anna d’ 229 Gruget, Claude 219, 234
Eleanora d’ 229 Gschwend, Annemarie Jordan 196
Ercole II d’ 17, 228, 370–71 Guazzo, Steffano 245
Isabella d’ 57, 182, 213 Gueldres, Philippe de, duchesse de Lorraine
Lucrezia Maria d’ 229 54, 69, 73–74
Esther, biblical heroine 97, 100–1, 104, 108–9, 121 Guiffrey, Georges 317, 347
Estienne, Robert 249 Guildford, Jane 129-30, 133
Étampes, Anne, duchesse de, see Pisseleu
Habsburg Kels, Hans 193

Anne of Austria, queen of France 18–19, 44 Kettering, Sharon 68, 72
Catherine of Austria 174 Knecht, Robert J. 266
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 15, 78–79,
96, 103, 154, 163, 176–77, 179, 182–84, 186, La Borderie, Bertrand de 316–17
192–93, 267–68, 273, 279, 314–15 La Châtre, Claude de 328–29
Eleanor of Austria, queen of France 18, 22, Ladies’ Peace, Peace of Cambrai (1529) 15, 22,
24, 29, 31, 57, 60–61, 88, 173–97, 267, 310, 78–79, 86, 103–8, 178–9
312, 339 La Fayette, Aymée de 280, 283
Ferdinand II of Spain 119 La Marck, Antoinette de 338
Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor 176 land management 29, 31, 78, 140, 154–55,
Isabella of Austria 174, 176 163–64, 268, 311, 321–24, 326, 328, 335, 346
Margaret of Austria, duchess of Savoy 15–16, Lassalmonie, Jean-François 71
22, 51, 54, 59, 74, 78–79, 86, 103–5, 124, 126, Latona, Greek goddess 92
173, 176, 179, 182–86, 188, 190, 194, 197, 213 La Tour, Gabrielle de 213
Mary of Hungary 126, 174, 193, 197 La Trémoille, Louis II de 69
Maximilian I of Austria 46, 74, 119, 124, 176, Laval, Jeanne de 127, 213
179, 184–85, 191 Le Batave, Godefroy 148
Philip of Austria 70, 141 Le Blanc, Étienne 96–101, 108
Philip II of Spain 17, 338, 361 Lecocq, Anne-Marie 86, 94, 100
Philip IV of Spain 18 Le Ferron, Arnoul 310
Hampton, Timothy 18 Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques 144, 156, 159–60,
Hand, Joni 213 268–69, 271–72
Harsy, Denis de 294 legal transactions, women’s involvement in 29
Hartsock, Nancy 20 Legaré, Anne-Marie 213
Helbora, biblical heroine 101 Lemaire de Belges, Jean 122
Helen, saint 228 Leoni, Leone 193
Helgerson, Richard 298 Leproux, Guy-Michel 98
Heroët, Antoine 316 letters, women’s 12–13, 17, 23–24, 29–30, 51,
Hippolyta, Amazon queen 161–62 120, 128–30, 133, 183, 192, 277–78, 282, 297,
Hoby, Thomas 325 335–52, 359–61, 365, 368–74
Hochner, Nicole 151 Levis-Châteaumorand, Antoine de 155
Hohenlohe, Sigismund von 272 Lia, biblical heroine 101
Holanda, Francisco de 191 libraries, women’s 125, 140, 160, 209–15, 229,
Holladay, Joan 211 232, 362
Holstein-Gottorp, Hedwig Eleanora 19 Liefrinck, Hans 312–13
Hôpital, Michel de l’ 373 Limosin, Léonard 190, 195
Hortensia, Roman orator 143 literature, women’s involvement with 12–17,
Houben, Birgit 66 22–24, 26–27, 29, 48, 52–55, 86–88, 91, 96-
households, women’s 12, 15, 57–58, 66–67, 100, 120, 122–27, 160–61, 163, 214, 218, 241–59,
72–73, 77, 80, 91, 94, 129, 142, 144, 160–61, 264, 269, 271, 276–79, 281–82, 287–304
215–16, 242, 327–29, 337, 345 Locke, John 245
Howard, Thomas, duke of Norfolk 133, 179, 181 Lorraine
Howell, Martha C. 72 Charles de 320, 322
Humières, Jean II, seigneur de 337, 339–40, Claude, duke of Guise 337–38
344–45 Claude, duke of Aumale 337, 350
François, duke of Aumale, later duke of
infant care see also education 339–41 Guise 337–38, 341, 343, 349, 350
intercession, women’s 133–34 Jean de 320, 338
intimacy, see emotional management Marie, de Guise, queen of Scotland 17
Iris, Greek mythological messenger 364, 372 René II de 50, 68–69, 73
Isolani, Isidoro 159 Lorraine-Vaudémont, Marguerite de, duchesse
d’Alençon 101, 282
Jagellion, Louis II, King of Hungary 174 Louvel, Pierre 94
Janot, Denis 289–90, 292, 294–95, 299–304 Luther, Martin 273
Judith, biblical heroine 97, 100, 104, 108–9, 145 Luxembourg, Philippe du 158
Julia, wife of Pompey 127 Luxembourg-Saint-Pol, Marie of, countess of
Juno 145–46, 364 Vendôme 101
justice, the virtue of 91, 100–1, 126 Lyon, Corneille de 190
Index 381
McLaren, Margaret 291 Montaigne, Michel de 249, 314

McRae, Joan E. 242 Montchenu, Georgette de, madame du
Machiavelli, Niccolò 264–65, 357 Bouchage 141
Macrin, Salmon 279 Monteux, Hierosme de 340
magnanimity, the virtue of 101 Montmorand, Maxime de 243
Malcolmson, Cristina 123 Montmorency
Mamaea, Roman regent 143 Anne de 103, 271, 274, 276–77, 279, 280, 311,
Mander, Carel van 190 338, 345–46, 348, 350–51, 359–60, 368, 372
Mansfield, Lisa 22, 24, 29, 173–97 Henri I, duke of Damville 338
manuscripts, women’s involvement with 16, Mor, Anthonis 191
22–24, 29, 32, 48, 54, 88–94, 96–102, 106–7, More, Thomas 103
118, 123, 125–26, 142–44, 146–50, 156–58, Morton, Adam 16
160–63, 209–35, 241–59, 269, 288, 318 motherhood and maternal identity 9–10, 27, 31,
Mariamne, biblical heroine 145 44, 47, 54, 59–61, 85–109, 144, 153, 158, 177,
Marillac, Guillaume de 76–77 184, 191, 214, 225, 228, 339–40, 362
Marin, Alvise 154
marital politics 16–18, 22, 29, 31, 74–78, 117, 119, Nagle, Jean 72
124–25, 128, 133, 176, 210, 212, 268, 279–81, Navarre
325, 337–38, 349, 351 Blanche de 213–14
Marot Marguerite de, see Valois-Angoulême
Clément 80, 142, 144, 279, 315–18 Neville, Anne, duchess of Buckingham 123
Jehan 49, 142 Nicostrata, mythical inventor of the alphabet 143
Marshall, Sharon 302 Nicot, Jean 249
Martha, saint 158 Norrhem, Svante 21
Mary Magdalen 147–48, 228
Master of Claude de France 158, 224 Offenstadt, Nicholas 79
Maugiron, Laurent de 372 Oldenburg, Christian II, king of Denmark,
Medea, princess in Greek mythological Sweden and Norway 174
tradition 143, 145 Orgel, Stephen 174
Médicis/Medici Orléans, Louis, duke of Longueville 133–34
Alessandro de’ 370 Orley, Bernard van 186, 189, 192–93
Catherine de, queen of France 2, 8–14, Orth, Myra D. 86, 223
17–19, 23–25, 30–31, 44, 54–55, 59–60, Osman, Soliman the Magnificent 96
264, 275, 277, 336, 337, 339, 340–41, Ovid 122
347–48, 357–74
Clement VII, Pope, Giulio de Giuliano de’ Pallas-Minerva 54, 106
275 Palsgrave, John 122
Cosimo the Elder 362 Panigarola, Arcangela 159
Cosimo, Grand Duke of Tuscany 361, 365–71 Paris, Paulin 310–11
Giuliano de’ 370 Parlement of Paris 53, 68, 96–97, 147, 155–56,
Leo X, Pope, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ 153 270–71, 274, 325, 346
Lorenzino de’ 370 Parr, Catherine, queen of England 17
Lorenzo the Elder 362 Parsons, John 213
Lorenzo the Magnificent 363–64 Parthenay-l’Archevêque,
Marie de, queen of France 18–19, 44 Anne de 142, 144
Mérigot, Christophe 73 Renée de 142, 144
Meuillon, François de 349 Pasquier, Étienne 324
Meun, Jean de 122 Pélicier, Paul 71–72
Mézéray, François de 314 Pellevé, Françoise de 326
Michel, Guillaume 164 Petrarch, Francesco 252, 372
Michelet, Jules 314 Pibiri, Eva 26
Michiel, Marcantonio 153 Pichore, Jean 93–4, 143, 146
Michon, Cédric 50–51, 108 Pickering, William 349
Miller, Naomi 128 Piombo, Sebastiano del 153
mistresses, women’s position as 22, 26, 309–29, Pisseleu
335–52 Adrien d’Heilly 320–21, 323–24
monasticism, women’s involvement in 25, 31, Anne d’Heilly de 10–11, 13, 22–26, 29–31, 177,
73–74 179, 265, 267, 274, 276–77, 280–81, 283,
Monsures, Andrieu de 94 309–29
Charlotte, countess of Vertus 311, 320, 325, Rohan

328 Jean, sieur de Frontenay 324, 328
Guillaume 310 Pierre de, maréchal de Gié 80
Jean 323, 325–26, 328 Ronsard, Pierre de 362–63
Jossine de 322 Rosenwein, Barbara H. 69
Louise de 324, 328 Rouillin
Péronne, madame de Cany 319, 323–24 Denis 327
Pizan, Christine de 15–16, 22–23, 52–53, 55, 58, Pierre 327
61, 117–8, 120, 122–33, 135, 249, 282, 288 Roussel, Gérard 272, 275
Book of Deeds of Arms and Chivalry 123 Rovere, Giuliano delle, Pope Julius II 119
Book of the City of Ladies 16, 120, 123–27, 131 Russo, Daniel 71
Book of the Three Virtues 52, 117–8, 120,
125–27, 129–30, 132, 133 Sabine women 127
Epistle of Othea 16, 120, 123, 126 Sadlack, Erin A. 22, 24, 29, 117–136
Moral Proverbs 123 Salic Law 10, 15, 210, 309
Poitiers Sainte Lucie, Pierre de 216
Diane de, madame de Valentinois 11, 13, 17, 24, Sainte-Marthe, Charles de 318
26, 30–31, 126, 232, 322, 324, 335–52, 360 Saint-Gelais, Octavien de 144, 293
Eleanor de 58–59 saints 102, 126
Polignac, Jeanne de 141 Sanguin
Pompeia Paulina, wife of Seneca 127 Antoine, cardinal de Meudon 312, 321–22,
Poncher 327
Étienne 155 Claude 321
Jean 321 Richard 327
Porete, Marguerite 23, 282 Sappho, Greek poet 143
portraiture, see visual representation Sarah, biblical heroine 101, 145
Potter, David 29, 309–29 Saubonne, Michelle de 142–45, 157
Poyet, Guillaume 321 Savoie/Savoy
Pradel, Paul 71, 131 Charlotte de, queen of France 45, 67, 213
Primaticcio, Francesco 312 Emmanuel Philibert of 17
print publication, women’s involvement with Louise de 10, 15, 18–19, 22–23, 28, 31, 43–62,
12–14, 16–17, 22–24, 29, 32, 87, 104–6, 108–9, 69, 78–80, 85–109, 119, 125–26, 131, 140,
123, 125, 216, 218–19, 278, 287–304, 313 142–43, 145, 147–49, 151–55, 163, 177, 179,
Protestantism, women’s involvement in, see 210, 213, 215, 222–24, 233–34, 264–65,
also evangelism 17, 24–26, 30, 228–29, 233, 266, 268–71, 282, 310, 314, 361, 364, 368
273–74, 278–80, 318, 323, 325–27 Madeleine de 351
Provence, Marguerite, queen of France 100 Philibert II, duke of 78, 90, 103
prudence, the virtue of 53–55, 61, 91, 98, 101, Philiberte, duchesse de Nemours 10
127, 149–50 Philippe, count of Bresse 85, 90
René de 50, 78
Queyroy, Armand 216 Victor Amadeus I 18
Saxony, John Frederick I, Elector of 279
Rabelais, François 279, 316 Scailliérez, Cécile 188
Rachel, biblical heroine 101 Scépeaux, Françoise de 323
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzo da Urbino) 153 Scorel, Jan van 190–91
Rat, Maurice 109 Selve, Jean de 50
Raven, Bertram 245 Sergent, Pierre 294
reading, see education, libraries, literature sexual practice 178, 180–81
reason, Lady 126 Seymour sisters, Anne, Margaret and Jane 17, 282
Rebecca, biblical heroine 101 Seyssel, Claude de 53
rectitude, Lady 126–27 Silvius, Simon 218
Reid, Jonathan A. 23, 25, 29, 263–83 slander 241–59
regents, women as 13, 18–19, 28, 30–31, 43–62, Sleidan, Johannes 273
66–67, 78, 85–109, 121, 126, 145, 173–74, 176, Somerset, Charles, earl of Worcester 130
178, 186, 267, 359–61 Sourdeau, Jacques 154–55
reproductive labor, women’s 29–31, 119, 121, 131, speech, women’s 23, 55–56, 61, 130, 143
147, 149, 151–52, 176–77 spiritual practices, women’s 18, 23–25, 29, 149,
Robertet, Florimond 50, 134, 155 156, 159, 163, 212, 219–22, 224, 225, 226, 227,
Roelker, Nancy 282–83 228, 229, 230, 234–35, 369, 372
Index 383
Stephenson, Barbara 66 Valois-Angoulême

Strozzi Charles II, duke of Orléans 177, 267
Leon 370–71 Charles IX 9–10, 14–15, 30, 373
Piero 371 Charlotte 269
Stuart Claude, duchess of Lorraine 340
Charles I 18 Elisabeth, queen of Spain 17, 344
Mary, Queen of Scots 17, 344 François I 9–10, 15, 17–18, 22–23, 28–31,
Sturm, Johann 273 44–47, 49, 52–53, 57–61, 78–79, 85–88,
Sybil 90, 92–97, 101–3, 108–9, 119, 131–32, 139,
Cimmerian 102 141–43, 145, 147–48, 151, 153–55, 159, 161,
Erythraean 143 163–64, 175–84, 188, 190, 192, 196–97,
Phrygian 102 214, 222–23, 228, 232, 234, 242, 265–68,
Sylvius, Jacques 340 270–71, 273–81, 283, 292, 294, 299, 304,
310–12, 314, 316–19, 322, 324, 337, 364,
tapestries 124–25, 135 372
Telle, Emile 317 François, dauphin 151–53, 164, 177, 179
temperance, the virtue of 91, 101 Henri II 9, 11, 13, 17, 24, 30–31, 151, 164, 177,
Tertia Aemilia, wife of Scipio Africanus 127 179, 214, 232, 267–68, 275, 278, 319,
testaments, women’s 97, 123, 154, 213, 327–29 335–38, 340–43, 345–46, 348–51, 358–60,
Thenaud, Jean 54, 91–92 371
Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards 143 Madeleine 17, 152
Thibault, Jean 104–6, 108 Marguerite, duchesse de Savoie 17–18, 25,
Thou, Jean-Auguste de 326 31, 163, 277–78
Titian (Tiziano Vecelli) 193, 196 Marguerite, d’Alençon, queen of Navarre
Tory, Geofroy 243 10, 17, 22–23, 25, 29, 31–32, 49, 54–55, 66,
Tournon 80, 85, 91–93, 96, 100, 103–5, 119, 140–41,
Blanche 141 145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 156, 160, 164, 178–79,
François de 50, 141, 311 181, 214, 218–19, 222–25, 229, 233–34, 247,
Jacques II de 141 263–83, 315–16, 318–19, 337–8
Tudor La Coche 276–79, 281, 283, 318
Arthur, prince 120 Dialogue en forme de vision nocturne
Elizabeth I 17, 124, 263–64, 281–82 269
Henry VII 122–23 Epistre envoyee au roi par sa soeur
Henry VIII 24, 31, 96, 103, 118–21, 123–25, unique, la roine de Navarre 278
128–30, 133–34, 151–52, 161, 179–80, 188, Fable du faux cuyder 278
190, 268, 275, 280–81 Heptaméron (and Histoire des Amans
Mary 151–52 fortunez) 23, 218–19, 234, 265, 278
Mary Brandon, queen of France 17, 22, 24, Marguerites de la marguerite des
29, 31–32, 117–136 princesses 218
Miroir de l’âme pécheresse 17, 263, 265,
Urfé, Claude d’ 348 278, 281
Ursula, saint 157, 158 La Navire 278
Les Prisons 278
Valgelas, Claude 340 Suite des marguerites 278
Valois Marguerite, queen of Navarre and of France
Anne de France, duchesse de Bourbon 247
14–16, 22–24, 28, 31, 43–62, 65–80, 86, Valois-Burgundy
97, 101, 103, 125–26, 131–32, 145, 149, 210, Agnès, duchess of Bourbon 51
213–19, 222–24, 233–34, 241, 288, 364 Mary 188, 193–94
Enseignements 48, 53–54, 72–73, 145, Philip the Good, duke of 210
215–18, 222, 225, 232–33 Valois-Orléans
History of the Siege of Brest 48 Charles-Orland 141
Charles VI 71, 118 Claude, queen of France 10, 16–17, 22–23, 25,
Charles VIII 14, 16, 22, 28, 44–49, 59, 61, 29, 31, 58, 60, 91–93, 100–1, 125, 131–32,
65–68, 74–76, 80, 126, 144, 179 139–64, 177, 214–15, 219, 221–22, 224–25,
Jeanne de France, queen of France 25, 31, 228, 299, 232–34, 242–43, 266–68, 272
51, 76 Louis XII 9, 15, 17, 25, 31–32, 45–47, 59,
Louis XI 44–45, 52, 65–67, 73, 155 67–69, 75–77, 80, 85, 118–21, 125–26,
Philip VI 213 128–31, 135, 140, 142, 158, 214, 241, 268
Renée de France, duchess of Ferrara 17, 22, Wiesner Hanks, Merry 21

25, 80, 132, 140–42, 144, 157, 159, 214–15, wifely duties 101, 127–28, 135, 157, 161, 297
224–31, 233–35, 268, 282 Wilson-Chevalier, Kathleen 22–23, 25, 29,
Varillas, Antoine 314 139–64, 188
Vauzelles, Jean de 109 Winn, Mary Beth 22, 28, 85–109
Vérard, Anthoine 92–3, 95, 293 Wolsey, Thomas 129, 130, 133–34, 163
Verdier, Antoine du 243, 314 Wood, Diane 289
Verdon, Jean 71 woodcuts 104–6, 108, 300, 302, 304, 312–13
Veronica, saint 157 Woodville, Anthony 123
Veturia, Roman matron 126
Villey de Marnol, Nicolas 315 Xanthippe, wife of Socrates 127
Virgin Mary 92–4, 101, 108, 143, 149, 153, 196,
219–21, 223–26, 228, 234 Yavneh, Naomi 128
Visconti, Galeazzo 147 York
visual representations 12, 22, 28, 54, 88–95, 99, Elizabeth 122
101, 104–8, 143, 145, 161, 163, 173–97, 209–35, Margaret 213
276, 300–4, 313, 318 Richard, duke of 123
Vives, Juan Luis 184 Young, Iris Marion 20
Vosterman, Guillaume 104
Zenobia, queen of Palmyrene Empire 131–32
Warner, Lyndan 290, 301 Zöhl, Caroline 94
Watanabe–O’Kelly, Helen 13 Zorzi, Girolamo 52
widowhood 32, 61, 88, 90, 99, 106, 128, 177, 184, Zum Kolk, Caroline 57
188, 358, 360 Zwingli, Huldrich 278

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G E N D E R I N G T H E L A T E M E D I E V A L A N D E A R LY M O D E R N W O R L D

Edited by Susan Broomhall

Women and Power at

Amsterdam University Press

Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden

isbn 978 94 6298 342 7

© S. Broomhall / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018

In the Orbit of the King 9

Part I Conceptualizing and Practicing Female Power

1. The Political, Symbolic, and Courtly Powerof Anne de France

2. Anne de France and Gift-Giving 65

Part II Centers and Peripheries of Power

4. Literary Lessons in Queenship and Power 117

5. Claude de France and the Spaces of Agency of a Marginalized

6. Portraits of Eleanor of Austria 173

7. Family Female Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France 209

8. The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Graville 241

9. Imagination and Influence 263

10. Power through Print 287

Part IV Economies of Power and Emotions

11. The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress 309

12. ‘The King and I’ 335

13. Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charity (1533–1559) 357

Figure 3.1 Symphorien Champier, Les Grandes Chroniques de Savoie 89

Keywords: women, power, authority, emotions, cultural politics, male rule

Towards the end of 1563, Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589) drafted a lengthy

narrated a golden age of past male rulers in a highly emotive visualization

Women, Power, and Early Modern Court Communities

The Court as Disseminator of Female Forms of Power

beyond, although our period of interest does offer a certain coherence of

20 Schutz, p. 74. See generally, Tolley; Broomhall, 2007.

interactions increased with Mary Tudor Brandon (1496–1533) who became

24 Navarre, 1548. See also Prescott; Snyder.

here. Another Elisabeth, Elisabeth de Bourbon (1602–1644), became a further

Médicis through cultural leadership at court and artistic and architectural

Gender, Politics, and Power

The French court was a significant contributor to wider European courtly

and courts.34 We explore what forms of power were available to women

37 Daybell and Norrhem, 2016b.

de France for her daughter Suzanne de Bourbon (1491–1521) that Suzanne

as the Roman poet Vittoria Colonna (1490–1547) and Genevan religious

At the turn of the century, Jeanne de France (1464–1505), divorced wife of

41 See Drèze, 1991; and Broomhall, 2008, pp. 10–15, 49–58.

two mistresses whose faith affiliations were diametrically opposed, played

Authority at the French Court

Realms of power informed and reinforced patterns of conduct across key

44 See also for a slightly later period, Hanley, 2006.

were symbolically powerful as partners of monarchs and reproductive

key f igure in these deliberations and in pursuit of Protestantism until

In the Orbit of the Monarch

ADAMS, Tracy. ‘Christine de Pizan, Isabeau of Bavaria, and Female Regency’.

BROWN, Cynthia J. ‘The Reconstruction of an Author in Print: Christine de Pizan

DUBOST, Jean-François. Marie de Médicis: la reine dévoilée. Paris: Biographie

About the author

Susan Broomhall is Professor of Early Modern History at The University

Keywords: regency, Anne de France, Louise de Savoie, networks, e­ loquence,

First, Anne de France, dame of Beaujeu, daughter of Louis XI (1423–1483),

Rising to Power: The Genesis of Feminine Regency

Proximity to the King: The Key to Power

10 ‘Car tel est mon plaisir’, David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 525ff.

13 David-Chapy, 2016, pp. 250, 525.

Masculine and Feminine Networks as Supports of the Regents

of many noblemen, such as the dukes Jean II de Bourbon (1426–1488) and

In the Orbit of the King 9

2. Anne de France and Gift-Giving 65

4. Literary Lessons in Queenship and Power 117

6. Portraits of Eleanor of Austria 173

7. Family Female Networking in Early Sixteenth-Century France 209

8. The Power of Reputation and Skills according to Anne de Graville 241

9. Imagination and Influence 263

10. Power through Print 287

11. The Life and After-Life of a Royal Mistress 309

12. ‘The King and I’ 335

13. Catherine de Médicis Tested by the Virtue of Charity (1533–1559) 357

Figure 3.1 Symphorien Champier, Les Grandes Chroniques de Savoie 89

Keywords: regency, Anne de France, Louise de Savoie, networks, e loquence,

Figure 3.1 Symphorien Champier, Les Grandes Chroniques de Savoie

Figure 3.2 Jean Thibault, La Triumphe de la paix celebree en Cambray