Some would say it reigned in the shadow ofHenry II, armed with her beauty and intelligence. In any case, it is under this prism that Diane de Poitiers, mistress and favorite of the king of France, is portrayed in the miniseries Diane de Poitiers, the almost queen. Through two 105-minute long episodes, available on the Salto platform and the first of which aired on France 2 on Monday 7 November 2022, Isabelle Adjani embodies this woman of character, historically described as hungry for power and honors. Nothing, however, allows us to feel this greed today. On the occasion of this television story, he returns to this mysterious and fascinating character of the Renaissance.
Ascent to court
Daughter of Jeanne de Batarnay and Jean de Poitiers – which refers to the locality of Peytieula and not to the city of Poitiers – Diane de Poitiers was born in 1499. At the age of 16 she was married to Louis de Brézé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, thirty-six years her senior. She was then appointed lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude of France, the king’s wife. Francis I., of the latter’s mother Louise of Savoy and finally of the second wife Éléonore de Habsbourg. Her rumors then make her the lover of this famous “King-Knight”, known for her many adventures. But there is no evidence today to confirm that she ever succumbed to her advances.
⋙ The Chambord estate, mirror of the power of Francis I.
He is the son of Francis I, Henry II, who will become her lover. In 1951 her husband died, with whom she had two daughters. Concerned about her financial interests and those of her children, Diane obtains the temporary title of her late husband, “sénéchale de Normandie”. She was then included in the entourage of Prince Henri d’Orléans, future king of France, twenty years younger than her this time – she married in 1533 to Catherine de ‘Medici. From being a tutor, she would become her friend, her confidant, then her lover and adviser from 1537 to 1538. This would make Diane de Poitiers the only favorite in French history who was older than her royal lover. she.
“The more than queen”, a favorite of King Henry II
Because from his coronation in 1547 Henry II offered Diane de Poitiers all his favors: crown jewels, titles (Duchess of Valentinois then of Étampes), property of the Chenonceau Castle, ambiguous monogram (the two semicircles surrounding the capital H can be interpreted as C or D) … His power at court, already established at the time of Francis I – had had some rivalry with his favorite Anne de Pisseleu, exiled the the death of the king – grows. Henry II sees in her “the Lady par excellence” of the chivalrous novel Amadides of Gaulwhich he read during his captivity in Spain (1526-1530).
Although the extent of his influence over the king is difficult to estimate, he shared his hostility towards him. Protestantism, strongly repressed during his reign. The official wife Caterina de Medici, also a relative of her (Caterina’s maternal grandfather is the brother of Diana’s paternal grandmother) can only give way to the competitor. Especially since it is omnipresent: his daughter Françoise heads the Queen’s house. Faced with rumors of the royal couple’s infertility, it is also Diane who allegedly pushed her lover to multiply visits to her wife – who will finally give him ten children in twenty-five years of marriage.
⋙ The wars of religion, the bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants
When Henry II was injured by a shrapnel in the eye during a tournament in 1559, Catherine de Medici forbade any visit from Diane de Poitiers to her bedside. And when the king died a few days later, he was unable to attend her funeral. The widowed queen asks her rival to return the flamboyant castle of Chenonceau and an extensive inventory, including the crown jewels. The fallen lover gets Chaumont Castle in exchange. But she was at the castle of Anet, her husband’s inheritance then a gift from Henry II of her that she had undertaken to rebuild around 1540, which she died in 1566 at the age of 66.
A castle life
Amboise, Blois, Chambord, Villers-CotteretsSaint-Germain-en-Laye or even Fontainebleau… At the time of Francis I, the court was still itinerant and moved from castle to castle. However, the two closest to Diane de Poitiers’ heart will be that of Anet where she died, as well as that of Chenonceau, present by her royal lover today nicknamed the “château des Dames”. Of the first only the left wing remains, the rest having been destroyed during the Revolution. In the second, he undertook great works, in particular the gardens that bear his name and the famous bridge that still today crosses the Cher.
⋙ Caterina de ‘Medici, Diane de Poitiers… In Chenonceau, the great rivalry of ladies of heart
Poisoned to death to preserve her beauty?
When Diane de Poitiers died in 1566, her second daughter Louise de Brézé had a monument erected in her likeness, which was moved to the sepulchral chapel of the Château d’Anet ten years later. A grave desecrated during the Revolution, whose remains were relocated only in 2010, after years in the municipal cemetery. Only a few pieces of her hair had been preserved by the members of the revolutionary committee and more recently were analyzed by a team from the forensic department of the Raymond-Poincaré (Garches) hospital, led by Dr Philippe Charlier. An instructive study, published in British medical journal in 2009.
In this lock of the king’s favorite (and also in his guise), the researchers found very high concentrations of gold, 500 times the average reference value for hair. It is therefore likely that in an attempt to preserve her beauty and youth, for which Diane de Poitiers was particularly famous, her lady consumed solutions of drinking gold, a kind of elixir of youth … which would have it led to poison her! A plausible scenario, since despite intensive swimming, hunting and horseback riding, she was known for her extremely pale complexion, symptomatic of chronic gold poisoning.
⋙ A small lock of Napoleon I’s hair was auctioned in April in Cherbourg
Greedy character inside The Princess of Cleves
In 1678, a century after the eventful life of Diane de Poitier, the historical novel The Princess of Cleves, written by Madame de La Fayette. Readers follow the adventures of Mademoiselle de Chartres and her introduction to the court of Henry II. But above all, the protagonist’s devouring amorous passion for the Duke of Nemours, shortly after her marriage to the Prince of Cleves. To warn her daughter of the consequences of such ties between courtiers, she tells her the story of Diane de Poitiers, presented as “absolute master of all things” by virtue of her power over the king’s mind.
An image, according to Madame de Chartres, of how interests can hide behind the elegance and pomp of the court. In the first part of her work, Madame de Lafayette writes: “Ambition and gallantry were the soul of this court, and men and women equally busy. There were so many interests and so many different cabals, and women had so much a role in them, that love was always involved in business, and in business in love. Nobody was calm or indifferent: we thought of getting up, of pleasure, of serving or of harming; we did not know boredom or idleness., and we were always occupied with pleasures or intrigues … “.
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