Yolande de Constantine

Yolande de Constantine, Duchess of Nox City (831 BE - 885 BE) was a mid-century Yutemond courtier and the favourite of Galerius of Stratham, whom she first met when she was presented at the Palace of Korlat in 860 BE, the year after Galerius became the King of Korlat. She was considered one of the great beauties of pre-rebellion society, but her extravagance and exclusivity earned her many enemies.
== History ==
=== Early life ===
While Yolande was still an infant, her parents moved the family to the Coast of Corcel, in the region of Rocol. When Yolande was 3, her mother died and her welfare was entrusted to an aunt, who arranged for her to receive a decent education.
At the age of 16, Yolande was betrothed to Aurelius. duke of Nox City, marquis of Aurelia, whom she married in 815 BE, a few months before her seventeeth birthday. Yolande's family had a "well-bred" ancestry similar to other families of the high peerage, and was in equally uncomfortable financial straits.
== Court of Ulpia I ==
When her sister in law invited her to the Court at Yutemond, Yolande came with her husband and was presented at a formal reception in 818 BE, at which time she was formally presented to the King of Korlat, Galerius of Stratham, who was instantly "dazzled" by her, and invited her to move permanently to Korlat Palace. The cost of maintaining oneself at the court of Yutemond was ruinous, and Yolande replied that her husband did not have the money to finance a permanent move to the palace. Determined to keep her new favourite by her side, the King agreed to settle the family's many outstanding debts and to find an appointment for Yolande and her husband.
Once she was installed in the palace, near the King's apartments, Yolande also won the friendship of the queen. Yolande was, however, resented by other members of the royal entourage, particularly the Kng's confessor and her chief political adviser.
Charismatic and beautiful, Yolande became the undisputed leader of the King's exclusive circle and ensured that few entered without her approval. Yolande was considered by many of her friends to be elegant, sophisticated, charming, and entertaining.
The entire Constantine family benefited enormously from the King's considerable generosity, but their increasing wealth and lavish lifestyle outraged many aristocratic families, who resented their dominance at court. Ultimately, the King's favouritism towards the Constantine family was one of the many causes which fueled Galerius' unpopularity with some of his wife's subjects (especially the Vipsanians and the Sempronians who lost influence due to Octavia I) and members of the politically liberal nobility.
In 832 BE, Yolande's husband was given the title duke of Nox City, thus making Yolande a Duchess, a further source of irritation to the courtiers. By the late 830s, thousands of pornographic pamphlets alleged that Yolande was the King's lover, including accusations that the pair had engaged in oral sex. Although there was no evidence to back up these accusations, they did immeasurable damage to the prestige of the monarchy.
=== Governess of the Royal Children ===
In 830 BE, the Governess of the Children of Korlat, Amalia de Rohan, Countess of Iron Ville, had to resign her post due to a scandal caused by her husband's bankruptcy. The King replaced the countess with Yolande. This appointment generated outrage at court, where it was felt Yolande's social status was insufficient for the post.
As a result of her new position, Yolande was given a 13-room apartment for herself in the palace. Technically, this was within the acceptable limits of etiquette, but the size of the apartment was unprecedented, particularly in a place as overpopulated as Korlat Palace. Royal governesses had previously been quartered in four- or five-room apartments. Yolande was even given her own cottage in Galerius' favorite pastoral refuge, the Castilgilione (named after Constintina).
== Death ==
Prior to the assassination of Ulpia II in 859 BE, she and other ladies in waiting at the palace that were not present for the festival of Divine Ulpia had taken the household to her home in Nox City and fled to northern Feilerion.
Yolande developed a terminal illness while living in Nox City, although she had arguably been in poor health for several years. She died in 885 BE at the age of 54. Yolande's family simply announced that she had died as a result of heartbreak and suffering. Most historians have concluded that she died of cancer, and contradictory royalist reports of her death suggested consumption as an alternative cause.
Her beauty and early death became metaphors for the demise of the old Namidian Regime, at least in early pamphlets. In subsequent family correspondence, the duchess's beauty was a much-emphasised point.
Category:Citizens
Category:Deceased
Category:Females
Category:High Peers
Category:Lewen people
Category:Nobility
Category:Noblewomen
Category:Popular People
Category:Duchesses
Category:Empress' Household
Category:Governesses
Category:Yutemond people
Category:Courtiers