Athenais
Subtitle: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen of France
Edition: 1st US ed.
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: December 4, 2002
Place of publication: Boston; New York; London
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780316084901
Copyright date: 2002
Subjects: Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Biography/Autobiography; Historical - General; Women; Biography & Autobiography / Women; Montespan, Francoise-Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart; 1638-1715; 1641-1707; Biography; Court and courtiers; France; King of France,; Louis; Montespan, Francoise-Athena; Montespan, Franðcoise-Athâenaèis de Rochechouart de Mortemart,; XIV,; marquise de,
Table of contents: title: Cast of characters; title: Prologue; title: Versailles today is rather a sad place; title: Athénaïs de Montespan could afford to be sniffy about Louise de La Valliere's unremarkable connections; title: From her convent education to her first entrance into society, Athénaïs, like every aristocratic French girl of the seventeenth century, would have been aware that marriage was the primary goal of her existence; title: On a hot summer night in Flanders, the Duchesse de Vaujours was weeping again, for shame or for chagrin, who could tell?; title: Cardinal Mazarin left Louis XIV three gifts: his kingdom, his taste and Jean-Baptiste Colbert; title: Athénaïs did not rely exlusively on spells to affirm her position; title: In the summer of 1665, an eager Italian tourist, the Abbe Locatelli, sneaked into the gardens of St. Germain early one morning; title: It could never be said that the relationship between Athénaïs de Montespan and Louis XIV was a peaceful one, but the years between 1674 and 1678 were probably their happiest time; title: The year 1675 proved to Athénaïs that, despite the security she appeared to have achieved, many enemies surrounded her; title: Athénaïs had to wait one whole miserable year before her lover returned to her; title: In 1667, soon after their love affair had begun, Athénaïs and Louis, got up as shepherd and shepherdess, had performed together in the Ballet des Muses; title: Late in 1669, Louise de La Valliere, still officially maitress en titre, had fallen violently ill; title: Louis de France, the Grand Dauphin, known as Monseigneur, had very different tastes in women from his father; title: Prestige at Versailles was very much determined by a person's location within the internal geography of the palace, so Athénaïs's descent to the Appartment des Bains was interpreted by the court as the first step towards her disgrace and her estrangement; title: As director of the order of St. Joseph, Athénaïs was able to take an apartment in their Paris convent in the Rue St. Dominique, near to the church of St. Sulpice, where she had been married nearly thirty years before; title: One night in 1705, Louis was seized with a fit of the vapors as he looked through a sheaf of faded, highly scented papers; title: Epilogue; title: Historical sources