The Invention of the French Royal Mistress

Abstract

This chapter considers how classical ideas were transformed in the service of legitimizing the mistress as a woman of authority. In particular, it explores how the mythological figure of Diana was used in tableaux and pageants to represent the mistress, and to authorize her location in the court. The emergence of a mythological imaginary over the course of the sixteenth century in France, which to some degree replaced the identification of the royal family with the Holy Family, made space for different types of authority, as well as valourizing carnality.