IT WAS OFTEN ASSUMED THAT THE KING WAS MOST SUSCEPTIBLE to political suggestions when lying down, that the royal mistress, having purchased power through sex, hopped out of bed, smoothed down her rumpled skirts, and victoriously wielded her omnipotence over court and country alike. This perception is generally incorrect. With a few notable exceptions, most mistresses exerted political influence, the influence of a loved one persuading the monarch to look at a problem from a different angle, to consider different solutions. Some mistresses worked in concert with the king’s ministers by informing them of the royal mood and the best times to present proposals. They calmed the king down when he was angry and buoyed him up when he was despondent, thereby oiling the wheels of state.
Many mistresses were either too stupid or too self-absorbed to be interested in politics and limited themselves to appointing their friends and relatives to government positions. Most kings, prickly with pride in their God-given authority, were repelled at the thought of a woman’s meddling. After hours of discussing politics with his ministers, the king visited his mistress for a cozy dinner, light conversation, and good sex.
In the 1570s and 1580s, Archduke Francesco de Medici (1541–1587) fumed that he would brook no interference in politics by women. His mistress Bianca Cappello tactfully made Francesco believe her ideas had originated in his own brilliant mind. The archduke sank so frequently into irretrievable pits of depression that Bianca effectively ran Tuscany with her friend Secretary of State Serguidi. Together they made most of the political decisions and appointments to important posts. Even after the archduke married his mistress in 1578, Bianca, now the archduchess of Tuscany, still remained seemingly in her woman’s role in the background, quietly pulling all the strings.
Some kings, however, cherished the sage political advice of their clever mistresses, many of whom spoke honestly, unlike the royal ministers. The quiet pillow talk in a curtained four-poster bed often had greater effect than the bobbing and angling of ambitious ministers pushing one self-aggrandizing plan or another. “Ah, and who is left now to tell one the truth?” lamented Louis XV upon hearing of the death of his mistress Madame de Châteauroux.1
The first mistress to wield true royal power in her own right was, naturally, French. In the 1550s Diane de Poitiers, the older, wiser mistress of Henri II, signed official documents; appointed ministers; bestowed honors, pensions, and titles; and bequeathed and revoked great estates. She became a member of the privy council and exerted great influence over the other members.
To help fill the empty royal treasury Diane imposed taxes—most notably on salt and church bells. She signed her name simply as Diane—as royalty did—not bothering with the string of ungainly titles most nobles proudly trailed behind their names. Sometimes both Diane and the king signed a document, their signatures running together as “HenriDiane.” When a group of cardinals protested her influence, she sent thirteen of them to Rome, ostensibly to represent French interests, but really to get them out of her way at court.
“Paris is well worth a Mass”
In the 1590s, Henri IV of France issued a royal decree that all foreign ambassadors be presented to his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées, stipulating that all French nobility, clerics, and officials visiting the court wait on her immediately after speaking to the king himself.
Gabrielle possessed a great gift for using women’s weapons—persuasion, conciliation, and charm—rather than men’s—battle axes, cannonballs, and swords—to iron out the turbulent conflicts besetting France. Born Catholic, Gabrielle convinced Protestant Henri to convert to Catholicism to end the religious civil war, prompting him to maintain, “Paris is well worth a Mass.”2
Although the king made Gabrielle the marquise de Monceaux and later the duchesse de Beaufort, she had no official position at court to match her diplomatic duties. No-nonsense Henri, adept at calling a spade a spade, appointed her “Titulary Mistress of His Majesty, the King of France.”3 Armed with her new title, Gabrielle communicated directly with the pope. The Vatican had been supporting the Catholic League led by Spain against Henri and had not stopped supporting it after what they considered to be his fraudulent and politically motivated conversion to Catholicism. Philip II of Spain made routine incursions into the south of France, draining Henri’s resources.
Gabrielle, sending the pope copies of her letters patent naming her “titulary mistress,” politely requested that His Holiness stop supporting a useless war now that Henri had become a true son of the church. She reminded him that it was she who had convinced Henri to become Catholic, and hinted darkly at the possibility of France breaking with the church completely, as England had sixty years earlier, if the Vatican continued to support the kingdom’s enemies. Two weeks later, the pope instructed all religious houses in France to pray for the health of King Henri IV. When Henri was informed of the pope’s acceptance of his conversion he was heard to say, “Gabrielle has succeeded where others have failed.”4
Gabrielle then set to work settling the differences between Henri and the duc de Mayenne, head of the powerful de Guise family. Mayenne had been the leader of the Catholic League; he still held a large body of troops and refused to make peace with the king. Mayenne’s female relatives were close to Gabrielle; a scheme was hatched among the women to force the men to make peace. Gabrielle persuaded Henri to be more conciliatory to his adversary, and the de Guise women set to work on Mayenne to give up a lost cause. Finally, Gabrielle conferred with Mayenne himself for two days in a small château, ironing out the details of his surrender. Henri made many concessions—including a large sum in gold and three châteaus—to pacify his enemy.
Gabrielle had become Henri’s most important diplomat but had no official seat in the council, where national policy was made. Yet there was a precedent—only forty years earlier Diane de Poitiers had served on the council. In March 1596, bypassing with royal aplomb the customary steps, Henri bestowed on Gabrielle the set of gold keys which gave her the right to join the council. To deflect criticism, at the same time he wisely gave an identical set to his sister, the devout Catherine. And so he appointed two female council members in one fell swoop, Gabrielle known for her diplomatic skill, and Catherine for her saintliness. On many public occasions after this it was observed that Gabrielle, instead of flaunting her magnificent diamonds, proudly wore her little gold keys on a chain about her neck.
In 1597 the duc de Mercoeur, virtual ruler of the state of Brittany, led the last pocket of rebellion. When war looked inevitable and the two armies faced each other across the battlefield, Gabrielle invited Mercoeur’s wife to a tête-à-tête with her in a carriage. The two women arranged Mercoeur’s surrender under honorable terms and a marriage between their children. They then set to work persuading their men to agree to their decision. And so Henri’s last victory was achieved without shedding a drop of blood. It was a woman’s victory.
The civil war having been finally quelled, Henri looked toward preventing another one. Tensions between Catholics and Protestants ran deep, and Henri looked for a way to reconcile the two groups. Henri’s Huguenot sister and Catholic mistress set to work. The duc de Montmorency, constable of France, wrote, “Madame [Catherine] and the Duchess de Beaufort have begun their formidable task of reconciling the unreconcilable. They will need to exercise their command of the arts of persuasion to the utmost and to utilize the natural charms with which they are endowed, for surely no two women have ever undertaken a more difficult task.”5