Agnès Sorel [747588] (1421 –
9 February
1450), known by the sobriquet
Dame de
beauté, was a mistress of
King Charles VII of France.
Life in the royal court
The daughter of a soldier, Jean Soreau, and of Catherine de
Maignelais, Sorel was twenty years old when she was first
introduced to King Charles. At that time, she was holding a
position in the household of
Rene I of
Naples, Charles' brother-in-law. As reflected in art of the
day, she was an extraordinarily beautiful young woman, and was also
extremely intelligent.
The French king was immediately smitten by
her charms and took her as his mistress; he even gave her the
Château de
Loches
(where he had been persuaded by Joan of Arc to be crowned King of France) as her
private residence. [747589]
Soon, her
presence was felt at the royal court in Chinon
where her
company was alleged to have brought the king out of a protracted
depression. She had a very strong influence on the king, and
that, in addition to her extravagant tastes, earned her a number of
powerful enemies at court.
[747590]
Suspicious death
Agnès gave birth to three daughters:
Marie de Valois and Charlotte and Jeanne de
France. (Charlotte's son,
Louis de Brézé,
seigneur d'Anet, would in turn marry
Diane de Poitiers, herself ultimately a
famous royal courtesan).
While pregnant with their fourth child, she
journeyed from Chinon in deep
midwinter to join Charles on the campaign of 1450 in Jumièges
, wanting to be with him as moral support.
There, she suddenly became ill and died on
9
February at the age of 28. While the cause of death was
originally thought to be
dysentery,
scientists have now concluded that Agnès died from being poisoned
by
mercury, making it likely that
she was a victim of murder.
Charles' son, the future
King Louis
XI, had been in open revolt against his father for the previous
four years. It has been speculated that he had Agnès poisoned in
order to remove what he may have considered her undue influence
over the king. It was also speculated that French financier, noble
and minister
Jacques Coeur poisoned
her, though that theory is widely discredited as an attempt to
remove Coeur from the French court. In 2005 French forensic
scientist Philippe Charlier examined her remains and determined
that the cause of death was mercury poisoning, but offered no
opinion about whether she was murdered.
[747591] Mercury was sometimes used in cosmetic
preparations and this could therefore have been the reason for her
death.
Her cousin
Antoinette de
Maignelais took her place as mistress to the king after her
death.
Agnès Sorel in the Arts
Publications
- Duquesne, Vie et Aventures galantes de la belle Sorel,
(Paris, 1909)
- Autheman, Marc, Agnès Sorel: l'inspiratrice,(2008),
ISBN 978-2-84114-952-0
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