Antoinette de Pons

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Portrait of Antoinette de Pons by François Quesnel

Antoinette de Pons (* around 1570; † January 16, 1632 at La Roche-Guyon Castle ) was Marquise of Guercheville and, by marriage, Countess of La Roche-Guyon . At the French royal court, she was a maid of honor of Queen Maria de 'Medici and possibly a mistress of the French king Henry IV.

Life

Antoinette was the daughter of Antoine de Pons, Count of Marennes, and his second wife Marie de Montchenu, dame de Guercheville. She grew up at the court of Heinrich III. on. After a first marriage with Henri de Silly († 1586), Count of La Roche-Guyon, she went into a second marriage in 1594 with Charles du Plessis-Liancourt , Count of Beaumont-sur-Oise from the House of Le Plessis-Liancourt .

From their first marriage came a son:

  • François de Silly († 1628)

Antoinette had two children with her second husband:

In 1590 the young widow met Heinrich von Navarra at La Roche-Guyon Castle, after which he began to woo her vigorously. To this day it has not been definitively clarified whether she gave in to the royal advances. Some older publications include her in the long list of the king's mistresses , while more recent publications in particular assume that she did not become the mistress of Henry IV. What is certain, however, is that he made her the maid of honor of his second wife Maria de 'Medici.

Antoinette de Pons paid great attention to the Jesuits of the French colonies in America and contributed to the financing and establishment of the colony on Mount Desert Island ( French l'Île des Monts-Déserts ) in what is now Maine . The colony was destroyed by the English .

literature

  • Ekkehard Blattmann: Heinrich Mann. The templates for the Henri Quatre novel. Lang, Frankfurt am Main [a. a.] 1997, ISBN 3-631-45932-7 , p. 206 ff.
  • Jean François Dreux du Radier: Mémoires historiques, critiques, et anecdotes sur les reines et régentes de France. Volume 5. Renouard, Paris 1827, pp. 348-352 ( digitized ).
  • Agricol Hippolyte de Lapierre de Châteauneuf: Les favorites des rois de France, depuis Agnès Sorel, d'après les sources les plus authentiques. Volume 1, 2nd edition. Jenne, Paris 1826, pp. 125–127 ( digitized ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Family tree of the lords of La Roche-Guyon (PDF; 213 kB), p. 12.
personal data
SURNAME Pons, Antoinette de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lady of Honor of Catherine of Medici, mistress of the French King Henry IV.
DATE OF BIRTH around 1570
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1632
Place of death La Roche-Guyon Castle