Françoise de Foix

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Françoise de Foix

Françoise de Foix, Comtesse de Laval-Châteaubriant (* between 1490/95; † October 16, 1537 at Châteaubriant ) was a mistress of the French King Franz I.

Life

Françoise was the daughter of Jean de Foix , Vicomte de Lautrec and Jeanne d'Aydie-Comminges, heir to Count Odet d'Aydie . She was the great niece of Gaston IV and Queen Eleanor of Navarre . Thus she was a second cousin of the Duchess of Brittany and Queen of France, Anne de Bretagne . At the age of eleven, Françoise de Foix was engaged to Jean de Laval, Baron de Châteaubriand (1486–1543), and in 1507 they married. The marriage was considered happy and a daughter emerged from it: Anne (1508–1521).

In 1516 her husband was summoned to the court of the French king Franz I. Françoise, who was described as a cool, dark-haired Juno with a majestic figure, soon got to know the life at court, where she could only be lured with a trick, and above all to appreciate the king's generosity more and more. She developed ambition and sophistication, in addition to the husband, who retired to Brittany, there were three brothers to look after in the Pyrenees . Her husband Jean de Laval was awarded the post of governor of Brittany , de facto as a settlement for leaving his wife, her older brother and friend of Francis I, Odet de Foix , who was still under Louis XII. In 1511 he was promoted to Marshal of France , and at the instigation of Françoises rose to despotic governor of the Duchy of Milan. The king also showered her two other brothers, Thomas , Seigneur von Lescun, and André , Seigneur von Lesparre, with military honors and lucrative offices.

For seven years, Françoise de Foix asserted himself as the first and official mistress of Francis I, who officially called her “La mye du roi” (German: “the king's treasure”). The rival of the patient Queen Claude de France , who was unhappy in her marriage, captivated the king, whom she initially even denied sexually, mainly because of her spirit, her education and her beauty as an entertainer. Nevertheless, the mistress, who was considered to be hypothermic, had to accept that the king lived out his erotic needs with a group of young women known at court as "petite bande". Shortly before the Battle of Pavia, Françoise finally lost the king's favor to a second “maitresse en titre”, Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly , who was brought to him by his mother Luise of Savoy . By pairing her son with one of her maids of honor, the Queen Mother drove a wedge between her son and the favorite, whom she always hated, and whose Francis I soon grew tired of.

In 1528 Françoise de Foix, Countess of Châteaubriand, returned to her husband in Brittany, who welcomed her again and who, after her death on October 16, 1537, gave her a tomb and a tomb in the church of Châteaubriand through Clément Marot Had a statue erected. Françoise's early death sparked rumors that her husband had her murdered. The king therefore commissioned Marshal and Connétable Anne de Montmorency to investigate the circumstances of Françoise's death. However, Montmorency came to the conclusion that the former mistress died of natural causes. After the death of Jean de Laval († 1543) Francis I was appointed his sole heir.

reception

The French composer Henri Montan Berton wrote the opera Francoise de Foix in 1809, which premiered on January 28, 1809 in Paris.

literature

  • Heinrich Laube: The Countess Chauteaubriand . Novel. Leipzig 1843.
  • Sylvia Jurewitz-Freischmidt: The mistresses of the Loire castles. Queens and mistresses around the lily throne . Piper, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-492-23805-2 , pp. 170-172, pp. 176-178, 188-189.
  • Georges Gustave Toudouze: Françoise de Châteaubriant et François 1er . Floury, Paris 1948.
  • Gerd Hit: Francis I of France (1494–1547). Rulers and patrons . Pustet, Regensburg 1993, ISBN 3-7917-1368-X , p. 91.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Foix family tree , accessed June 29, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Foix, Françoise de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Foix, Comtesse de Laval-Châteaubriant, Françoise de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of the French King Franz I.
DATE OF BIRTH between 1490 and 1495
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1537
Place of death at Châteaubriant