Everything about Agn S Sorel totally explained
Agnès Sorel (External Link
) (
1421 –
February 9,
1450), surnamed
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 he gave her the
Château de Loches as her private residence, and took her as his mistress.
(External Link)
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.
(External Link)
Illegitimate children, suspicious death
Agnès gave birth to three daughters:
Marie de Valois and Charlotte and Jeanne de France. While pregnant with their fourth child, she joined Charles on the campaign of
1450 in
Jumièges, wanting to be with him as moral support. There, she suddenly became ill and died on
February 9 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, with suspects being unknown.
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 poisoned Agnès 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.
(External Link) 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
Publication
Duquesne, Vie et Aventures galantes de la belle Sorel, (Paris, 1909)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Agn S Sorel'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://agn__s_sorel.totallyexplained.com">Agnès Sorel Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
)