Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon

Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon was the second wife of Louis XIV and an influential figure at the French court. Rising from a precarious background, she became governess to the king’s legitimised children and later his private or morganatic wife, promoting piety and education.

In Antonia Fraser’s Love and Louis XIV, Fraser focuses on the queen, mistresses and later Madame de Maintenon, treating them as political actors within the culture of absolutist monarchy rather than as decorative figures at court.