Madame de Montespan

Madame de Montespan was the most prominent mistress of Louis XIV during the middle years of his reign. She became a major patron and mother of several legitimised royal children, but her position declined amid court rivalry and association with the Affair of the Poisons.

Madame de Montespan also held the offices or ranks of favourite. Madame de Montespan belonged to the House of Rochechouart and operated within France. Madame de Montespan was born in Lussac-les-Châteaux and died in Bourbon-l'Archambault.

Antonia Fraser’s Love and Louis XIV treats Madame de Montespan as one of the defining women of Louis XIV’s reign, following her rise as the king’s principal mistress, the children born from their relationship and the influence that proximity to the monarch could create at court. Fraser also places her eventual displacement within Louis’s changing religious life and the ascent of Madame de Maintenon, showing how intimacy at Versailles could become a matter of reputation and politics.