Dimensions
159 x 241 x 32mm
The reign of Athenais de Montespan as maitresse en titre to Louis XIV corresponds with the most glorious period of the grand siecle.
Athenais was "the true Queen of France", the symbol of the apotheosis of French culture in the seventeenth century. As a lover, she risked the disgrace of double adultery to conduct an affair which scandalised Europe; as a patron, she supported many of the leaders of a cultural renaissance; as a mother, she is the ancestor of most of the royal houses of Europe.
Lisa Hilton's superb new biography chronicles the life of this most extraordinary of historical figures.
Few women can have been loved so publicly and as flamboyantly as Athenais, and fewer still so indulged. If her faults were caprice, extravagance and temper, her taste enabled her to convert them into a prescient originality which did much to create the court that dazzled the world. Bringing her subject to life, Lisa Hilton tells the compelling story of the influential woman behind the seventeenth century's most influential man.
