(Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise de)
(Lussac-les-Châteaux, 1640 - Bourbon-l'Archambault, 1707.) Favorite of Louis XIV.
Daughter of Gabriel de Rochechouart, Prince of Tonnay-Cnarente, Duke of Mortemart. She is called, at Court, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente. Blonde beauty in full bloom, she soon supplants, in the heart of Louis XIV, Louise de La Vallière, whose friendship she had won. It took her, however, seven years to become the only official royal mistress (1674).
The Mortemart's greed, pride and biting spirit aroused many enemies for Françoise Athénaïs. La Grande Mademoiselle, the Duke of Lauzun, Bossuet, the future Bishop of Meaux, do not spare the new favorite. And her husband Louis de Pardaillan, Marquis de Montespan, whom she married in 1663, insolently mourns.
The Marquise will give eight children to the Sun King. Two will die young, the six others will be legitimized:the Duke of Maine, the Count of Vexin, Mademoiselle de Nantes, Mademoiselle de Tours, Mademoiselle de Blois (who will marry Philippe d'Orléans, the future regent), finally the Count of Toulouse. Louis XIV will abandon Madame de Montespan for Marie Angélique de Scorraille de Roussffie, created Duchess of Fontanges.
This last woman who died in childbirth (1681), Madame de Montespan did not regain the love of the monarch:the scandal of the Poisons affair, which the Duchess of Soissons, Madame de Vivonne, Madame de La Mothe, and Madame des Œillets had already suffered, seriously compromised her. The daughter of the poisoner Mauvoisin, known as la Voisin*, Marguerite, confessed to police lieutenant La Reynie, the day after her mother's execution, that she had often received visits from Madame de Montespan, that the Marquise had actively participated in three black masses accompanied by the assassination of newborns, and that she even declaimed succession powder in order to get rid of the king.
The sorcerers Lesage and Mariette, accomplices de la Voisin, corroborate this statement.
Louis XIV renounced legal proceedings, but broke away from his mistress and only had official relations with her for eleven years.
The Marquise de Montespan left interesting memoirs.