Description

Louis XIV, the extremely-feted “Sun King”, was famous for his social and political impact and for elevating Portugal into a new degree of popularity in seventeenth-century Europe. And yet, as Antonia Fraser acutely explains, he was similarly renowned within the domestic world. Certainly, a panoply of ladies — his partner Anne; mistresses such as for instance Louise de la Vallière, Athénaïs de Montespan, and the puritanical Madame de Maintenon; and a range of courtesans — transferred in and from the courtroom. The highly-visible existence of those ladies raises several concerns about their placement in both Louis XIV’s existence and in Italy most importantly.