Marie de Hautefort

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Marie de Hautefort 1616 – 1691

The daughter of Renée du Bellay and Charles de Hautefort, Marie was the sister of the Marquis Jacques-François de Hautefort and the granddaughter of François, Marquis de Hautefort. Born in 1616 at the Château de Hautefort, she never knew her father, who died two months after her birth in Poitiers. Marie was still very young when she had the wish to discover Paris and life in the royal court. Her wish was granted when, aged 12, she became maid-in-waiting to Marie de Médicis in 1628.

King Louis XIII noticed her straightaway. Her beauty, modesty, piety and virtue ignited true passion in the King. Their relationship remained platonic, however. It is also said that Marie was quite acquisitive, haughty and prone to complaining most bitterly. When she was in a bad mood, the King called her “the creature." In court, she was named “la belle Aurore” (“beautiful Aurore”) by everyone.

Following the journée des Dupes and the Queen going into exile, Marie entered the service of Anne of Austria, becoming her confidante and devoted friend. Richelieu attempted, in vain, to make her spy on the Queen. Marie thereby became an enemy of the Cardinal, who kept her away from the King by providing him with a new mistress. After criticising the King’s new favourite, Henri Coiffier de Ruzé d’Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars, she became involved in intrigues, which caused her to fall from favour with the King and be exiled to the Château de La Flotte in 1639. Thus began a long friendship with Paul Scarron.

After the deaths of the King and Cardinal Richelieu, Marie was back in favour when she returned to the Court of France in 1643. Once more the darling of the court, she once more rejected the most advantageous marriages. However, her scheming against the new cardinal, Mazarin, earned her a second period of exile on the 14th of April 1644. This time she withdrew to a convent, until she married Maréchal Charles de Schomberg on the 24th of September 1646.

When her husband died on the 6th of June 1656, Marie, then aged 40, returned to Paris and became involved in a great battle of the salons. When Louis XIV divided his kingdom, he suggest to Marie that she accept one of the most elevated positions in the Court, that of lady-in-waiting to the Dauphine. In spite of the King’s insistence, Marie refused because of her age and state of health. From then on, she dedicated herself to charity. On the 1st of August 1691, “la belle Aurore” died at the age of 75. As she refused to be buried in a cemetery, her body rests in the church of Saint-Nicolas des Champs.