There's no doubt about the top position that a woman could reach in France in the time of Louis XIV, the Sun King, at least by her own efforts. That supreme goal was to be the king's official maitresse en titre, the king's official mistress. Louis in his long reign had just three. It is the middle of these, Athenais, or to give her proper due, the Marquise de Montespan, about whom Lisa Hilton has chosen to write a biography, titled "The Real Queen of France".
As that title suggests, Hilton admires Athenais; she's more than a little seduced by this powerful character, but then given all of the assassination that the marquise's character has endured – in her lifetime and afterwards – perhaps as a corrective that's no bad thing. We can do with positive, approving accounts of powerful women – particularly those who've started from practically nowhere and risen, determinedly and creatively, to the very top.
But that's not a view of her generally shared by either contemporaries or later historians. The famous letter writer Madam de Sevigne called her "the Torrent", or "Circe", and her character's been blackened by her alleged involvement in the "The Affair of the Poisons" – a murky, widespread case of alleged sorcery, witchcraft and poisoning that stretched through all of French society, from the bottom to the centre of Versailles itself. (Hilton convincingly acquits Athenais of serious involvement in the case – she might indeed have used love potions on the king, but wild claims of black masses and poisoning attempts don't, she says, hold up to any sort of scrutiny, and can be traced to political machinations behind the investigation.)
That's not to say, however, that Athenais didn't have contemporary admirers – not to mention those seeking to ride on the skirt-tails of her success – they called her La Grande Sultane, or La Maitress Regnante. And that hints at what Hilton sees as her greatest success – and contribution to France – her place at the very creative heart of the cultural heartland that Versailles became.
Hilton is very good at setting the scene of Versailles – the way Louis – his childhood scarred by conflict between his regent mother and the aristocracy – sought to enfold and trap France's entire ruling class within this gilded prison, and the way in which its excessive luxury was, she says, a driving force for France's industrial development, and growth of France as the defining luxury brand – a position that to large degree it still holds today.
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