The biographer follows a direct, linear path through Athenais's life, beginning with her childhood in a family of the bluest of blue blood, although seeing her prospects of a glorious marriage (by which was meant not one of love but of fine family alliance to money, power and more blue blood) reduced by her father's extravagance and the cost of the dowry of her elder sister. So, Hilton explains, it was at the advanced age of 22 that Athenais was to be tied to the decent, good-lucking and moderately solvent Marquis de Noirmoutiers. Had that come off, Hilton doesn't speculate, although the reader surely must, there might not have been this "Real Queen" – her career might have followed a more conventional path.
But this young man got tangled in a messy case of aristocratic honour – an early morning duel that left three men dead and him fleeing into exile, Curiously, only weeks later, Athenais found herself marrying the Marquis de Montespan, brother of one of the dead man, in the closest thing to a love match the 17th century was likely to see among the aristocracy. He should have been marrying money, so really should she, but he additionally had no connection to power or influence, and a strong reputation for gambling and extravagance – which he was soon to be living up to, and how, as well as proving his inability to succeed at anything he tried his hand at – notably military matters.
So it became essential that she secure for herself a good court post – which she duly did, becoming lady in waiting to the poor dim and dumpy Spanish Queen – that was no fun in itself, but it put Athenais at the centre of the court – in its masques and ballets, its spectacles, and very near to the king himself, and to her fellow lady in waiting, Louise de la Valliere, the king's first, and still installed official mistress. Hilton is rather hard on Louise – she surely can't have been quite so dull as the writer suggests – but it seems clear that once Athenais put her mind – and her body – to it, Louis couldn't but be dazzled, and seduced from his sworn mistress. (Not that, Hilton reports, it was hard to seduce Louis – practically any woman in the right place at the right time could do it – often several of them in one day – but usually it was more than a moment of of diversion.)
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