Françoise d'Aubigné

Françoise d'Aubigné, later Madame de Maintenon, was a French noblewoman who became Louis XIV’s second wife in a secret marriage.

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Louis XIV: King of France from 1643 to 1715, whose long reign strengthened the monarchy and shaped European politics. Their secret marriage made her a lasting presence beside the king.
Niort: A city in western France, in the historic province of Poitou. D’Aubigné was born there in 1635.
Maison royale de Saint-Louis: A boarding school for girls of impoverished noble families, founded by Maintenon at Saint-Cyr in 1686. Maintenon created and supervised this institution as a lasting educational project.
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes: Louis XIV’s 1685 repeal of the protections granted to French Protestants by the Edict of Nantes. Maintenon’s religious influence has often been discussed in connection with the revocation.
Madame de Montespan: Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Louis XIV’s influential mistress and mother of several of his children. Maintenon became governess to Montespan’s children before rising in the king’s favor.
Agrippa d'Aubigné: A French Protestant poet, soldier, and historian who was Françoise d’Aubigné’s grandfather. His family legacy and political fortunes shaped her early circumstances.
Saint-Cyr-l'École: A commune west of Paris, site of the Maison royale de Saint-Louis. The school she founded was established at Saint-Cyr.
French Catholic Church: The Catholic institutions and communities established in France under the authority of the pope. Her Catholic convictions and court position linked her to religious life under Louis XIV.
Madame de Sévigné: A French aristocrat and letter writer whose correspondence records court and social life in the seventeenth century. Her letters offer contemporary observations of Maintenon and the royal court.
Huguenots: French Protestants influenced by Reformed Christianity, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her family’s Protestant background framed her childhood before her conversion to Catholicism.