St. Mary’s College Professor of History Christine Adams will participate in a virtual author panel titled, Medieval & Early Modern Women in Politics & Power, sponsored by Penn State Press, on her book, “The Creation of the French Royal Mistress: From Agnès Sorel to Madame Du Barry,” on Friday, September 25, at 7 p.m. The virtual event is open to the public.
The book is co-authored by her sister Tracy Adams, professor of French in the School of Cultures, Languages and Linguistics at the University of Auckland.
The book description: “Kings throughout medieval and early modern Europe had extraconjugal sexual partners. Only in France, however, did the royal mistress become a quasi-institutionalized political position. This study explores the emergence and development of the position of French royal mistress through detailed portraits of nine of its most significant incumbents: Agnès Sorel, Anne de Pisseleu d’Heilly, Diane de Poitiers, Gabrielle d’Estrées, Françoise Louise de La Baume Le Blanc, Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Françoise d’Aubigné, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, and Jeanne Bécu.”
Adams is the author or coeditor of four books, including “A Taste for Comfort and Status: A Bourgeois Family in Eighteenth-Century France.”
Virtual registration information:
Zoom registration link: https://psu.zoom.us/webinar/register/9815992330851/WN_lVJZ1j2oRt-TB6-_2WDf8A
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/675965896602733
Event series page: https://www.psupress.org/PSUP_Presents.html
