Sex with Kings
Eleanor Herman
2000 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge.
HarperCollins
(Bibliothèque Mile-End)
Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshipped, feared, envied and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman’s SEX WITH KINGS takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe’s most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles 500 years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.
Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex, but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with a woman of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped no other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales.
The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable, catering to each of the king’s five senses. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts she was never to be exhausted, complaining or grief-stricken.
True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions—some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels and palaces. Also, some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur a royal courts was a scorpion’s nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition.
Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends, and often they were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her ‘sins.’
From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. Using diaries, personal letters and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman’s trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, this is a chapter of women’s history which has remained unwritten—until now.