LA VALLIRE, LOUISE-FRANOISE DE LA BAUME LE BLANC, DUCH

born Aug. 6, 1644, Tours, France died June 6, 1710, Paris mistress of King Louis XIV (reigned 16431715) from 1661 to 1667. La Vallire, the daughter of a military governor, was appointed maid of honour in 1661 to Louis XIV's sister-in-law Henrietta Anne of England, Duchess d'Orlans. Although Louis had been married to the Spanish infanta Marie-Thrse for only about a year, he took La Vallire as his mistress in July 1661. In order to avoid offending his mother, Anne of Austria, the king did not publicly acknowledge the liaison, and La Vallire was too dependent and lacking in self-confidence to assert her rights as official mistress. Anne died in 1666, and in the following year La Vallire was supplanted in Louis's affections by the more worldly and ambitious Marquise de Montespan. He compensated La Vallire by making her a duchess. The marquise's husband, however, attempted to create a scandal by publicly calling attention to his wife's infidelity. To save himself embarrassment, Louis made La Vallire endure the humiliation of remaining at court as official mistress alongside his actual mistress. When La Vallire attempted to escape to a convent in 1671, the king forced her to return. Finally in 1674 the Marquis and Marquise de Montespan were legally separated; Louis then allowed La Vallire to enter a Carmelite convent in Paris, where she lived as a nun, imposing rigorous penances on herself until her death 36 years later. Two of her four children by Louisa son and a daughtersurvived infancy and were legitimized.