Agnes held Charles under a spell. She was his “Queen of Hearts”; he denied her nothing, her will was his. Her influence was complete, and if the poor neglected Queen had thrown upon her frail shoulders the heavy weight of sovereignty, it was fond Agnes’s fair hair that wore the light crown of gaiety. Her tact and unselfishness were remarkable; every domestic squabble and every State imbroglio were quietly and swiftly settled when she joined the fray. Charles could not do enough for his sweetheart. Besides costly presents of jewellery and clothes, he bestowed upon her the county of Penthièvre, the lordships of Roquecesière, Issoudon, and Vernon, with the Castle of Breauté and its great woods of pine-trees.
Agnes had by Charles four daughters; the youngest died in infancy, but the rest grew up, like their mother, famed for good looks and attractive manners, and were legitimatized and married well. Catherine de France, the eldest, wedded, in 1464, Jacques de Brézé, Comte de Maulevrier, and became the accomplished châtelaine of his splendid castle near Saumur. Alas for the joys of married life! the Count, himself unfaithful and intolerant, grew suspicious of his wife’s conduct,—she had attracted the attention of King René, among others,—accused her of adultery, and stabbed her as she was sallying forth one dark November day, 1477, bent upon an errand of charity. Their son, Louis de Brézé became the husband of the celebrated Diane de Poitiers, in 1515, before her liaison with King Henry II. Marguerite de France married, in 1458, Seigneur Olivier de Coëtivi, and died in 1473; and Jeanne de France became the wife of Antoine de Benil, Comte de Sancerre, and received from the King, her father, a dot of 40,000 écus d’or.
These three daughters were born and educated as Princesses of the Royal House, in conformity with the existent code of morals. Queen Marie not only made no demur at their status, but, acting upon the advice of good Queen Yolande, her mother, treated them in every respect as she did her own offspring. When Agnes’s second daughter was married, the Queen stood by her and gave her rich wedding presents. Certainly she was not subjected to the indignity of sharing hearth and home with her husband’s mistress. Dame Agnes Sorel resided at her own Castle de Breauté-sur-Marne, and there she bore him her family. The castle was a bijou residence,—a great favourite of Charles,—and Agnes made it a habitation of beauty, adorned not alone by her own gracious presence, but by the attendance of a brilliant Court, quite outrivalling that of the modest Queen, and filled her rooms and galleries with the countless beautiful and costly gifts of her former devoted mistress, Duchess Isabelle.
Agnes’s ascendancy over Charles VII. was purely erotic. She exercised no influence whatever upon the affairs of state, or, indeed, upon anything but what ministered to his personal pleasure and amusement. However, she was useful, and indeed invaluable, on more than one occasion of danger and suspicion. Unreservedly devoted to her paramour, she was sensitive of any dereliction of duty and of any appearance of intrigue. To her was solely due the detection of the conspiracy of 1449, which, fomented by the Dauphin, threatened the life of the King.
Marie inspired the fervent love of her son, Louis the Dauphin, as she did, in truth, the devotion of all her children. When a stripling of fourteen, he championed his mother against his father’s mistress; and when Agnes made a disparaging remark affecting the Queen, the lad immediately boxed her ears, and warned her never to repeat the offence in his hearing! From that day Louis hated “la Belle des Belles,” and never tired of checking her assumptions. He even dared to protest personally before his father against the King’s neglect of the Queen and his partiality for her Lady of Honour. Charles on one occasion took his son’s strictures seriously to heart, sent for Marie, bewailed his infidelity, and craved her pardon. But the wanton monarch’s day of righteousness was short, for he very soon forgot his son’s vehemence, and went on fondling his favourite.
“La Belle des Belles” died in childbed on February 18, 1450. Her end was quite unexpected, for she had gone on a visit of pleasure to her cousin, Antoinette de Maignelais, the Baroness of Villerequier, at the Castle of Mesnil la Belle, near the far-famed Abbey of Jumièges in Normandy. Her husband, André de Villerequier, was Chamberlain to Charles VII., who presented her at her bridal, as a wedding gift, the three islands, Oléron, Marennes, and Auvert, at the mouth of the River Charente. Floral games and spectacles were engaging the attention of the merry party assembled at the castle, and Agnes Sorel was the gayest of the gay, but unfortunately, tripping upon the sash of her gown, she fell heavily to the ground. She was carried tenderly to her chamber, and at once her life was despaired of. She had barely time to make her confession, and then, calling to mind the example of St. Mary Magdalen, she called aloud to Heaven for pardon of her sins and for the prayers of those standing by. She heard Mass and received the Last Sacraments, and painfully passed away in her cousin’s arms. The distracted Baroness laid the dead head of the lovely Agnes gently upon the pillow, closed the eyes which had spell-bound King Charles and many more besides, and, weeping bitterly, exclaimed: “The good God has taken away my Agnes because He feared she would never lose her beauty.”
King Charles was not with his sweetheart in her death, but he grieved and rocked himself in woe. “Because she was what she was,” he sobbed, “for that I mourn.” He hastened to Jumièges, and with every mark of sincere affection he assisted in placing his Agnes in her coffin. Her heart he had enclosed in a costly gold vase, which he carried about with him wherever he went, and when he died it was deposited by his command beneath a black marble slab in front of the high-altar of Jumièges, with the simple epitaph: “Agnes Seurelle—Dame de Breauté.” Fair Agnes’s body, still comely in death, was ultimately translated by Charles to Loches, and interred in the basement of the King’s Apartments. Her tomb, surmounted by a statue, was erected by her royal lover. Upon a block marble bed reclines a white marble effigy of “la Belle des Belles,” evidently sculptured after life. The fascinating features with her sweet smile are beautifully chiselled, and the graceful figure lightly covered by a long chemise admirably exhibits her exquisitely-proportioned form.
Agnes, in a will she made a year before her death, directed that her body should rest at Jumièges, and she bequeathed 1,000 écus d’or (= £500) to the monastery for Masses for the rest of her soul. She had for years been a munificent benefactress to the clergy of the abbey. When Charles had joined his sweetheart in the Paradise of Love, the ungrateful monks were desirous of removing Agnes’s heart and its memorial tablet, on the score that she had led an immoral life; but Louis XI., in spite of his fierce hatred of his father’s mistress, reproved the religious, and warned them that, if they determined to cast out her remains, they must also divest themselves of the gifts and legacies of their patroness. “If you,” the new King said, “disturb her ashes, I shall expect you to hand over to me the gold écus.” Needless perhaps to say, the worldly-wise Canons kept the money and the heart.
The death of Agnes Sorel had a terrible effect upon the subsequent life of Charles the King. She and Queen Marie between them had managed to keep him free from amorous imbroglios, but now, with only his wife’s protestations to guard him, he gave way to immoderate indulgences, and he, to quote the French,—“enlardit sa vie de tenir males femmes en son hostel!”