AGNES SOREL, THE FIRST FAVOURITE

Exceptional destinies

An episode from the series SECRETS OF HISTORY - PORTRAITS

Synopsis

She was the first official mistress of a French king in 1444.

Agnès Sorel was barely 20 years old and a great beauty when she met Charles VII. Her charm was such that even her fiercest enemies, including Pope Pius II, acknowledged it.

Her countless jewels, extravagant clothes, and taste for the arts were a source of scandal while, at the same time, bringing glitter into the kingdom's drab old palaces. Both free-spirited and pious, Agnes transformed King Charles VII, her elder, by 18 years and played a significant political role alongside him in a kingdom ravaged by the Hundred Years' War.