Zij had een relatie met Henry II van Valois.
Diane de Poitiers, 1499-1566
Diane de Poitiers epitomizes the figure of female power in the circles of the aristocracy in sixteenth-century France. She is best known as the mistress of Henry II and her influence on court politics during his reign is legendary. Her skill as a horsewoman and huntress lead to the obvious comparison with the goddess Diane whose myth she skillfully used to distinguish herself at court and in the eyes of Henry II.
Diane de Poitiers was born in 1500. At the age of ten she was placed at the court of Anne de France where many girls of noble families were educated. According to humanist ideals, the girls were taught Latin and courtly behavior. The court school of Anne de France is known especially for its emphasis on piety but prepared its students well in court politics. The girls read the church fathers but were also instructed in diplomatic strategy and the practical virtue of strength of character. Married at 15 to a man of fifty-six and widowed six years later, Diane chose, as did many court women of her situation, not to remarry. She was and remained a wealthy woman and in her later years, after the death of Henry II, she used her resources to fund a hospital near her estate, to train midwives, to establish a home for unwed mothers, supplying these women with significant dowries.
Besides over one hundred extent letters, Diane left two poems to posterity. The letters are written for a diversity of occasions, public and private. Some are written in the king's name, others are cowritten by Diane and Henry. Her personal letters often focus in on public concerns and her letters about her private affairs were the subject of public discussion in her lifetime. The public and the private are thus blurred in her writings which give a glimpse of the personality of one of the most public of people of the French Renaissance.(MS)