Montespan and Maintenon

Prior to her 2019 bequest, Jayne Wrightsman gave the Morgan a group of forty-one letters and documents that provide a record of French court life from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. Over two-thirds of the documents were written or signed by women, including two queens of France, Marie Leszczyńska and Marie-Antoinette; Josephine, empress of France; Henrietta Maria, queen of England; Maria Theresa, empress of Austria; Catherine the Great, empress of Russia; and Madame de Pompadour, one of the most renowned courtiers of the ancien régime. The pair of documents shown here are signed by two significant women during the reign of Louis XIV: his mistress Madame de Montespan (left) and his second wife, Madame de Maintenon (right).