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La Duchesse : the life of Marie de Vignerot : Cardinal Richelieu's forgotten heiress who shaped the fate of France / Bronwen McShea.

by McShea, Bronwen, author.

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New York : Pegasus Books, 2023.

Aiguillon, Marie Madeleine de Vignerot, duchesse d', 1604-1675.

Richelieu, Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de, 1585-1642 -- Family.

Aiguillon, Marie Madeleine de Vignerot, duchesse d', 1604-1675 -- Influence.

Nobility -- France -- Biography.

France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715.

France -- History -- Louis XIII, 1610-1643.

9781639363476 (hardcover) :

1639363475 (hardcover)

xiv, 466 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm

First Pegasus books cloth edition.

Prologue -- Princesse Nièce. A long journey ; Glénay ; Richelieu ; Uncle Armand's fortunes ; A political marriage ; Paris ; Antoine ; Carmel de l'Incarnation ; The young cardinal's ward ; Serving Marie de' Medici ; A pivotal year ; The blue room ; Uncle Armand's triumph ; The cardinal-minister's reluctant aide ; The coup d'état ; An abduction plot ; "Demi-vierge" ; A budding friendship ; A new kind of literary patroness ; Falling in love ; La valette ; Chosen ; The investiture ; Heartbreak ; A new relationship ; Across the Atlantic ; Childlessness ; Political storms ; Uncle Armand's death ; The will ; Burying the prime minister -- Pair de France. Uncle Armand's papers ; Rueil ; Patroness of a saint ; Tunis and Algiers ; Reforming the clergy ; Saint-Sulpice ; Inheritance disputes ; A wedding ; Civil war ; A tenuous peace ; The Duc de Richelieu's rebellion ; Cardinal Mazarin's "most dangerous enemy" ; The sun king rising ; Governor of Le Havre ; The petit Luxembourg ; A jesuit visitor ; Negotiating with the pope ; Saint Vincent ; Missions for France ; Madagascar ; Ventures in the near east ; "Précieuse ridicule" ; Uncle Armand's legacy ; Family tragedies ; Breast cancer ; Carmel once more ; A forgotte "femme forte" -- Author's afterword.

Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead she was married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, became a widow at eighteen, and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics: the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu. As the Cardinal lay dying, he broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. McShea shows how Marie would go on to shape her country's political, religious, and cultural life. As the unconventional and independent Duchesse d'Aiguillon, her life reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas-- yet she was all but forgotten in modern times. -- adapted from jacket

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