Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues (1579 - 1633), Marquise de Verneuil, mistress of Henry IV, king of France, was the daughter of Charles Balzac d'Entragues and of Marie Touchet.
Royal ambitions, mistress to a king
Catherine Henriette de Balzac was raised in a time when women often sought to become a mistress to royalty, and her mother Marie had previously been a mistress to Charles IX before her birth. Ambitious, pretty and intriguing, by her late teens she had succeeded in becoming a mistress to Henry IV, and induced him into a promise to marry her following the death of the king's favored official mistress, Gabrielle d'Estrées. This alleged promise led to bitter scenes of jealousy and arguing at the court when shortly afterwards Henry married Marie de Medici instead. Terribly infuriated and feeling betrayed, she carried her spite so far as to be deeply compromised in the conspiracy of Marshal Biron against the king in 1606, but escaped with only a slight punishment after the plot was foiled, and in 1608 Henry actually took her back into favor again as one of his mistresses. She was later involved in the Spanish intrigues which preceded the death of the King in 1610. Upon the King's death, his wife, Queen Marie de Medici, was named Regent by Parliament, and immediately banished Catherine from the royal court. Little is known of Catherine's life after that.
Children
She bore the king two children:
| Name | Birth | Legitimized | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil | 1601 | 1603 | 1682 | Married Charlotte Seguier, daughter of Pierre Séguier, Duc de Villemor. |
| Gabrielle Angelique, called Mademoiselle de Verneuil | 1603 | 1627 | Married Bernard de Nogaret de Foix, Duc de La Valette et d'Epernon. |
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
