Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues

Infobox Person
name = Henriette d'Entragues
Marquise de Verneuil


image_size = 200px
caption = Portrait of Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues
birth_date = 1579
birth_place =
death_date = 1633
death_place =
occupation =
spouse = None
parents = Charles Balzac d'Entragues Marie Touchet
children = Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil Gabrielle Angelique, Mlle de Verneuil

Catherine Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil (1579 – 1633) was the favourite mistress of Henry IV of France after Gabrielle d'Estrées died. She was the daughter of Charles Balzac d'Entragues and his wife Marie Touchet, who was formerly the sole mistress of Charles IX of France.

King's mistress

Catherine Henriette de Balzac was raised at 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 favoured "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 a conspiracy 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 favour 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.

ee also

*Henry IV of France's wives and mistresses
*List of French royal mistresses

Children

She bore the king two children:

References

*1911