AGNES SOREL 



In the face of conflicting records it is no easy 

 matter to determine when Agnes Sorel first 

 became the king's mistress. In 1435, when 

 the Treaty of Arras was concluded between 

 Charles and the Duke of Burgundy, Cardinal de 

 Sainte-Croix (afterwards Pope Pius the Second) 

 was Papal legate at the French Court, and aided 

 in the negotiations. He tells in his memoirs 

 that the relation between Charles and Agnes 

 was known publicly at the time, and that the 

 king could do nothing without her, even having 

 her at his side at the royal councils. The trust- 

 worthiness of this statement has, however, been 

 so questioned, that it seems safer to endeavour to 

 arrive at the truth from other sources, although, 

 if the statement can be relied on, it seems to 

 follow, almost as a matter of course, that Agnes 

 must have been born earlier than 1422. It is 

 an admitted fact that between 1433 and 1438 

 the manner of Charles's life entirely changed. 

 In the year 1433 the infamous and once all- 

 powerful favourite, La Tremoille, who had been 

 the king's evil genius for six years, and was 

 largely responsible for the king's treatment 

 of his wife, Marie of Anjou, was dismissed at 

 the instance of the politic Yolande. Yet even 

 so, the king often relapsed into indolence and 

 apparent indifference to his kingly duties, and it 

 was not till after 1438, when he summoned a 

 national Council at Bourges, that Charles showed 

 himself to be a new man. It is also not long 

 after this that we read of favours granted by the 



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