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The nice ones of berth

It is an expression used by Brantôme to indicate nice Charles VIII. When a favorite was well in sight, it had the badge honor to sleep in the royal room. It was a way for the king of rewarding his most faithful servants. With the Rebirth, the royal room is regarded as crowned and capacity to sleep there in presence even of the king - regarded as the lieutenant of God on ground, was the ultimate dedication of a Courtisan. Henri II was a large follower of this demonstration of favor. He used about it much with Anne de Montmorency which by many times had the supreme privilege to sleep with him in its bed. This kind of behavior shocked the Ambassadeur S foreigners, but they were done with the idea because the court of France was famous for its very great familiarity.

Under the rigorous impulse of Henri II and especially that of Henri III, manners of the court of France evolved/moved. One did not enter the royal there room more as one had been able to enter formerly. The royal room became more crowned even and the people who could enter there were the subject of the more sharp jealousies, from where the hardening of the gibes with regard to those which one vulgarly called nice berth at the end of XVIe century.

Presentation

Henri III draws aside from the businesses of the State noble big families which did not cease, since the beginning of the wars of religion, to quarrel for the capacity. It on the contrary will promote at the court of the men of minor nobility, to which it will give very high responsibilities. He intends to be pressed on these new men to control. Its court thus sees appearing a very restricted circle of Favori S which knows, thanks to their guard, a fulgurating fortune. One will call ironically them “the nice ones”.

The Nice ones

Among the most famous names those appear of:

But the two closer collaborators of the king, the let us archimignons , were:

Anne de Batarnay de Joyeuse, baron d' Arques, made duke of Merry
Jean Louis de Nogaret of Valette, called “the half king”, made Duc of Épernon

Portrait of a king

One says of Henri III that it was the favorite of his mother, Catherine de Médicis. Its contemporaries found it beautiful but particularly effeminate and this, perhaps because it was raised by Italians with manners enough dissolues.

The king, with the very wide culture, was indeed very concerned of his appearance, and the mode. Thus, the day of its sacring in the Cathedral of Rheims the February 13rd 1575, it changes seven times of behavior, and it is him even which bent precious stones on its ceremonial fabrics. Two days later, for its marriage with Louise de Vaudémont, it is him which caps the bride and it spends so much time to work the hair of its promised that the ceremony must be deferred to the afternoon.

Henri is the subject however of mocking remarks already on behalf of his contemporaries. It is that at the time, one tolerates still badly, in a court which always promoted rough virility and regarded refinement as weakness, leaning it of Henri III and his entourage for the culture and the direction of the festival. In this Rebirth, Henri thus releases himself from the reliefs of a brutal feudality and the prejudices hastened to catalog it.

Henri III, a ladies' man

If Henri III surrounded himself by a court the “nice ones”, the History forgets that the term is completely deprived, at that time, of homosexual connotation . Thus, contrary to the image which arrived to us, Henri loved the women and had several main:

Louise of Béraudière of Rouhet
Renee de Rieux de Châteauneuf
beautiful the Marie de Clèves, wife of Henri de Condé, is the woman whom he loved most passionately. When he learns his death in October 1574, he will plunge in a dreadful pain. He will refuse to feed during ten days, alternating distress cries and processions of penitent in one is delirious mystical which make fear for its reason.
it enthusiast, little of time before, beautiful Veronica Free, met in Venice after its escape of its kingdom of Poland.
it took finally as wife and queen Louise de Vaudémont, met in Lorraine at the time of its voyage towards Poland. It had then been struck by its resemblance to Marie de Clèves.

Profile of the nice ones

Admittedly, the favorites of Henri III, in the mobility of their suzerain, fardent and powder, carry rings to the ears, lace and fanfreluche but it is, like their guard, of famous soldier and womanizers who prove their value on the battle field. The death of the duke of Merry is the example. The nice ones are thus filled of bravery and plume, proud, readily violent one and agitator.

See too

Bussy d' Amboise
Duel of Nice the

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