Diane de Poitiers was Queen Catherine de' Medici's rival at the 16th century French court.
As the story goes, Queen Catherine and Diane as King Henry II’s favorite mistress,
reputedly loathed each other and spent the majority of their lives
competing for the attention of Henry both before and after he was crowned king.
Here are some of the strangest things about Diane de Poitiers that kept her
the king's favorite right up to his death.
She Was A Tomboy.
Diane was obsessed with physical fitness and excessively proud of her body. Some say
she loved to boast about her breast. As a child, she was a keen athlete,
keeping active by riding and swimming every day.
And after having two children with her doddering old husband (more on that later), she became
obsessive about keeping a trim, fit figure so she went riding and swimming regularly, making
her body toned and athletic in a time where people expected women to just sit still and look pretty.
She Was Also An Obsessive Bather.
Diane bathed as often as three times a day in cold water and
also at night if there was moonlight. This was at a time when people rarely
bathed and used copious amounts of perfume to cover their body odor.
Frigid cold water was her bathing temperature of choice. It was perfect to keep her skin tight,
and keep a young appearance, since she was much older than her royal paramour.
She Used Sperm Whale Vomit On Her Face.
According to an inside source at the court, Diane made a facial mask used melon juice,
crushed young barley, and an egg yolk mixed with ambergris, a type of sperm whale vomit.
It has a somewhat marine yet fecal odor when first harvested but acquires a sweet,
earthy scent as it aged so we can only hope that she used it after it had aged for a while.
She Wore A Mask But Not For The Reason That You Think.
Let's face it (pun intended); Diane was extremelty vane. She protected her face
from the sun and wind at all times by wearing a black velvet mask called a vizard, covering her
whole face. She had an extremely white complexion (as was the rage at that time) but not because she
used make up to achieve the look. Rather she was anemic from well; the next fact tells you why.
She Drank & Bathed Gold.
Diane primarily drank gold straight up,
royal water which was actually a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid.
Diane actually drank so much of this golden elixer that when specimens
of her hair were analyzed after excavation of her body in 2008;
it was found to have gold concentrations 500 times more than what would be considered healthy,
plus her hair shafts were extremely thin, indicating a possible symptom of gold toxicity.
She was also known to have bathed with some form of gold in her frigid bath water.
She Had A Thing For Diana, The Huntress.
Diane identified with the Roman goddess, Diana the huntress from mythology, and
wanted to emulate the the ancient Goddess so she posed repeatedly in various degrees of undress.
There have been at least eighteen works of art, paintings, sketches,
or medallions identified, with Diane as the model. She also took up the
symbol of the crescent moon symbolizing feminine power, creativity and intuition.
She Only Wore Black With White And No Other Colors.
At the tender age of 15, Diane was forced to marry a man said to have been old, ugly,
and hunchbacked; but he was a grandson of King Charles VII of France so her parent sold her out.
Upon his death when Diane was 30,
she took to wearing clothing that had only black and white as colors.
At that time in France, a widow had the choice of wearing either black or white when in mourning.
Diane, perhaps because she wanted to stand out (did I say she was
vane?) decided to wear both at the same time.
Some records say she wore the colors to represent the light and dark side of the
moon (harking back to her identification with the huntress Goddess Diana);
but others say it was a political ploy to appear a devoted widow.
She Was A Child Molester
Diane decided that it was in her interest to become a royal mistress so what did she do
but bed the 15 year old son of King Francis I of France, Prince Henry.
Many historians believe Diane bedded the young Henry when she was 35,
which wasn't hard since he was so madly in love with her and had been since he was 12.
Henry was just married to Catherine de Medici (see my other videos on her)
and Diane wanted to ensure that her charms really took hold with the immature Prince.
Just so you know, some historians believe that they were already lovers at the time of Henry's
marriage to Catherine, while others say that they didn't get conjugal until Henry was older;
so the exact timing and age of the molestation of the teenage Henry can be disputed.
She Loved Being Naked (and did I say she was vane?)
Another of Diane’s favorite pastimes was posing in the buff for portraits.
Here are just some of the portraits she had done
of herself partially clothed or without any clothes at all.
I hope you enjoyed getting the inside scoop on just how strange Diane de Poitiers was
and she remained so until her death by, guess what, a horse riding accident.
I guess that sometimes too much of a good thing can be, well, disastrous.
Thanks for watching. Here are some more videos
about the French court of Henry II in the 16th century. Enjoy.