Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine

Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine ("Superintendent of the Queen's Household"), or only Surintendante, was the senior lady-in-waiting at the royal court of France from 1619 until the French revolution. The Surintendante was selected from the members of the highest French nobility.

Marie de Chevreuse, for whom the post of Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine was created in 1619.
Marie Louise Thérèse de Savoie de Carignan, princesse de Lamballe by Joseph Duplessis

History

The office was created in 1619.[1] The Surintendante and the Governess of the Children of France were the only female office holders in France to give an oath of loyalty to the King himself.[2]

The surintendante had about the same tasks as the dame d'honneur: receiving the oath of the female personnel before they took office and supervising them and the queen's daily routine, as well as organizing the accounts and staff list, but she was placed in rank above the dame d'honneur.[1] Whenever the surintendante was absent, she was replaced by the dame d'honneur.[1] The post of surintendante could be left vacant for long periods, and was abolished between the death of Marie Anne de Bourbon in 1741 and the appointment of Princess Marie Louise of Savoy in 1775.

During the Second Empire, the Grande-Maitresse was the equivalent of the Surintendante, being formally the highest female official at court but in practice with the same tasks as the dame d'honneur.[3]

List of Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine to the queen of France

Surintendante to Anne of Austria 1619-1666

Surintendante to Maria Theresa of Spain 1660-1683

Surintendante to Marie Leszczyńska 1725-1768

Surintendante to Marie Antoinette 1775-1792

See also

References
  1. Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2013
  2. Jeroen Frans Jozef Duindam: Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780.
  3. Seward, Desmond: Eugénie. An empress and her empire. ISBN 0-7509-2979-0 (2004)
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