"La Belle Châteauneuf" (
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
16th C.) was the
name popularly given to Renée de Rieux, daughter of Jean de Rieux, seigneur de Châteauneuf, who was descended from one of the greatest families of
Brittany. The dates of her birth and death are unknown.
She was
maid of honour to France's queen mother,
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici ( it, Caterina de' Medici, ; french: Catherine de Médicis, ; 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589) was an Florentine noblewoman born into the Medici family. She was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King ...
, and a member of her notorious "
Flying Squadron" (''L'escadron volant''). She inspired an ardent passion in the
duke of Anjou, brother of
Charles IX. This intrigue deterred the duke from agreeing to an
arranged marriage
Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures a professional matchmaker may be us ...
with
Elizabeth I of England; but he soon abandoned ''la Châteauneuf'' for
Marie of Cleves (1571). The court then wished to find a husband for her, whose singular beauty gave her an influence which the queen-mother feared, and matches were in turn suggested with the
Voivode of Transylvania, the
Earl of Leicester; with
Antoine Duprat,
provost of Paris; and with the
Count of Brienne, all of which came to nothing.
Ultimately, Renée was banished from the court on the ground that she had been lacking in respect toward the queen,
Louise of Lorraine. She married a
Florentine named Antinotti, whom she stabbed in a fit of jealousy (1577). She remarried, her husband being Philip Altoviti, who in 1586 was killed in a duel by the Grand Prior
Henri d'Angoulême, who was himself mortally wounded.
References
Sources
*
*
* Daniel Christiaens, Vladimir Chichkine, ''Une figure de l’escadron volant : Renée de Rieux, la baronne de Castellane'', dans Proslogion, vol. 5 (1), 2019, p. 144-156, DOI: 10.24411/2500-0926-2019-00009
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:La Belle Chateauneuf
French nobility
French people of Breton descent
French maids of honour
Mistresses of French royalty
16th-century French people
French ladies-in-waiting