Secrets of History | Agnès Sorel - First Among Favorites

A 2014 France TV History Documentary hosted by Stéphane Bern. Audio in French with English subtitles.

Agnès Sorel was 20 years old when she met Charles VII. She was the first official mistress of a king of France, in 1444. She was distinguished by her youth and her great beauty. A charm that even her fiercest enemies, like Pope Pius II, recognized in her. Her excess of jewelry, her extravagant outfits and her taste for the arts created scandal at the same time as they brought light into the old palaces of the kingdom. Both free and pious, Agnès transformed King Charles VII, 18 years her senior, and played a major political role at his side, in a kingdom tormented by the Hundred Years' War.