Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, was born in a French prison in 1635, her father a condemned traitor and murderer, her mother the warden's seduced daughter. Yet, armed with beauty, intellect, and shrewd judgment, she was to make her way to the center of power at Versailles, the most opulent and ambitious court in all Europe.

Sparkling with irresistible wit, fine detail, and novelistic sweep, this exactingly researched biography is a pinnacle of the form.