European Furniture & Decorative Arts

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Bonne de Pons (1640-1709) was a French courtier born in a family of old nobility. Her social advancement was owed to her uncle, César Phoebus d’Albret, Count of Miossens (French soldier and Marshal of France under King Louis XIV) who used his connections to secure Bonne a position in the Royal Court as lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie-Thérèse. While at Versailles, Bonne captured King Louis XIV's interest with her beauty and wit, and quickly became one of his bedfellows and close confidants (though never an official mistress)—to the dismay of his then-mistress Mademoiselle de La Vallière. Word of the tension Bonne was creating at court reached Marshal d'Albret who called her back to Paris and arranged her marriage to Michel Sublet, Marquis d'Heudicourt, Grand Louvetier (Master of the Wolf Hunt) to the King.

Upon her marriage to a court official, Bonne was allowed to return to Versailles, where she regained Louis XVI's confidence. Her closeness to the king and his current mistress Madame de Maintenon resulted in her knowledge of their illegitimate children—information which she leaked in a letter to her lover Monsieur de Bethune, the Polish Ambassador, resulting in her disgrace and exile from court. Despite later being invited back to live at Versailles with her husband on request of Madame de Maintenon (Bonne's close friend and secret wife to Louis XVI), her reputation was tainted, and her waning beauty and health became the object of ridicule.