Antoine II Coëffier (or Coiffier) de Ruzé (or Coiffier-Ruzé), Marquis d'Effiat, was a French aristocrat who born in 1638 or 1639 and died in Paris in June 1719.

A grand seigneur with possessions in the Auvergne, Loire Valley, and Paris regions, he was a member of the court at Versailles and a keen hunter on his lands and those of the House of Orléans.

Members of the court suspected him of having poisoned Philippe's first wife, Henrietta of England, and he was an enemy of the second, Princess Palatine Elisabeth-Charlotte of Bavaria.

Nevertheless, he played a role in concluding the latter's marriage to Mademoiselle de Blois and became one of her "roués", debauched companions at the famous "petits soupers".

[7] Antoine II Coëffier de Ruzé was marquis of Effiat, lord of Vichy, Longjumeau, Gannat,[8] Montrichard[9] and Chilly.

[13] In the mid-1660s, the Marquis d'Effiat entered the household of Monsieur (Philippe d'Orléans), brother of Louis XIV, where he obtained the enviable positions of premier écuyer and grand veneur.

[1] His wife, Marie-Anne Olivier de Leuville, became governess to Monsieur's children[7] in December 1679, but did not hold this position for long, dying in February 1684.

He liked to stay there and, as in Montrichard, to hunt in the forest of Montargis,[14] as Saint-Simon, who disliked him and despised his family origins, too recent nobility according to him, points out:Effiat lived as a boy, very rich, very inaccessible, very fond of hunting, and had the pack of Monsieur, and after him [that] of M. le Duc d'Orléans, who had no use for them; six or seven months of the year in Montargis, or in his lands almost alone, and seeing only obscure people, very particular, and also obscure in Paris, with creatures of the same kind; sometimes debuting in good company, as he was only good with his grisettes and his complaisants.

He was a rather small man, dry, well-built, upright, clean, with a blond wig, a shaggy face, very glorious, polite with the world, and who had a great deal of the language and bearing of it.Fontenelle seems to have had a very different opinion of the Marquis d'Effiat.

Some of the most agreeable Authors who have entered this Collection have had the honour of being in a private company with you & I owe you even the greater part of their Works, which they have done for you or which they have entrusted to you.

[20][21] Although the Chevalier de Lorraine was the main lover of the Duc d'Orléans, the relationship was not exclusive, and the duo sometimes became a trio with the Marquis d'Effiat.

The angry Chevalier de Lorraine takes refuge with the Marquis d'Effiat in Chilly, before returning to court at Effiat's insistence.

[23] Saint-Simon specialist Damien Crelier considers this group of favorites, including the Marquis d'Effiat, to be composed of homosexuals for opportunism.

To find out the truth, Louis XIV allegedly questioned Purnon, Madame's first butler, who accused the Chevalier de Lorraine of being responsible for the poisoning.

In addition to the accusation, Saint-Simon portrays the Marquis d'Effiat as an unscrupulous schemer, while discreetly alluding to his homosexuality:[30]the Marquis d'Effiat was a man of great wit and manoeuvrability, who had neither soul nor principles, who lived in a disorder of morals and public irreligion, equally rich and miserly, with an ambition which always sought a way to achieve it, and to whom everything was good for that, insolent to the last point with M. le Duc d'Orléans himself, who, from the time when, with the Chevalier d'Lorraine, whose damned soul he was, he governed Monsieur, his court and often his affairs, with a rod, and to whom everything was good for that.

the Duc d'Orléans himself, who, from the time when, with the Chevalier de Lorraine, whose damned soul he was, he ruled Monsieur, his court and often his affairs, with a rod, had become accustomed to fearing him and admiring his spirit.

[31]In 1716, almost fifty years after the death of Henrietta of England, Princess Palatine, Monsieur's second wife and a close enemy of the Marquis d'Effiat, returned to the same accusations.

[37] With candor and humor, she points out the consequences of the poisoning rumor: "Whether true or false, this accusation constitutes a fine title of honor for entrusting my son to him", she writes.

If he becomes my son's governor, I can be sure he will teach him what is most horrible in the world.Indeed, this plan has sometimes been misinterpreted as a hidden desire to steer the young Duc de Chartres towards homosexuality.

[39] In the end, the King reassured the Princess Palatine that there was no question of appointing Effiat governor to her nephew the Duc de Chartres.

[31]In short, Saint-Simon and the Princess Palatine, who differed on many other points, shared the same dislike for the Chevalier de Lorraine and the Marquis d'Effiat.

[22] After Monsieur died in 1701, the new Duc d'Orléans, future Regent, remained close to his father's friends, including the Marquis d'Effiat.

[45] When Louis XIV died in September 1715 and the Regency was established, the Marquis d'Effiat tried unsuccessfully to use his influence to keep his relative Jérôme Phélypeaux de Pontchartrain's position as Secretary of State for the Navy and the King's Household.

He bequeathed 60,000 livres to create a school for six poor gentlemen from Auvergne, to be taught literature, philosophy, blazon, geography, and mathematics from the age of seven to eighteen.