Françoise de Foix

Françoise was thus a second cousin of the Duchess of Brittany and Queen of France, Anne, whose mother had been a daughter of Gaston IV and Leonor.

Françoise was brought up at Anne's court, where she met Jean de Laval, count of Châteaubriant, to whom she was engaged in 1505.

Jean de Châteaubriant and his wife assisted in the ceremony, and Françoise was placed near to the royal princesses, which signified to the Court that she was La mye du roi ("The Sweetheart of the King").

After returning to Châteaubriant, Françoise continued to live with her husband, Jean, who was made governor of Brittany and received other favours.

Her death is the subject of rumours: one legend, related by the French historian Antoine Varillas, and taking credence from the known brutality of Jean de Laval, claims that the Count shut his wife in a dark, padded cell and had her killed.

[4] She is interred in the church of the Trinitarians of Châteaubriant, where her husband erected a tomb in her memory, with an epitaph by Clément Marot and a statue of her.

An anecdote about an unnamed mistress of Francis I, where the lady is almost surprised by the king when in bed with the admiral Bonnivet, is often attributed to Françoise de Foix.