Louise de La Fayette

Louise Angélique Motier de la Fayette (8 November 1618 – 11 January 1665) was a French courtier and close friend and confidante of King Louis XIII.

In 1635 Cardinal Richelieu sought to attract the attention of Louis XIII to her in the hope that she might counterbalance the influence exercised over him by Marie de Hautefort.

But when he divulged to her his resentment for the Cardinal, she, far from repeating Louis's confidences to the minister, set herself to encourage the King in his resistance to Richelieu's dominion.

She refused, nevertheless, to become Louis's mistress, and after taking leave of the King in Anne of Austria's presence, retired to the convent of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in 1637.

At the time of her death in January 1665, Mlle de La Fayette was superior of a convent of her order which she had founded in 1651 with Henrietta Maria widow of Charles I of England at Chaillot.