[2] Marie-Catherine de Beauvilliers was born at the Château of La Ferté Imbert at Chantenay-Saint-Imbert, roughly 240 km (150 miles) to the south of Paris.

The king, accompanied by an army of approximately 12,000 men, was undertaking a siege of Paris in the context of the religious wars of the time.

[4] The king and the young nun fell in love, their relationship becoming the subject of much comment among the soldiers and the Paris citizenry, while Montmartre Abbey acquired the popular soubriquet, "magasin des putains de l'armée" (loosely: "The army shop of whores").

[4] She was received with great fanfare in Senlis, but the affair quickly ran its course and she was supplanted in the king's affections by Gabrielle d'Estrées.

[3] Sources differ as to when she became abbess, but she retained the position for a remarkably long time, retiring from it only in 1657, probably on account of her extreme old age.