Valet

In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet" by itself most often refers to a normal servant responsible for the clothes and personal belongings of an employer, and making minor arrangements.

In the United States, the term most often refers to a parking valet, and the role is often confused with a butler.

Alexandre Bontemps, the most senior of the thirty-six valets to Louis XIV of France, was a powerful figure, who ran the Château de Versailles.

In courts, valet de chambre was a position of some status, often given to artists, musicians, poets and others, who generally spent most of their time on their specialized work.

The role was also, at least during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a common first step or training period in a nobleman's career at court.

While in French this word remained restricted to the feudal use for a (knight's) squire, in modern English it came to be used for the various other male servants originally called va(r)let other than the gentleman's gentleman, when in livery usually called lackey, such as the valet de pied ('foot varlet', compare footman).

A 17th-century valet de chambre
Carving of "Bazin", the valet to Aramis , of The Three Musketeers , was a studious person who later became a lay brother. ( Thomas Nicholls carves him brushing his master's clothes whilst studying theology .)