From the Publisher
Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.
Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales.
The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken.
True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions — some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat theroyal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins."
From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten — until now.
The New York Times
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Carol Peace Robins
Open Sex With Kings at almost any page and you'll find yourself immersed in a bawdy, deliciously appealing illicit scene occurring in the highest places. In her first book, Herman has written an enlightening social history that is great fun to read … With obvious relish, Herman has created vivid tableaus of these worthy subjects.
The Washington Post -
Jonathan Yardley
… Sex With Kings is entertaining: a beach book, and a lot more fun than Danielle Steel or Dan Brown.
Publishers Weekly
When kings marry foreign strangers for dynastic or financial reasons and queens are trained in piety over sensuality, royal mistresses seem an inevitability. Kings had flings and extramarital relationships through much of European history, and in her first book, Herman offers, with relish and dry wit, a delightful overview of their sexual escapades. Her subjects are international, though France dominates and England gets a strong showing. It's a lively account, organized by topic e.g., "The Fruits of Sin-Royal Bastards." Herman weaves into a larger pattern the tales of recurrent figures, such as Louis XIV's mistress Ath na s de Montespan and Madame de Pompadour, who is perhaps more famous than her royal lover, Louis XV. Fashions, love potions and cheerful conversation kept kings enthralled while mistresses made themselves wealthy, husbands acquiesced or simmered, courtiers wooed the mistresses and the public admired or ridiculed. A striking number of these relationships continued despite arguments and even the lack of sex. George II even felt it necessary to keep a mistress for his reputation despite actually loving his wife. Herman ends on a modern note, recounting how Camilla Parker-Bowles famously introduced herself to Prince Charles by noting that her great-grandmother had been his great-great-grandfather's mistress. Herman ends on a serious note, but her wit and perceptiveness will carry readers through this royally pleasurable romp. Agent, Barbara Perlmutter. (July) Forecast: As Janet Maslin has already indicated in the New York Times, this could be the high-brow sexy beach read of the summer. And though a commoner and American-born, Herman dresses regally in her author photo. BOMC main selection. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An irreproachably researched and amusingly written history of European monarchs' jezebels. In this well-rounded study of royal mistresses past and present, newcomer Herman draws on a wealth of historical documents, letters, diaries, and ambassadorial reports-a treasure trove she mines with an intelligence that can discern between fools' gold and the genuine article. (She makes equally good use of the contemporary lampoons and verses that dot the text.) First, Herman outlines the place of the queen and the mistresses in broad context: obviously there were exceptions, but the queen was often little more than "a walking uterus with a crown on top . . . chaste almost to the point of frigidity, thereby ensuring legitimate heirs," while the ma"tresse en titre could play a much more complex role. After all, "the king could lift the skirts off almost anyone in his realm," so his chief mistress had to possess a variety of talents. She needed to be skilled in bed, of course, but she also had to calm, buoy, and encourage the king; she must have been serene, loyal, and unpretentious, with "a colorful personality, dry wit, kindness, and intelligence that attracted more than high cheekbones and full lips." (It helped if she could charm ambassadors as well.) An official mistress "exerted political influence, the influence of a loved one persuading the monarch to look at a problem from a different angle, to consider different solutions." Herman delves into the respective roles of mistresses in England, France, Belgium, Poland, Germany, and Spain, examining the impact of their milieu on how they were treated and the influence they yielded. She also explains the role of the cuckolded husband, whofrequently got a share of the goods. Today, by contrast, "the royal mistress has no political power whatsoever-as her prince has none himself."Scholarly and entertaining, written with a keen eye for the politics, but never forsaking the pleasures. (16-page color insert, not seen)Agent: S. Fischer Verlag/Krueger Verlag, Germany
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