Marie of Cleves, Duchess of Orléans


Marie of Cleves was the third wife of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and the mother of his only son, King Louis XII of France. She was born a German princess, the last child of Adolph I, Duke of Cleves and his second wife, Marie of Burgundy.
Marie was a patron of letters and commissioned many works; she was also an active poet herself, producing ballads and other verses. After the Duke's death she was secretly remarried in 1480 to one of her gentlemen of the chamber, the Artesian "Sieur de Rabodanges", who was some years her junior. She died in Chaunay.

Marriage and issue

At age fourteen, Marie married Charles of Valois, Duke of Orléans, a man 32 years her senior, on 27 November 1440 in Saint-Omer. They had three children:
Marie is a character in Hella Haasse's historical novel about Charles, Duke of Orléans In a Dark Wood Wandering.