Marie de Beauvilliers

Marie-Catherine de Beauvilliers (25 April 1574 – 1667) was a French abbess. When she was 24 she entered the convent-abbey of Montmartre in Paris, installed as abbess in succession to her sister, some three years later, in 1601. As a young woman she became one of the many mistresses of King Henry IV, when he lodged at the abbey while laying siege to Paris in 1590. It is nevertheless Marie-Catherine who is credited with having subsequently restored the abbey to moral and physical good order. Life 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. She was the daughter of Claude de Beauvilliers, the Count of Saint-Aignan and of Marie Babou de la Bourdaisière. The family was well connected. At the age of 7 Marie-Catherine joined the Abbey of Peray to the west. When the abbess died she was returned to her home region and placed under the tutelage of an uncle, her parents having by now died. Then in 1582, she joined the monastery at Beaumont where the abbess, Anne Babou de la Bourdaisière, was her aunt. In 1586, now aged 12, she was baptised by her uncle, the future Cardinal de la Bourdaisière. She took her own religious vows four years later, becoming a nun at Montmartre Abbey in Paris on 11 June 1590.