Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine (, ), or only Surintendante, was the senior lady-in-waiting at the royal court of France from 1619 until the French revolution. The Surintendante was selected from the members of the highest French nobility.
History The office was created in 1619. Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2013 The Surintendante and the Governess of the Children of France were the only female office holders in France to give an oath of loyalty to the King himself.Jeroen Frans Jozef Duindam: Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780.
The surintendante had about the same tasks as the Première dame d'honneur: receiving the oath of the female personnel before they took office and supervising them and the queen's daily routine, as well as organizing the accounts and staff list, but she was placed in rank above the première dame d'honneur. Whenever the surintendante was absent, she was replaced by the première dame d'honneur. The post of surintendante could be left vacant for long periods, and was abolished between the death of Marie Anne de Bourbon in 1741 and the appointment of the Princesse de Lamballe in 1775.
During the Second French Empire, the Grande-Maitresse of Empress Eugénie de Montijo was the equivalent of the Surintendante, being formally the highest female official at court but in practice with the same tasks as the dame d'honneur; this position was held by Anne d'Essling during that entire period (1853–1870).Seward, Desmond: Eugénie. An empress and her empire. (2004)
List of surintendante to the queen of France
Anne of Austria, 1619–1666
1619–1637: Marie de Rohan 1657–1666: Anne Marie Martinozzi, Princess of Conti
Maria Theresa of Spain, 1660–1683
1660–1661: Anne Gonzaga 1661–1679: Olympia Mancini, Countess of Soissons 1679–1683: Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan
Marie Leszczyńska, 1725–1768
1725–1741: Marie Anne de Bourbon 1741–1768: Abolished
Marie Antoinette, 1775–1792
1775–1792: Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princesse de Lamballe
See also Mistress of the Robes, British equivalent Camarera mayor de Palacio, Spanish equivalent Chief Court Mistress, Dutch, German, Scandinavian and Russian equivalent
References