A Portrait in Black and White

Diane de Poitiers was beautiful, wealthy, and well educated. Nineteen years his senior, she was the mistress of King Henri II of France. Henri was devoted to her throughout his life. His childhood attachment turned into an adolescent attraction, and eventually into a passionate and consuming love. His greatest wish was to make her his wife and to have her rule France at his side. However, theirs was a time when royal marriages were arranged for political gain, and Henri’s first duty was to France; he was forced to marry a woman he could never love.

During the Renaissance in France it was not only accepted, but expected, that the King would have a mistress. Yet this was the time of the Reformation in Europe, and Diane was torn between her conscience and Rome, which praised her role as the king’s mistress in furthering the cause of the Catholic church.

Written in the format of Diane’s diary, A Portrait in Black and White is not only the story of Diane and Henri. It is a portrait of the society and culture of their time, and the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics, at the expense of one woman’s soul.