Première femme de Chambre

Première femme de Chambre ('First Chamber Maid') was an office at the royal court of France.

Jeanne Louise Henriette Campan, Première femme de Chambre to Marie Antoinette.

The Première femme de Chambre was in charge of the preparing of clothes, cosmetics and other things in the queen's wardrobe for the dressing and undressing ceremony, and supervised the femmes de chambre ('Chamber Maids'), who often reached a number of 16 per annum.[1] The dressing and undressing of the queen was in turn supervised by the dame d'atour. A Première femme de Chambre was not formally ranked as a lady-in-waiting but rather belonged to the chamber staff and as such did not need to be a member of the nobility.

The Première femme de Chambre was the only one of the women of the queen's household except the dame d'honneur to be in possession of the keys to the queen's rooms and in permanent access to the queen.[2] This gave her the opportunity to filter requests of meetings, audiences and messages to the queen and made her a de facto powerful person at court, where she was often flattered and bribed by the courtiers.[3]

Notable examples

See also
  • Woman of the Bedchamber, British equivalent
  • Kammarfru, German and Nordic equivalent

References
  1. Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2013
  2. Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe
  3. Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, eds. The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 2013
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.