#henri iii referring to mignons using feminine nicknames

[chicot-premier]

A political analysis does not suffice to extract the significance of the mignon system. In placing them close by, Henri III likely wanted to form a society chosen from very ear friends linked by a common ideal. Everything leads one to believe that it was a sort of noble association. The words that the king used suggest it: he spoke of his 'dear band (chère bande)', of his 'troupe.' In a letter from Saint-Luc to Saint-Sulpice, we find the expressions 'sworn friendship (amitié jurée)' and 'league formed between us (ligue faite entre nous).' Another letter from François d'O to the same Saint-Sulpice reveals the links that united all mignons to whom the writer called 'master (maître)': 'And you will say,' he wrote to his recipient, 'that you will have such a part in his good graces that you could wish for; at the least, you will have him like we do and us like you do, for those are the same thing.' These relations were manifested through symbolic signs like the wearing of similar garments, such as on January 1, 1579, when Anne de Joyeuse, François de Saint-Luc, François d'O, and Jean-Louis de La Valette were honored with the collar of the Order of the Holy Spirit, they presented themselves dressed exactly like the king. At the marriage of the Duc de Joyeuse, Henri III and the bridegroom dressed in the same sumptuous clothing, covered in embroidery, pearls, and precious stones. Matrimonial politics reinforced the links created thus. François d'O wed Catherine de Villequier; the families of the two archimignons married, on the orders of the king, women from the other family, for the sister of d'Épernon wed Joyeuse's brother and the aunt of the latter was given to the brother of the former. Anne de Joyeuse had, we have seen, wed the sister-in-law of Henri III. This assumes a sort of pact of friendship. But was this particular? According to [Jacqueline] Boucher and [Pierre] Chevallier, it is uncertain. The man that it united distinguished themselves through nicknames, signs of connivance and familiarity. Henri de Saint-Sulpice, for example, was nicknamed 'Colette,' while Henri III called Gilles de Souvré 'ma Gode' [meaning either type of bird called a guillemot in English, or (in old French) a lazy or frail woman]. The tone of the letters exchanged between them reveal a spontaneity and affection expressed in the passionate language used within. 'I desire to know about your health,' wrote Henri III to Gilles de Souvré around August 21, 1577, '[...] and you keep, in order to more safely return from convalescence, that it will give me such smiling, indescribable pleasure to love my Gode, as she knows that I do.'

Arlette Jouanna, "Faveur et favoris: L'exemple des mignons de Henri III," in Henri III et son temps (ed. Robert Sauzet), p. 161