Diane is the French form of Diana — Roman goddess of the hunt. **Diane de Poitiers (1500-1566)** was the **French noblewoman and lifelong mistress of King Henry II of France** — twenty years his senior, she effectively shared power with the queen Catherine de' Medici. **A famed beauty (whose reported daily golden-elixir routine fed the myth of her perpetual youth)**, she commissioned the Château d'Anet and is the model for some of the Fontainebleau School's most famous paintings. **Among the most influential royal mistresses in French history.**
Subject of countless French Renaissance paintings and biographies.
Diane reduces to six — the number of French royal mistress.