Odette de Champdivers
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Odette (Odinette) de Champdivers [1] was the mistress of Charles VI of France (the Mad) and previously his brother, the Duke of Orléans.
[edit] Mistress to royalty
She was called la petite reine (the little queen) by her contemporaries. Allegedly, the wife of Charles VI, Isabeau de Bavière, arranged for Odette to "take her place" in her husband's bed. His wild lusts had made her fear for her life. By that time, Charles was beginning to display ambivalent characteristics of schizophrenia.
Isabeau found a lookalike, the fair, young Burgundian Odette de Champdivers, who was then lover to Charles VI's brother, and organized for Odette to take her place. According to some, Odette wore the queen's clothes in the royal bed every night for over thirty years, and Charles never once spotted the deception.
Meanwhile, the voluptuous Isabeau found consolation in the arms of her debonair brother-in-law, the Duke of Orléans, Odette's former lover. Together, Odette and Charles VI had a daughter, Marguerite bâtarde de France. Later Odette passed into the service as the mistress of Charles VII of France, the son of Charles VI.
![[1]](http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/constabletodelacroix/images/delacroix_charlesodette.jpg){kind=link}