Did Eleanor of Aquitaine Hide Her Marriage Plans in a Tapestry?

If you’ve read Death at the School of Translators, you’ve met Eleanor of Aquitaine—the queen who sets Rebecca’s entire adventure in motion and pulls all the strings from beginning to end.

Eleanor was the great English/French queen who wasn’t supposed to rule, but ended up being better at it than most men.

Queen Eleanor by Frederick Sandys, 1858. Image: National Museum Wales

She grew up surrounded by poetry, thanks to her grandfather the troubadour, and was fascinated by the knowledge coming out of Spain. She was high-spirited, from the exuberant south, brilliant, multilingual and highly educated.

At the age of about 15, she was married off to Louis, heir to the French throne. Within weeks he was crowned Louis VII.

Eleanor brought a worldly sophistication that contrasted sharply with Louis’s pious, monastic temperament. Their marriage was troubled almost from the start: Louis desired a devout, obedient queen and male heirs; Eleanor wanted a politically engaged partnership and greater autonomy. Their relationship deteriorated dramatically during the Second Crusade (1147–1149). Louis’s disastrous military leadership and the couple’s increasingly public conflicts made reconciliation difficult.

She wanted out.

In 1152 the marriage was annulled on the grounds that they were too closely related, but the real reason was that she had given Louis two daughters and no son.

But she had to act quickly.

Once free, she was in danger of being abducted and married off by force to whoever could lay hands on her.

Eleanor had her eyes on young Henry of Anjou (he was 19, she was 30), who would become king of England. They met in August 1151 while she was still married to Louis.

Detail from “Sight,” The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, Musée de Cluny, Paris

Here’s where it gets fascinating.

While doing research for this post, I came upon a story about how Eleanor and Henry communicated while Eleanor was still married. How they made plans and negotiated the terms of their future marriage.

The theory is that their messages were exchanged in drawings designed to look like plans for tapestries, and that centuries later the drawings were turned into actual tapestries.

Those tapestries are now known as “The Lady and the Unicorn” or “La Dame à la Licorne.” The set of six tapestries hangs in the Musée de Cluny in Paris.

Five of them represent the senses: hearing, sight (I included its picture above), touch, smell and taste. The sixth bears the words “À mon seul désir” (“To my only desire”), and no one agrees on what it means.

Many read it as love.

Most art historians date the tapestries to around 1500 and credit the Le Viste family, whose coat of arms appears on them.

You’ve seen how Eleanor orchestrates events in Death at the School of Translators—always three moves ahead of everyone else. When I discovered this theory about the tapestries, I thought: Of course Eleanor would hide marriage negotiations in plain sight as ‘decorative art.’ It’s exactly the kind of brilliant deception she would try.

I visited this museum many years ago. The tapestries are beautiful and full of life.

Have you been to the Musée de Cluny in Paris to see these tapestries?

Tell me in the comments—and if yes, I’d love to hear what you thought of them (and if ‘no’, do you plan to go now?)