The work offers linked biographies of two prominent seventeenth-century court women, tracing their origins, personalities, marriages, and political roles at court where they opposed Richelieu and Mazarin. One portrait follows an energetic, often controversial figure whose intelligence, ambition, and involvement in conspiracies drove prolonged factional conflict; the other sketches a contrasting type marked by beauty, delicate spirit, and steady virtue. The author relies on documentary research, emphasizes the personal motives and inner life that shape historical events, and includes appendices of newly presented political and social documents to substantiate the accounts.