Adela of Champagne(1140 — 1206)

After two marriages that had failed to produce a male heir, Louis VII had waited for decades for a son to secure the Capetian succession. When Adèle gave birth to Philippe on 21 August 1165, joy overflowed throughout the kingdom: bells rang out in Paris, the king distributed alms to the poor, and chroniclers spoke of a true dynastic miracle. This son, the future Philip II Augustus, would go on to double the royal territory.

When Philip II set out on the Third Crusade in July 1190 alongside Richard the Lionheart, he entrusted the regency of the kingdom to his mother Adèle and his uncle Guillaume, Archbishop of Reims — Adèle's own brother. For more than a year, the queen mother administered the royal domain, dispensed justice, and oversaw the finances without any revolt disturbing the kingdom.

Adèle belonged to one of the most powerful houses in France: the counts of Champagne. Her father, Thibaut II, known as the Great, ruled over a prosperous county where the famous Champagne Fairs were held — a commercial crossroads for all of Europe. By marrying Adèle, Louis VII sealed an essential political alliance with this powerful vassal who had long resisted him.

Adèle's marriage to Louis VII was celebrated in November 1160, less than a month after the death of his second wife Constance of Castile. This haste shocked some clergymen, including Pope Alexander III, who threatened to impose an interdict, but dynastic urgency prevailed: Louis VII, approaching forty, could not afford to wait.

After the death of Louis VII in 1180, Adèle gradually withdrew from political life. She ended her days at the Cistercian abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, in Seine-et-Marne, where she died on 4 June 1206 at around 66 years of age, having outlived her royal husband by twenty-six years.