A valet or "gentleman's gentleman" is a gentleman's male
servant; the closest female equivalent is a
lady's maid. The valet performs personal services such as maintaining his employer's clothes, running his bath and perhaps (especially in the past) shaving his employer. In a
great house, the
master of the house had his own valet, and in the very grandest great houses, other adult members of the employing family (e.g. master's sons) would also have their own valets. At a court, even minor princes and high officials may be assigned one, but in a smaller household the
butler – the
majordomo in charge of the household staff – might have to double as his employer's valet. In a bachelor's household the valet might perform light
housekeeping duties as well. Valets learned the skills for their role in various ways. Some began as
footmen, learning some relevant skills as part of that job, and picking up others when deputising for their master's valet, or by performing valeting tasks for his sons before they had a valet of their own, or for male guests who did not travel with a valet. Others started out as soldier-servants to army officers (
batmen) or
stewards to naval officers. Traditionally, a valet did much more than merely lay out clothes and take care of personal items. He was also responsible for making travel arrangements, dealing with any bills and handling all money matters concerning his master or his master's household.
Alexandre Bontemps, the most senior of the thirty-six valets to
Louis XIV of France, was a powerful figure, who ran the
Château de Versailles. In
courts,
valet de chambre was a position of some status, often given to artists, musicians, poets and others, who generally spent most of their time on their specialized work. The role was also, at least during the late
Middle Ages and the
Renaissance, a common first step or training period in a nobleman's career at court. Valets, like butlers and most specialized domestic staff, have become relatively rare. A more common, though still infrequent, arrangement is the general servant performing combined roles. A notable 20th century domestic valet was
Sydney Johnson who served as personal valet to the
Duke of Windsor and later to the businessman
Mohamed Al-Fayed. Another notable person is
Walt Nauta, a former military valet, who worked at the
White House and later at
Mar-a-Lago as
Donald Trump's personal valet. On July 6, 2023, he pleaded not guilty for allegedly moving boxes of classified materials at Mar-a-Lago.
Famous fictional valets , of
The Three Musketeers, was a studious person who later became a lay brother. (
Thomas Nicholls carves him brushing his master's clothes whilst studying
theology.) •
Albert, valet to the incarnation of
Death in the
Discworld series. • Baptistin, in
The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by
Alexandre Dumas • Hugo Barrett, in the 1948
Robin Maugham novella, 1958 play and 1963
Joseph Losey film
The Servant • John Bates (
Brendan Coyle), in the Julian Fellowes period drama
Downton Abbey (2010–2015) •
Mervyn Bunter, created in 1923 by
Dorothy L. Sayers in the
Lord Peter Wimsey series • Figaro, the Count of Almaviva's valet from
Beaumarchais' play
The Marriage of Figaro (1786), as well as the
Mozart and
Rossini operas based on it • Giles French (
Sebastian Cabot) in the
sitcom Family Affair (1966–1971) • George (or Georges), created by
Agatha Christie in 1926, in the
Hercule Poirot novels • Hobson (Sir
John Gielgud), from the 1981 comedy film
Arthur •
Jeeves, created in 1915 by
P. G. Wodehouse, starred in a series of stories until Wodehouse's death in 1975 • Rochester van Jones (
Eddie Anderson), the valet of
Jack Benny on Benny's radio and television shows, introduced in 1937 • Kato,
Inspector Clouseau's valet and
martial arts partner in the
Pink Panther movies, introduced in
A Shot in the Dark (1964) •
Kato, fictional sidekick/valet of
The Green Hornet, created in 1936 • Leporello, valet of
Don Giovanni in the 1787 opera by Mozart • Edward Henry Masterman, the victim's valet and a suspect in Agatha Christie's
Murder on the Orient Express (1934) •
Passepartout, in the 1873 novel
Around the World in Eighty Days by
Jules Verne • Planchet, valet to
D'Artagnan of
The Three Musketeers (1844) • Pork, Gerald O'Hara's valet in the 1936 novel
Gone With the Wind •
Smerdyakov, the valet to Fyodor Pavlovitch in
The Brothers Karamazov (1879) by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky • Sisk, created in
Harry Segall's 1938 play,
Heaven Can Wait, which was adapted into a 1941 film,
Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and other films • "Spicer" Lovejoy (
David Warner), millionaire Caledon Hockley's (
Billy Zane) English valet in the 1997 film
Titanic • The character "Valet" from
No Exit (1944) by
Jean-Paul Sartre •
Sam Weller, valet to
Samuel Pickwick in
The Pickwick Papers (1836) by
Charles Dickens ==Other valets==