Hortense Mancini
Hortense Mancini | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Duchess of La Meilleraye Sir Godfrey Kneller c. 1671 | |||||
Born | Rome, Papal States | 6 June 1646||||
Died | 2 July 1699 | (aged 53)||||
Spouse |
Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye (m. 1661; sep. 1668) | ||||
Issue | Marie Charlotte, Duchess of Aiguillon Marie Olympe, Marquise of Bellefonds Paul Jules, 3rd Duke of La Meilleraye | ||||
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Father | Lorenzo Mancini | ||||
Mother | Girolama Mazzarini |
Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin (6 June 1646 – 2 July 1699),
Early life, family and marriage
One of five sisters noted for their great beauty,[2] she was born Ortensia in Rome to Baron Lorenzo Mancini, an Italian aristocrat. After his death in 1650, her mother, Girolama Mazzarini, brought her daughters from Rome to Paris in the hope of using the influence of her brother, Cardinal Mazarin, to gain them advantageous marriages.[citation needed] Hortense's four famous sisters were:
- Louis Joseph de Bourbon, duc de Vendôme,
- Eugène-Maurice of Savoy-Carignano and became the mother of the famous Austrian general Prince Eugene of Savoy,
- Louis XIV of France,
- Turenne.
The sisters' cousins, the Martinozzis, also moved to France at the same time, for the same goal (to marry well). The elder,
The Mancinis also had three brothers:
Marriage proposals
Charles II of England, the first cousin of Louis XIV, proposed to Hortense in 1659, but his offer was rejected by Cardinal Mazarin who believed the exiled king to have little in the way of prospects. Mazarin realised his mistake when Charles was reinstated as King of England only months later. Mazarin then became the supplicant and offered a dowry of 5 million livres, but Charles refused. While a marriage did not materialise, the two were to cross paths later. Hortense's hand was also requested by Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, another first cousin of Louis XIV, but arrangements fell through when Cardinal Mazarin refused to include the stronghold-castle of Pignerol in her dowry. For similar reasons, an offer made by the Duke of Lorraine was broken off as well.[3]
Failed marriage
On 1 March 1661, fourteen-year-old Hortense was married to one of the richest men in Europe,
The marriage was not a success. Hortense was young, bright, and popular; Armand-Charles was miserly and extremely jealous, not to mention mentally unstable. His strange behaviour included preventing milkmaids from going about their job (to his mind, the cows' udders had strong sexual connotations),[5] having all of his female servants' front teeth knocked out to prevent them from attracting male attention, and chipping off and painting over all the "dirty bits" in his fantastic art collection. He forbade his wife to keep company with other men, made midnight searches for hidden lovers, insisted she spend a quarter of her day at prayer, and forced her to leave Paris and move with him to the country.[4]
Despite their differences, Hortense and her husband had four children:
- Marie Charlotte de La Porte (28 March 1662 – 13 May 1729) married Louis Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, duc d'Aiguillon,
- Marie Anne de La Porte (1663 – October 1720) became an abbess,
- Marie Olympe de La Porte (1665 – 24 January 1754), who married Louis Christophe Gigault, Marquis of Bellefonds and of Boullaye,
- Paul Jules de La Porte de La Meilleraye (25 January 1666 – 7 September 1731) married Félice Armande Charlotte de Durfort.
Flight from marriage
Leaving her small children behind, Hortense finally made a bid to escape from her hellish marriage on the night of 13 June 1668, with help from her brother, Philippe, Duc de Nevers, who procured horses and an escort to help her travel to Rome, where she counted on being able to take refuge with her sister Marie Mancini, now the Princess Colonna.[citation needed]
Under the protection of Louis XIV and of the Duke of Savoy
The French king
With the exception of
Charles II
After the death of Savoy, Hortense had no source of income; her husband froze all of her income, including the pension from Louis XIV.
The English ambassador to France, Ralph Montagu, aware of Hortense's desperate situation, enlisted her help in increasing his own standing with Charles II. He hoped she would replace the king's current mistress,
Maîtresse en titre
By mid-1676, Hortense had fulfilled her purpose; she had taken the place of Louise de Kerouaille in Charles's affections.[8] He provided her a pension of £4,000, which considerably lightened her financial troubles.[9]
Montagu recounted:
I went to see Madame de Portsmouth [Louise de Kerouaille]. She opened her heart to me… explained to me what grief the frequent visits of the King of England to Madame de Sussex [Hortense Mancini] cause her every day.
Fall from favour
This state of affairs might have continued had it not been for Hortense's promiscuity. She was dubbed 'the Italian Whore' in England.[8][10]
Firstly, there was her almost certainly sexual relationship with
Secondly, she began an affair with Louis I de Grimaldi, Prince de Monaco. Charles remonstrated with her and cut off her pension, although within a couple of days he repented and restarted the payments. However, this signified the end of Hortense's position as the king's favourite. Though she and Charles remained friends, the Duchess of Portsmouth returned to her role as ’maitresse en titre’.[11]
The introduction to Aphra Behn's The History of the Nun has been taken as a suggestion that Behn too had romantic relations with Hortense during this same time. It reads:
to the Most Illustrious Princess, The Dutchess of Mazarine...how infinitely one of Your own Sex ador'd You, and that, among all the numerous Conquest, Your Grace has made over the Hearts of Men, Your Grace had not subdu'd a more intire Slave; I assure you, Madam, there is neither Compliment, nor Poetry, in this humble Declaration, but a Truth, which has cost me a great deal of Inquietude, for that Fortune has not set me in such a Station, as might justifie my Pretence to the honour and satisfaction of being ever near Your Grace, to view eternally that lovely Person, and here that surprising Wit; what can be more grateful to a Heart, than so great, and so agreeable, an Entertainment? And how few Objects are there, that can render it so entire a Pleasure, as at once to hear you speak, and to look upon your Beauty?
Attending Mancini's salon, with its discussion of science as well as literary works, certainly had a noticeable effect on Behn's creativity. Public reading of a scientific text by Fontanelle at the salon increased interest in it and she soon translated it.[7]
Hortense, however, maintained good relations with the king until his death. On the Sunday before his death, the diarist John Evelyn wrote of:
the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarin [Hortense Mancini being the Duchesse Mazarin]... Six days after, all was in dust.
After Charles II's death
Following the death of Charles II, Hortense was well-provided for by James II, possibly because of her kinship with James's wife, the new queen, Mary of Modena. Even when James fled England and
Evelyn recorded her eventual death in 1699:
June 11th, 1699. Now died the famous Duchess of Mazarin. She had been the richest lady in Europe; she was niece to Cardinal Mazarin, and was married to the richest subject in Europe, as was said; she was born at Rome, educated in France, and was an extraordinary beauty and wit, but dissolute, and impatient of matrimonial restraint, so as to be abandoned by her husband, and banished: when she came to England for shelter, lived on a pension given her here, and is reported to have hastened her death by intemperate drinking strong spirits. She has written her own story and adventures, and so has her other extravagant sister, wife to the noble Colonna family.
Hortense may have committed suicide.[12] Her husband managed to continue the drama after her death; he carted her body around with him on his travels in France, before finally allowing it to be interred by the tomb of her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin.[citation needed]
Descendants
Hortense's son, Paul Jules de La Porte, duc Mazarin et de La Meilleraye, had two surviving children. His daughter, Armande Félice de La Porte Mazarin (1691–1729), married
- Louise Julie de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Mailly, comtesse de Mailly (1710–1751)
- Pauline Félicité de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Nesle, marquise de Vintimille (1712–1741)
- Diane Adélaïde de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Montcavrel, duchesse de Lauraguais (1714–1769)
- Hortense Félicité de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Chalon, marquise de Flavacourt (1715–1763)
- Marie Anne de Mailly, Mademoiselle de Monchy, marquise de La Tournelle, duchesse de Châteauroux (1717–1744)
The only one of the de Nesle sisters not to become one of Louis XV's mistresses was the marquise de Flavacourt. Louise Julie was the first sister to attract the king, followed by Pauline Félicité, but it was Marie Anne, the youngest and prettiest one, who was the most successful in manipulating him and becoming politically powerful.
Armande Félice also had an illegitimate daughter, Henriette de Bourbon (1725–1780), Mademoiselle de Verneuil, from her relationship with the duc de Bourbon, the chief minister of Louis XV from 1723 to 1726.
Paul Jules' son, Guy Jules Paul de La Porte, duc Mazarin et de La Meilleraye (1701–1738), married
References
- ^ "MANCINI, Ortensia in "Dizionario Biografico"". www.treccani.it. Retrieved 18 April 2017.
- ^ Menzies, Grant Hayter (14 April 2003). "Shadow on Earth: Hortense Duchess Mazarin". Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- ISBN 978-0670031665.
- ^ ISBN 9781509877058.
- ^ "The Wild and Very Amazing Life of Hortense Mancini". MADAME GUILLOTINE. Archived from the original on 25 November 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2012.
- )
- ^ a b c Ferguson, Donna (28 February 2021). "Restoration influencer: how Charles II's clever mistress set trends ahead of her time". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2021.
- ^ ISBN 9780060585440.
- ISBN 978-0451223982.
- ISBN 9781442641372.
- ^ "Leading Ladies | History Today". www.historytoday.com. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
- S2CID 238205824.
Further reading
- Marie Mancini, Hortense Mancini and Sarah Nelson (1676, 1678 - in a new translation, 2008) Memoirs (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe) , University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0226502793
- Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasioned by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case; Which is Also Considered., Mary Astell (1700)
- Williams, H. Noel (1915) Rival sultanas: Nell Gwyn, Louise de Kéroualle, and Hortense Mancini
- Rosvall, Toivo David (1969) Mazarine Legacy: The Life of Hortense Mancini, Duchess Mazarin, Viking Press ISBN 067046418X
- Conway, Alison (2010) The Protestant Whore: Courtesan Narrative and Religious Controversy in England, 1680–1750, ISBN 1442641371
- Goldsmith, Elizabeth (2012) The Kings' Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin, Public Affairs ISBN 978-1586488895