Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This episode is coming out on the three
Speaker 1: hundred eightieth birthday of Hortense Mancini, who was born on
Speaker 1: June sixth, sixteen forty six. She is one of the
Speaker 1: two Mancini sisters we talk about in Today's Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1: This episode originally came out on November fourteenth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Today we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about a pair of sisters who, along
Speaker 1: with their other sisters and their cousins, get a lot
Speaker 1: of comparisons to whatever influencer, slash media celebrity is making
Speaker 1: the most headlines at any given moment. Like over the
Speaker 1: past few years, I've seen a lot of people call
Speaker 1: them the seventeenth century Kardashians. They are Hortense and Marie Mancini,
Speaker 1: and they tried to make a place for themselves in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century in Europe, really defying all kinds of
Speaker 1: conventions along the way. We mentioned them extremely briefly, like
Speaker 1: just a couple of sentences way back when we interviewed
Speaker 1: Jason Porath about his book and website Rejected Princesses in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, so they've had not even like a six
Speaker 1: impossible episodes level of exploration. It just really is just
Speaker 1: like paragraph. A thing to note upfront with this episode
Speaker 1: is that I love a lot of these two women's stories.
Speaker 1: There are big chunks of their lives that are a
Speaker 1: really wild ride, and they sound full of adventure and
Speaker 1: daring and writing memoirs and hosting salons and becoming the
Speaker 1: favorites of various monarchs. But really a lot of this
Speaker 1: was also happening as they were trying to get away
Speaker 1: from their husbands, both of whom were controlling and abusive
Speaker 1: and just frightening. And this was all happening in an
Speaker 1: era when women just really didn't have the right to
Speaker 1: get a divorce from a bad marriage. So I can
Speaker 1: see how just that whole setup would be very troubling
Speaker 1: to people. We're also going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about some pregnancy loss, and there are some very young
Speaker 1: marriages in this story, even to the point of seeming
Speaker 1: inordinately young given the time period. This is a heads up,
Speaker 1: so Hortense and Marie Mancini were two of the women
Speaker 1: known as the Mazarinets. They were the nieces of Cardinal
Speaker 1: Jule's Mazzarins, chief minister of France. So we need to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about him. Just set the stage.
Speaker 1: He was born Julio Mazzarini in Naples in sixteen oh two,
Speaker 1: and he changed his name after moving to France, where
Speaker 1: he became an advisor and eventually chief minister to King
Speaker 1: Louis the thirteenth. In sixteen forty one, Mazarin was named
Speaker 1: a cardinal and he was one of the people present
Speaker 1: at the baptism of the dauphin the future King Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth, who of course also became known as the son.
Speaker 1: King Louis the thirteenth died in sixteen forty three, and
Speaker 1: that was when Louis the fourteenth was still a child
Speaker 1: and the young king's mother, Anne of Austria, became his regent.
Speaker 1: She and Mazarin did not initially get along. There was
Speaker 1: some butting of heads, but he was so charming and
Speaker 1: persuasive they eventually became very close, so close that there
Speaker 1: were rumors that the two of them were secretly married.
Speaker 1: Now there is a whole swath of history that we're
Speaker 1: kind of skipping over here, including the Thirty Years War
Speaker 1: and Mazarin being exiled for a while and a series
Speaker 1: of civil wars in France known as the Fronde. But
Speaker 1: eventually Mazarin became one of the most powerful people in France,
Speaker 1: which it's he was one of the most powerful countries
Speaker 1: in Europe. He had also become extremely wealthy, with money
Speaker 1: and titles and land to pass down to an air.
Speaker 1: He had no children of his own, though his one
Speaker 1: surviving nephew had a reputation as an irresponsible libertine, so
Speaker 1: Mazarin did not think that this would be a great
Speaker 1: candidate for his successor, so he really focused on his
Speaker 1: seven nieces, moving all of them from what's now Italy
Speaker 1: to France and managing their educations to make sure that
Speaker 1: they would be witty and cultured and personable able to
Speaker 1: fit into French society, and then he arranged advantageous marriages
Speaker 1: for all of them to build a legacy for himself
Speaker 1: that way. Five of Mazarin's nieces were the daughters of
Speaker 1: Hieronima and Lorenzo Mancini. That included Hortense and Marie, who
Speaker 1: were going to come back to you. Their sister laur Victoire,
Speaker 1: married Louis de Vendome, Duke de Mercueur, who was King
Speaker 1: Henry the Fourth's grandson. Sadly, she died at the age
Speaker 1: of twenty, shortly after giving birth to their third son.
Speaker 1: Another sister, Olimpe, married Eugene Maurice of Savoy Contes Soisson.
Speaker 1: The youngest mancini sister, Marie Anne, married goud Froid Maurice
Speaker 1: de la Tour d'auvel, Duke of Bouillon. Mazarin's two other
Speaker 1: nieces were the two daughters of Girolamo Martinozzi and Laura
Speaker 1: Margherita Mazzarini. They were Anne Marie, who married Armand de Bourbon,
Speaker 1: Prince of Conti, and Laura, who married Alfonse the fourth
Speaker 1: dest Duke of Modena. In addition to Hortense and Marie,
Speaker 1: some of these women wound up being famous and even
Speaker 1: notorious in their own ways. There were court scandals and
Speaker 1: affairs with kings, and, in the case of Olampe and
Speaker 1: Marie Anne Mancini, allegations of poisoning people. During the Affair
Speaker 1: of the Poisons, as its name suggests, the fare of
Speaker 1: the poisons, involved poisonings and alleged poisonings, and allegations of
Speaker 1: people using black magic and love potions to try to
Speaker 1: sway the King. Previous hosts of the show did an
Speaker 1: episode on this. It came out on January nineteenth of
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. We're not running this one as a Saturday
Speaker 1: Classic because it's in the middle of a series that
Speaker 1: they did on the House of Bourbon. It builds on
Speaker 1: the previous episodes that they had released over the prior
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. It was just a little bit more
Speaker 1: in medius race than we would generally try to do.
Speaker 1: I think you can follow it. It just was a
Speaker 1: little like, it's not quite a standalone right right, So
Speaker 1: we didn't want to stick it into the feed by itself.
Speaker 1: Marie Mancini was born Anna Maria Mancini on August twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: sixteen thirty nine. Her younger sister, Hortense, was born Ortensia
Speaker 1: Mancini on June sixth, sixteen forty six. In spite of
Speaker 1: the seventh gap in their ages, these two sisters became
Speaker 1: very close. In sixteen fifty four, when Marie was fifteen
Speaker 1: and Hortense was eight. Their caregivers judged them as being
Speaker 1: ready to start making their way into French society, but
Speaker 1: when Mazarin met with them, he disagreed with that assessment,
Speaker 1: and he sent them to a convent together for another
Speaker 1: eighteen months for further study and refinement, just in case
Speaker 1: anyone is wondering, why are you not saying her name
Speaker 1: or Tense as she might have said it in French.
Speaker 1: She eventually moved to Britain, and everybody new his Hortense,
Speaker 1: and it seemed weird to change pronunciations part way through
Speaker 1: the episode. Neither of these sisters was considered to be
Speaker 1: particularly exceptional when they were very young. In her younger years,
Speaker 1: Marie was described as awkward and uncooperative, while Hortense was
Speaker 1: pretty and charming, but also described in terms like apathetic
Speaker 1: and insignificant. Seventeenth century French writer Madame Lafayette wrote of
Speaker 1: Hortense quote, she was not only the most beautiful of
Speaker 1: the cardinal's nieces, but she was the most beautiful of
Speaker 1: all the court beauties. Had she been gifted with more
Speaker 1: intelligence and a greater vivacity of manner, she would have
Speaker 1: been perfect. Not that everyone considered that a weak point
Speaker 1: for her. For many people found her careless attitude and
Speaker 1: languid manner a distinct attraction. Once they got to court,
Speaker 1: Marie caught the eye of one particular man, the King
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth, with the two teens becoming deeply devoted
Speaker 1: to one another. So this might sound like a pretty
Speaker 1: great development, considering that Cardinal Mazarin was trying to marry
Speaker 1: his nieces to high ranking men. Marie's father was a baron,
Speaker 1: so marrying the king would have been an enormous step up.
Speaker 1: But Louis needed to marry royalty, ideally someone who could
Speaker 1: solidify an alliance between France and another powerful country. By
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty nine, when the king was twenty and Marie
Speaker 1: was nineteen, he was begging to be allowed to marry her,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile his mother and her uncle were working to
Speaker 1: separate them. Marie was finally sent away from court in
Speaker 1: the company of her sisters Hortens and mary Anne. Reportedly,
Speaker 1: the last thing she said to him was quote, Sire,
Speaker 1: I am leaving you to weep, and yet you are king.
Speaker 1: In spite of efforts to keep them apart, Louis and
Speaker 1: Marie kept up a continual secret correspondence including sending one
Speaker 1: another gifts. One of these gifts was a puppy sent
Speaker 1: from Louis to Marie with a caller that said, I
Speaker 1: belonged to Marie. I would have been pretty hard to
Speaker 1: keep secret. Yeah, just gonna keep a puppy secret from everybody.
Speaker 1: In the ends, a marriage was arranged between King Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth of France and Maria Teresa and Fanta of
Speaker 1: Spain and arch Duchess of Austria. Their marriage part of
Speaker 1: the Peace of the Pyrenees, which ended the Franco Spanish War.
Speaker 1: Louis managed to arrange a brief visit to Marie on
Speaker 1: his way to make the final marriage negotiations, and during
Speaker 1: this visit the two of them had a bunch of
Speaker 1: very sad, apologetic like teen romance conversations, most of them
Speaker 1: happening in front of her sister Hortense. Then, after Louis
Speaker 1: was married, Marie and Hortense followed a process that was
Speaker 1: outlined in Ovid's Cures for Love, to ritually get rid
Speaker 1: of anything that might remind her of him or otherwise
Speaker 1: soothe her heartbreak. Meanwhile, Mazarin was working on arranging a
Speaker 1: marriage for Marie, not just to try to put a
Speaker 1: final end to her feelings of the king, but also
Speaker 1: because his own health was declining and he wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure all of his nieces were settled before he died.
Speaker 1: Marie's marriage contract to Italian Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna was
Speaker 1: signed on February twenty first, sixteen sixty one. Hortense was
Speaker 1: married very soon after. Like her sister, she had already
Speaker 1: captured the interest of someone much more powerful than she
Speaker 1: or her family, and that was Charles the Second of
Speaker 1: England at the time, though he was not on the
Speaker 1: throne of England, he was in exile in France, having
Speaker 1: fled England during the English Civil Wars. Charles actually proposed
Speaker 1: to Hortense, But unlike her sister and Louis the fourteenth,
Speaker 1: the issue wasn't that Charles really needed to make a
Speaker 1: royal marriage alliance. It was that Cardinal Mazarin did not
Speaker 1: think it was very likely that Charles was actually going
Speaker 1: to get to return to the British throne, so he
Speaker 1: declined this offer. He was like, no, I'm not marrying
Speaker 1: my niece to a deposed king. Would the point of
Speaker 1: that be? However, Charles was indeed restored as monarch in
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty, which was not long after all of this happened,
Speaker 1: made a mistake. Instead, Hortense married mon Charles de la Bertai,
Speaker 1: who had been considered a suitor for some of her sisters,
Speaker 1: but who had always been particularly interested in Hortense like
Speaker 1: interested in a way that multiple people commented on as
Speaker 1: disturbing and frankly inappropriate. He had been fixated on her
Speaker 1: since she was nine, and he was about fourteen years
Speaker 1: older than she was. When they married on March first
Speaker 1: of sixteen sixty one, he was twenty nine and she
Speaker 1: was just fourteen. Mazarin's acceptance of this proposal seems to
Speaker 1: have been largely based on the fact that he thought
Speaker 1: Armand would take care of his estates and his fortune.
Speaker 1: He had decided that the vast majority of that fortune
Speaker 1: was going to go to whoever Hortense married, and that
Speaker 1: person would also become the Duke of Mazarin and inherit
Speaker 1: Mazarin's other titles. Armand was deeply religious and mature and responsible,
Speaker 1: so the Cardinal didn't think he was likely to just
Speaker 1: fritter away his inherent or otherwise make an embarrassment of
Speaker 1: his legacy armand came into that inheritance really quickly. Cardinal
Speaker 1: Jules Mazarin died on March ninth, sixteen sixty one, just
Speaker 1: days after the wedding. We're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: all of this after a sponsor break. In some ways,
Speaker 1: Marie and Hortense Mancini's marriages were similar at first, especially
Speaker 1: in that both of them were very focused on having
Speaker 1: babies and particularly on trying to have a male heir.
Speaker 1: After recovering from a serious illness and then experiencing a miscarriage,
Speaker 1: Marie gave birth to three sons, Filippo, Marcantonio, and Carlo,
Speaker 1: who were born in sixteen sixty three, sixteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty five. Hortense had four babies in five years,
Speaker 1: Marie Charlotte in sixteen sixty two, Marie Anne in sixty
Speaker 1: teen sixty three, Maria lamp in sixteen sixty five, and
Speaker 1: Paul Joule's in sixteen sixty six. But in other ways,
Speaker 1: the early years of their marriages were almost completely opposite
Speaker 1: from one another. It became clear pretty much immediately that
Speaker 1: Hortense's husband, the new Duke Mazarin, was a religious fanatic
Speaker 1: to the point of being really irrational. He micromanaged minute
Speaker 1: details of the lives of people who lived on the
Speaker 1: land that he managed, arguing that by doing so he
Speaker 1: was going to save their souls. And this included things
Speaker 1: like trying to get the milkmaids to spend less time
Speaker 1: milking because he thought they might find it erotic, and
Speaker 1: believing that churning milk into butter was immodest and could
Speaker 1: lead to arousal sounds like the milkmaids are not the problem.
Speaker 1: He ordered mothers to teach their babies too fast by
Speaker 1: refusing to nurse them on Fridays. When a fire broke
Speaker 1: out at the palace, he ordered the servants who put
Speaker 1: it out to be flogged, and he flogged some of
Speaker 1: them of himself, because he thought that they had interfered
Speaker 1: with the will of God. He was also extremely possessive
Speaker 1: and controlling of virtually everything about Hortense's life. By the
Speaker 1: terms of her uncle's will, they were enormously wealthy as
Speaker 1: a couple, but almost none of that wealth was exclusively hers.
Speaker 1: The only thing of material value that was actually considered
Speaker 1: her property and only hers, was her jewelry, which her
Speaker 1: husband tried to confiscate from her because he said that
Speaker 1: it was going to lead her into temptation. In terms
Speaker 1: of Marie's marriage, there were some ways that her husband,
Speaker 1: Lorenzo could be controlling. For example, he blamed her pregnancy
Speaker 1: loss on her love of riding horses, and when she
Speaker 1: got pregnant again, he forced her to give up riding
Speaker 1: and to be carried on a sedan chair. But unlike
Speaker 1: Hortense's husband who tried to lock her away and keep
Speaker 1: her from anything that might be a temptation, Marie's husband
Speaker 1: wanted to show her off, hosting masks, balls and salons
Speaker 1: and lavish galas. They became patrons of the arts, theater,
Speaker 1: and culture, and they spent lots of time in Venice,
Speaker 1: where they crossed paths with past podcast subject Christina of Sweden.
Speaker 1: But Marie's relationship with her husband seems to have really deteriorated.
Speaker 1: Around the time of her pregnancy with their third son.
Speaker 1: He had an affair with another woman who gave birth
Speaker 1: to a child that everyone knew was his. Then Marie
Speaker 1: had a really difficult delivery and she was worried that
Speaker 1: she wouldn't survive another pregnancy. That combined with her mortification
Speaker 1: over her husband's affair to lead her to try to
Speaker 1: put an end to their physical relationship. Lorenzo, of course,
Speaker 1: was not happy about that idea at all. Meanwhile, Hortense,
Speaker 1: having provided her husband with a male heir, was trying
Speaker 1: to end her physical relationship with him as well. Armand
Speaker 1: had become incredibly controlling and paranoid about preconceivable thing, all
Speaker 1: within this framework of extreme religious piety. When Hortense started
Speaker 1: trying to avoid him, all of that got worse. And
Speaker 1: contrary to what Cardinal Mazarin had expected, Armand was not
Speaker 1: being that careful with his inheritance. He gave huge amounts
Speaker 1: of money away to the church and charities, and he
Speaker 1: bought land that wasn't really going to pay off as
Speaker 1: an investment. Hortense thought that they were going to wind
Speaker 1: up with nothing, and in sixteen sixty six she started
Speaker 1: trying to legally separate their assets. This wasn't the same
Speaker 1: thing as dissolving the marriage. She was just trying to
Speaker 1: kind of partition off some of their money so that
Speaker 1: it was under her control, just so Armand couldn't spend
Speaker 1: it all. When Armand said that they should pull out
Speaker 1: their daughter's front teeth so that men would not find
Speaker 1: them tempting. Hortense fled to her sister, Alemp. Alemp promised
Speaker 1: to try to protect the children, but she also didn't
Speaker 1: really want to bring her sister in to live with
Speaker 1: them full time. So a lamp tried to mediate between
Speaker 1: Hortense and armand Hortense did not think their issues could
Speaker 1: be reconciled, and when her husband said that she could
Speaker 1: either live with one of her sisters or go to
Speaker 1: a convent, she went to the convent. While in the convent,
Speaker 1: Hortense developed an intense relationship with the Marquise mariei Donis
Speaker 1: de Carcel, who was there under charges of adultery. She
Speaker 1: was seventeen and Hortense was twenty one, and together the
Speaker 1: two of them ran roughshod over the nuns who were
Speaker 1: essentially acting as their jailers, including playing a whole lot
Speaker 1: of pranks, like putting ink in the holy water. That's funny.
Speaker 1: It really sounds almost like a weird comedy about a
Speaker 1: boarding school, like playing pranks on the teachers. Marie Sony
Speaker 1: helped Hortense with her legal filings, and eventually Hortense did
Speaker 1: get a partial victory. The court order that her husband
Speaker 1: grant her a pension of twenty thousand livres a year
Speaker 1: and to document what he was doing with all of
Speaker 1: their money. She was also supposed to return back to
Speaker 1: their home while her husband, who was the grand Master
Speaker 1: of Artillery, would instead live at the Arsenal of Paris.
Speaker 1: Hortense left the convent, but Armand refused to do any
Speaker 1: of the things he had been ordered to do, and
Speaker 1: also destroyed the theater that Hortense had used to stage
Speaker 1: small productions at their home while she was away. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Maurice Donis reconciled with her husband, and that was something
Speaker 1: that made Hortense so jealous that she told him that
Speaker 1: Maurice Doni had been receiving secret visits from another man.
Speaker 1: This led to a duel between Maurice Donise's husband and
Speaker 1: her lover, after which both of them were imprisoned for
Speaker 1: violating the prohibition on dueling. In the face of Armand's
Speaker 1: increasingly erratic and frightening behavior, Hortense moved from trying to
Speaker 1: legally separate their assets into a formal separation from their marriage,
Speaker 1: and on June thirteenth, sixteen sixty eight, she fled to Italy,
Speaker 1: with the help of her brother Philippe and a friend
Speaker 1: of theirs, the Chevalier of Rohan. She left her children behind,
Speaker 1: hoping that she would be better able to advocate for
Speaker 1: them Away from her husband. She took a couple of
Speaker 1: servants with her, disguised as men. This was just not done.
Speaker 1: Women of her social class did not leave their husbands,
Speaker 1: and they certainly did not travel without male escorts. The
Speaker 1: trip itself involved a perilous journey through the Alps. In Milan,
Speaker 1: Hortense reunited with her sister Marie, who had come out
Speaker 1: from Rome with her husband. Lorenzo wanted to go back
Speaker 1: home immediately, but Hortense and Marie convinced him to stop
Speaker 1: in Siena for a couple of weeks instead, and there
Speaker 1: they spent their time riding and hunting, apart from the
Speaker 1: social norms that Hortense had really abandoned here. This was
Speaker 1: basically an international incident, with Hortense, a duchess, fleeing her
Speaker 1: home in France to join her sister, whose husband was
Speaker 1: an Italian prince. Hortense also quickly started having an affair
Speaker 1: with the Chevalier of Rohann's squire, which was yet another
Speaker 1: layer of scandal, and also came across as a huge
Speaker 1: annoyance to Marie and Lorenzo. They were sort of like,
Speaker 1: we're trying to help you out, and you're having this
Speaker 1: public affair with the squire, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: More generally, though, Lorenzo was annoyed with his wife Marie.
Speaker 1: They were both living fairly separate lives by this point,
Speaker 1: but he was increasingly frustrated by how much money she
Speaker 1: spent on things like artwork and improvements to their home
Speaker 1: and cultural projects, and as well as the many, many
Speaker 1: outings that she took with her sister. In sixteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: Marie got really sick and people thought her husband was
Speaker 1: poisoning her than while the Chevalier's squire also accused Philippe
Speaker 1: and the Chevalier of trying to poison him. This was
Speaker 1: during the whole affair of the poisons era. There was
Speaker 1: a lot there's a whole lot of poison going on,
Speaker 1: poisoning and accused poisoning and potential poisoning happening. A marriage
Speaker 1: was arraigned for Philip that year, and Hortense went with
Speaker 1: him to Paris to try to get some kind of
Speaker 1: legal resolution to her marriage. Her husband was irate when
Speaker 1: he heard how Hortense had been spending her time in Rome.
Speaker 1: She and her sister had filled their time with parties
Speaker 1: and masked balls and musical performances, with Hortons being so
Speaker 1: popular with men that two of them allegedly fought a
Speaker 1: duel over her armand called for Hortense's arrest, but city
Speaker 1: officials refused to do it, and he became so irate
Speaker 1: that he destroyed a lot of their art collection. He
Speaker 1: smashed the genitals of the statues with a hammer and
Speaker 1: cut them out of paintings with scissors. King Louis the
Speaker 1: fourteenth was upset about this. In addition to the King's
Speaker 1: love of and patronage for art, the king and other
Speaker 1: people also considered this art collection that had been destroyed
Speaker 1: to have been a national treasure. So whatever goodwill people
Speaker 1: might have had for Armand at this point really have oporated.
Speaker 1: In France. At this time, divorce as we know it
Speaker 1: today really didn't exist. There was a process for separating
Speaker 1: a couple's assets. Hortense had already tried that, and separac
Speaker 1: de coeurs, or physical separation, in which a couple were
Speaker 1: still technically married but lived legally separated lives. But this
Speaker 1: was not common at all, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: were still pushing for some kind of reconciliation between Hortense
Speaker 1: and Ormond. Hortense proposed that she be allowed to live
Speaker 1: in a convent with servants that she chose and the
Speaker 1: freedom to come and go, based on what had happened
Speaker 1: with Maurice Donis de crocell. The abbesses at the convents
Speaker 1: proposed as options were pretty wary of this whole idea.
Speaker 1: He did not want any more ink in the holy water. Finally,
Speaker 1: still without the settlement that she wanted, Hortons left Paris again.
Speaker 1: She returned to her sister in Rome in May of
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy one, and then about a year later, both
Speaker 1: of them fled. We're going to talk more about that
Speaker 1: after we paused for a sponsor break. Marie Mancini's relationship
Speaker 1: with her husband Lorenzo had clearly been deteriorating for a
Speaker 1: long time before she fled from Rome with her sister
Speaker 1: Hortons on May twenty ninth of sixteen seventy two. She
Speaker 1: was afraid of her husband, and she admired her sister's
Speaker 1: will to have left her own husband Armand. But if
Speaker 1: there was like some specific last straw that prompted Marie
Speaker 1: to decide to leave, like noted anywhere mystery, it may
Speaker 1: have just come to that point. The Mansini sisters wanted
Speaker 1: to travel unobtrusively, so they didn't take much with them,
Speaker 1: apart from some money and jewelry and a letter of
Speaker 1: safe passage from King Louis the fourteenth. The sisters and
Speaker 1: two maids all warman's clothing under their dresses, and they
Speaker 1: took a valet with them as well. They took steps
Speaker 1: to try to throw people off the trail, like getting
Speaker 1: a carriage and loudly talking about where they were going
Speaker 1: when really they were headed to a boat to make
Speaker 1: their escape by water. Meanwhile, Lorenzo kept sending people to
Speaker 1: find them and trying to put barriers in the way
Speaker 1: of their escape, like spreading the word that people should
Speaker 1: not give the sisters any kind of shelter or allow
Speaker 1: them to pass through areas where he thought they were headed.
Speaker 1: He also petitioned King Louis the fourteenth to intervene. Both
Speaker 1: Lorenzo and Armand worried about how their wives' behavior would
Speaker 1: reflect on them, and there were broader concerns about how
Speaker 1: the sisters might inspire other women in unhappy or abusive
Speaker 1: marriages to also leave have feelings. As the Vansini sisters
Speaker 1: headed for France, this was once again an international incident.
Speaker 1: Marie really thought that if she could go speak to
Speaker 1: King Louis the fourteenth in person, that he might support
Speaker 1: her petition to leave her husband, but she couldn't get
Speaker 1: permission to actually go. Once they were traveling over land again,
Speaker 1: the two women traveled by post with the hope that
Speaker 1: they would be harder to track, but the king sent
Speaker 1: messengers to the post stations, telling them to refuse to
Speaker 1: give the sisters horses. That was something that the sisters
Speaker 1: overcame with bribes. After some close calls, Hortense and Marie
Speaker 1: decided to split up, with Marie traveling through France and
Speaker 1: Horton's going to Chambray, which today is part of France
Speaker 1: but at the time was part of the independent Duchy
Speaker 1: of Savoy. There she found a patron with Charles Emmanuel,
Speaker 1: the second Duke of Savoy, who had actually been one
Speaker 1: of the men whose offer of marriage Hortense's uncle had
Speaker 1: not accepted many years before. This Duke seems to have
Speaker 1: thought that Hortense would liven up his court, which she
Speaker 1: eventually did, but first she spent a stretch of time
Speaker 1: mostly in prayer and reflection and writing a whole lot
Speaker 1: of letters. King Louis the fourteenth had offered her some
Speaker 1: financial support, and so she wrote a lot of letters
Speaker 1: to the king to try to maintain his good will
Speaker 1: even though she had done something as scandalous as leaving
Speaker 1: her husband. She also wrote letters to her sister's husband
Speaker 1: to try to convince him that Marie's leaving had been
Speaker 1: her own decision, not something that Hortense had forced her
Speaker 1: or caused her to do. Towards the end of Hortense's
Speaker 1: time in Savoy, when she was twenty nine, she wrote
Speaker 1: her memoirs. These were published in sixteen seventy five under
Speaker 1: the title Memoir dm LDM or Memoir de Madame de
Speaker 1: ces de Mazarin. There was already so much rumor and
Speaker 1: gossip about her life and her relationship with her husband
Speaker 1: that she just decided to put her own side of
Speaker 1: the story out there publicly and in print. This made
Speaker 1: her one of the first women in Europe to publish
Speaker 1: her own story under her own name. And for a
Speaker 1: general audience rather than just for her family and friends. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Marie was trying to evade various messengers that she knew
Speaker 1: were carrying orders for her to stop where she was,
Speaker 1: just basically like, if they don't find me, I don't
Speaker 1: have to stop. One of them did finally catch up
Speaker 1: to her, though, and then she was presented with a
Speaker 1: series of proposals that would involve her returning to her husband.
Speaker 1: She rejected all of those and said that she wanted
Speaker 1: to enter a convent of her choice, something that she
Speaker 1: pointed out that thousands of other women had done after
Speaker 1: being widowed or otherwise separated from their husbands. Once she
Speaker 1: had made her whole position on this clear, she apparently
Speaker 1: picked up a guitar and started playing it as though
Speaker 1: she had just said all she had to say about
Speaker 1: that and moved on. One of the accounts that I
Speaker 1: read said that she had kept this guitar with her
Speaker 1: the entire time since leaving Rome, But it also said
Speaker 1: that they left without a lot of luggage, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure where the guitar came from, but I love
Speaker 1: that story. I liked the idea of the guitar being
Speaker 1: her version of la la, la la, I'm not listening
Speaker 1: to you. Eventually, Marie was allowed to go to a
Speaker 1: convent in Lease, about forty miles outside of Paris, which
Speaker 1: is one of the convents Hortense had stayed in previously.
Speaker 1: At first, Marie had regular visits from her sisters Olimp
Speaker 1: and Marianne, and her husband sent some of her servants
Speaker 1: with some of her belongings that she had requested, but
Speaker 1: Lorenzo had sent one of those servants to act as
Speaker 1: a spy, and soon Marie was being allowed visits only
Speaker 1: from her sisters. Marie later moved to another convent that
Speaker 1: was farther from Paris, but she was even less happy there.
Speaker 1: It wasn't as comfortable, and she said that the air
Speaker 1: was bad and made her sick. At one point, Marie
Speaker 1: arranged a visit to her sister Hortense, but Hortense seems
Speaker 1: to have intentionally avoided Marie by going on a trip
Speaker 1: to the country instead. I don't think this was just
Speaker 1: a case of bad timing. I think it was on purpose.
Speaker 1: Hortense may have been worried that if she really welcomed
Speaker 1: her sister, she would run afoul of some of the
Speaker 1: good graces that at that point were keeping her relatively safe.
Speaker 1: But when Marie later wrote to Hortense asking for her protection,
Speaker 1: Hortense and the Duke of Savoy arranged for Marie to
Speaker 1: enter a convent in Turin. Marie was just really hoping
Speaker 1: to find a place where she would have a little
Speaker 1: more comfort and autonomy. But after a really perilous journey
Speaker 1: through territory that was caught up in the Franco Dutch
Speaker 1: War in the winter, she wound up at a convent
Speaker 1: where she had even less freedom than she'd had before.
Speaker 1: After Hortense's memoirs were published, Marie got a copy. The
Speaker 1: memoirs had been so popular that other people started writing
Speaker 1: and publishing fake versions of their own. Some of these
Speaker 1: were wildly inaccurate about both sisters, including totally distorted versions
Speaker 1: of Marie's experiences. So she followed in her sister's footsteps
Speaker 1: and she published her own memoir, The Truth in its
Speaker 1: Own Light or the Genuine Memoirs of m Mancini Constables Colonna.
Speaker 1: Around this time, Hortense was working on plans to leave Savoy.
Speaker 1: She and her staff just kind of weren't getting along
Speaker 1: with people anymore. As she was trying to make those arrangements.
Speaker 1: Though the Duke died suddenly on June twelfth, sixteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: at the age of only forty. The Duke's son, Victor
Speaker 1: Amadeus the Second was only nine. Biddo was acting as regent,
Speaker 1: but she had really never been a fan of Hortense.
Speaker 1: She told Hortense that she was no longer welcome at
Speaker 1: the late Duke's court. The Duke's death was also a
Speaker 1: blow to Marie because even though she had not been
Speaker 1: living in Savoy, I'm not sure if these two ever
Speaker 1: even actually met, she had written him really often and
Speaker 1: counted him as one of her allies. After the Duke's death,
Speaker 1: Hortense started making her way to England, where she had
Speaker 1: a cousin, and she got a letter from Ralph Montague
Speaker 1: passing on an invitation from Charles the Second. The Franco
Speaker 1: Dutch War was still ongoing, so Hortense's journey was perilous.
Speaker 1: She arrived on New Year's Eve sixteen seventy five. Charles
Speaker 1: the Second, of course, was nicknamed the Mary Monarch. He
Speaker 1: was famous for having a whole lot of affairs, and
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, he was one of the people
Speaker 1: who had offered to marry Hortense Mancini decades before. She
Speaker 1: also had a reputation for being very charming and witty
Speaker 1: in a train and popular with men. So there were
Speaker 1: fears at court that the King might be a little
Speaker 1: bit overly interested in her, and that she might kind
Speaker 1: of throw off the balance of his other relationships and
Speaker 1: this house of affairs cards would turn into chaos. These
Speaker 1: fears were founded. Soon the King and Hortense were having
Speaker 1: an affair, and he had granted her a pension. In
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy six, Hortense Mancini started hosting salons in England,
Speaker 1: ones that were open to women and gave them opportunities
Speaker 1: to learn and experience art and culture, free from many
Speaker 1: of the cultural restraints that were normally placed on them.
Speaker 1: Her friend Charles des Saint Evermont acted as co host,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the two of them are credited with popularizing
Speaker 1: champagne in England. Charles imported it from France and they
Speaker 1: served it at the salon. Hortense also had a lot
Speaker 1: of pets, including dogs and cats, parrots and other exotic birds,
Speaker 1: and she had gambling tables, which led some people to
Speaker 1: write off her salon as a gambling den. Hortense Mancini
Speaker 1: had affairs threw out her life away from her husband,
Speaker 1: and one of the most notorious was while she was
Speaker 1: in England. It was with Anne, Countess of Sussex, who
Speaker 1: was one of the King's illegitimate daughters. Although she was
Speaker 1: only fourteen and was already married to a man named
Speaker 1: Thomas Lennard, who was one of the gentlemen of the
Speaker 1: King's bedchamber. Neither Hortense nor Anne seemed upset by rumors
Speaker 1: that they were lovers, and they really did not try
Speaker 1: to contradict them. One of the people who commented on
Speaker 1: this was Lady Chowers, who wrote this in a letter
Speaker 1: to her brother, Lord Ruth on December twenty fifth, sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy six, quote, Lady Sussex is not yet gone, but
Speaker 1: my lord is better and holds his resolution of going
Speaker 1: as soon as the weather breaks up to make good travailing.
Speaker 1: She and Madame Massarin have privately learned to fence, and
Speaker 1: went down into Saint James Park the other day with
Speaker 1: drawn swords under their nightgowns, which they drew out and
Speaker 1: made several fine passes with to the admiration of several men.
Speaker 1: That was onlookers in the park. In another letter, she wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: Lady Sussex is mightily pleased with fox hunting and hair hunting,
Speaker 1: but kisses Madame Mazarine's picture with much affection. Still, this
Speaker 1: might have been after Anne's husband demanded that she come
Speaker 1: back from Hortons's lodgings, and she was forcibly removed from there.
Speaker 1: Hortense had various other affairs, including a possible one with
Speaker 1: past podcast subject Afra Ben. Her relationship with the Count
Speaker 1: of Monaco eventually became public and close enough that King
Speaker 1: Charles called off his affair with her, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: so upset about it that he made her go back
Speaker 1: to France instead. Hortense kept up an active social life
Speaker 1: in her house in Saint James's Park, including being reunited
Speaker 1: with Maurice Donis de Carcel when she came to visit Lundon.
Speaker 1: While Horten's was having what sounds like a pretty fabulous
Speaker 1: time in London. Marie made her way to Madrid and
Speaker 1: she moved into another convent. While there, she was reunited
Speaker 1: with her sons, who by now were teenagers. Her husband,
Speaker 1: Lorenzo kept trying to restrict her movements. He seems to
Speaker 1: have kind of allowed her to go to Madrid, thinking
Speaker 1: that family members he had there would help keep her
Speaker 1: in line. But officials in Madrid seemed less inclined to
Speaker 1: do what Lorenzo wanted them to do. The Archbishop of
Speaker 1: Caesara wrote him a letter that said, in part quote, here,
Speaker 1: we do not treat our wives as you do in Italy.
Speaker 1: Your wish to put her in a prison is not
Speaker 1: enough to see it done. But Lorenzo would not give
Speaker 1: up in his efforts to get her to return to
Speaker 1: their marriage, or, if not that, at least to be
Speaker 1: able to control her comings and goings. Eventually, he ordered
Speaker 1: her imprisonment in a medieval fortress in Seville known as
Speaker 1: the Alcazar, something even her detractors thought was too extreme
Speaker 1: because this was a cold, drafty place and this was
Speaker 1: happening in the middle of winter. In sixteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Lorenzo proposed that Marie enter the convent as a novice,
Speaker 1: meaning that she would be on her way to taking
Speaker 1: steps to becoming a nun, rather than just being sheltered
Speaker 1: in the convents. He said that he would be taking
Speaker 1: holy orders as well. Marie agreed to this although Lorenzo
Speaker 1: did not hold up his end of the bargain to
Speaker 1: take holy orders of his own. Meanwhile, back in England,
Speaker 1: Hortense had fallen under suspicion in the wake of the
Speaker 1: Popish plot. This was not a real plot. It was
Speaker 1: based on fabricated allegations by Anglican clergyman Titus Oates that
Speaker 1: Jesuits were planning to assassinate Charles the second. Even though
Speaker 1: this was not true, a lot of people believed it,
Speaker 1: and since Hortense was Catholic and a foreigner, people began
Speaker 1: to dis trust her. Then, in sixteen eighty four, her
Speaker 1: nephew Philippe, who was her sister Olimp's son, challenged one
Speaker 1: of Hortense's admirers to a duel and killed him in France.
Speaker 1: This was a huge scandal and people blamed Hortense for
Speaker 1: not being a better influence on him. Then, in February
Speaker 1: of sixteen eighty five, King Charles the Second died. His successor,
Speaker 1: James the Second and seventh, continued to support Hortense financially,
Speaker 1: but he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of sixteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight. A year later, on April fifteenth, sixteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Marie's husband, Lorenzo and Offrio Colonna, died, and as a widow,
Speaker 1: Marie finally had some of the freedom that she had
Speaker 1: been trying to get for herself for most of her life.
Speaker 1: She reconnected with her sons and she traveled. She also
Speaker 1: reconnected with her old friend Ortensia Stella, who had been
Speaker 1: one of her ladies in waiting and who also was
Speaker 1: one of the women that Lorenzo had had an affair with.
Speaker 1: Lorenzo and Ortensi Estella had two children that Lorenzo had
Speaker 1: formally recognized, and these two women each worked to help
Speaker 1: the other one out with various issues that were related
Speaker 1: to Lorenzo's estate. Well, we kind of both got in
Speaker 1: this mess. Possibly inspired by Lorenzo's death, Armand sued Hortense
Speaker 1: in sixteen eighty nine during a formal separation hearing. He
Speaker 1: vilified her as a gambler in Libertine, and the legal
Speaker 1: arguments surrounding the hearing were published afterward. The case was
Speaker 1: decided in the Duke's favor, and Hortense was ordered to
Speaker 1: return to France, first to a convent and then to
Speaker 1: her husband, and she said she would rather die. It
Speaker 1: was not possible for Armand to force Hortense to return,
Speaker 1: though it might have been except that the Nine Years'
Speaker 1: War had started the year before and England and France
Speaker 1: were at war with one another. Hortense just defied this
Speaker 1: order and stayed where she was, although she had to
Speaker 1: move into smaller and smaller lodgings as her money dwindled.
Speaker 1: By June of sixteen ninety nine, Hortense was described as
Speaker 1: increasingly depressed, including drinking too much, not eating enough, and
Speaker 1: deeply in debt. She died on July second, sixteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: John Evelyn wrote about it in his diary on the eleventh,
Speaker 1: describing her as quote an extraordinary beauty and wit, but
Speaker 1: dissolute and impatient of matrimonial restraint. After paying off her debts,
Speaker 1: Armand had Hortense's body embalmed and returned to France. He
Speaker 1: took it through what seems like an intentionally planned round
Speaker 1: about and very long route, traveling through places that he
Speaker 1: knew that she hated to get there. The drama uh
Speaker 1: Marie Vancini's last year seemed to have been more comfortable
Speaker 1: and happier than her sisters. She did not have much
Speaker 1: of her own but her sons were generous with her.
Speaker 1: She traveled when things like the nine Years wore weren't
Speaker 1: making it too dangerous to do so. She died in
Speaker 1: Pisa on May eighth, seventeen fifteen, and she was buried there.
Speaker 1: She had asked to be buried wherever it was she
Speaker 1: happened to be when she died. Her first love, Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth, died a few months later. There are lots
Speaker 1: of books about Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini, and others
Speaker 1: of their sisters and the Affair of the Poisons that's
Speaker 1: come up a couple times. One of the books that
Speaker 1: spocused just on Hortons and Marie is The King's Mistresses,
Speaker 1: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna and her sister,
Speaker 1: Horton's Duchess Mazarin, that came out in twenty twelve. There's
Speaker 1: also a pretty new translation of their groundbreaking memoirs, which
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand and eight from the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago Press. Thanks so much for joining us on
Speaker 1: this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note,
Speaker 1: our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. And
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.