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Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio

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Speaker 1: and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 1: It was after the restoration of the monarchy in England

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Speaker 1: at the end of the seventeenth century, and two women

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Speaker 1: were fencing in Saint James Park. The fencing match wasn't violent.

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Speaker 1: Neither woman parried or lunged with any attempt to maim.

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Speaker 1: They were giggling and twirling around each other as they

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Speaker 1: fought with their training swords, gathering a small crowd of

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Speaker 1: spectators around them. I'm sure it's easy for you to

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Speaker 1: imagine why they attracted so much tension, after all, they

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Speaker 1: were two women publicly fencing in a park in the

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds. But there was another reason the crowds were

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Speaker 1: drawn to the fencers. Both women were famous. One was

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Speaker 1: Anne Leonard, Countess of Sussex, the illegitimate daughter of the

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Speaker 1: King Charles the Second and one of his long time mistresses,

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Speaker 1: the Duchess of Cleveland. Rumor had it that Anne was

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Speaker 1: conceived on the night of the king's coronation. The other

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Speaker 1: woman was one of the biggest celebrities in Europe at

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Speaker 1: the time. A woman famous across multiple countries for her

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Speaker 1: charm and looks and her outlandish gallivanting. This woman was

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Speaker 1: Hortense Mancini, Horton's. Mancini was born in Italy but raised

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Speaker 1: and educated in France as one of the seven nieces

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Speaker 1: of the influential minister Cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin's nieces, called the Mazarinettes,

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Speaker 1: were all well regarded in French court for their good looks,

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Speaker 1: but Hortense was considered the most beautiful. Before Horton's was

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Speaker 1: twenty five, she was married to one of the richest

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Speaker 1: men in Europe. She ran away from her husband disguised

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Speaker 1: as a man, and she became the first woman, after

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Speaker 1: Margaret of Valois to write her memoir. Certainly she was

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Speaker 1: the first to publish it within her lifetime under her

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Speaker 1: own name. Horton's memoir was a runaway hit, widely translated

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Speaker 1: and widely read, the modern day equivalent of a bestseller.

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Speaker 1: But Mancini's story didn't end there. To continue to escape

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Speaker 1: her abuse of husband's control, she fled to England, where

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Speaker 1: she became mistress to King Charles the Second. She also

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Speaker 1: began a relationship, most likely sexual, but certainly romantic with

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Speaker 1: Charles's illegitimate daughter, and the two women took fencing lessons together,

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Speaker 1: hence the whimsical practice in the park, all of which

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Speaker 1: brings us to the final reason that people were staring

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Speaker 1: at the Countess of Sussex and the Duchess Mazarine fencing

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Speaker 1: in St James Park. The two women were wearing only

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Speaker 1: their undergarments. Horton's story has fascinated historians and biographers for centuries.

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Speaker 1: It's the type of story of a woman in the

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Speaker 1: six teen hundreds that seems tailor made for people to

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Speaker 1: describe as quote badass, a woman with multiple lovers of

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Speaker 1: both genders, a woman who dressed as a man, who

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Speaker 1: enjoyed a life of freedom, almost unheard of for a

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Speaker 1: woman of her era. Freedom certainly only afforded her because

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Speaker 1: of her privileged birth and good looks. It always struck

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Speaker 1: me as a shame that the vast majority of interesting

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Speaker 1: women who led lives that were written about in the

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Speaker 1: early modern era also happened to be the ones whom

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Speaker 1: people remark were unusually attractive. For centuries, the path to

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Speaker 1: power for women was proximity to power. In other words,

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Speaker 1: marriage or sexual relationships with powerful men. But Horton's case,

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Speaker 1: being able to charm royals wasn't merely a path to

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Speaker 1: notoriety or relevance. It was essential to her very survival.

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Speaker 1: When Horton's attempted to wrestle herself away from her domineering husband,

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Speaker 1: the league system held her vast inheritance entirely in his control.

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Speaker 1: It was the men whom Morton's charmed who provided her

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Speaker 1: political and financial security. That her story ends in tragedy

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Speaker 1: only makes all of this seem like some misbegotten morality tale,

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Speaker 1: as in see Foolish Modern Women The Cost of a

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Speaker 1: Life of Freedom. But I do hope that if this

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Speaker 1: podcast serves as anything, it's a reminder that historical figures

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Speaker 1: are people, not heroes or idols, not quote badass girls

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Speaker 1: to be molded into plastic action figures. Hortons took the

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Speaker 1: cards that she was dealt and played them to the

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Speaker 1: best of her magnificent ability. The results well nothing short

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Speaker 1: of scandalous. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is noble blood.

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Speaker 1: Horton's man seen, born in Italy, was brought to France

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Speaker 1: at six years old because her uncle, the Cardinal Mazarin,

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Speaker 1: was incredibly powerful and incredibly wealthy, both important factors when

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Speaker 1: it came to arranging marriages for young women. And the

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Speaker 1: Mancinese had five young women that they needed to marry off,

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Speaker 1: the arrangement was mutually beneficial for the cardinal as well.

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Speaker 1: Muzzerin was a man who had clawed his way up

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Speaker 1: from nothing with only his intelligence and a preternatural gift

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Speaker 1: for knowing the right people to befriend. The son of

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Speaker 1: a chamberlain to a powerful Italian family, Muzerin studied at

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Speaker 1: college in Rome and Madrid before eventually coming to France

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Speaker 1: as part of a diplomatic envoy from the Vatican. He

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Speaker 1: was taken under the wing of the famous statesman Cardinal Rishelieu,

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Speaker 1: who served as first Minister to King Louis. When Rischelieu died,

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Speaker 1: Muserin took his place. When King Louis died, Muserin served

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Speaker 1: as the de facto head of the government while young

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Speaker 1: King Louis was too young to rule. But being a

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Speaker 1: man of the cloth, the cardinal had no heirs to

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Speaker 1: inherit the massive fortune he had massed or to continue

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Speaker 1: on his title or legacy, but he did have nieces,

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Speaker 1: seven of them, five from one sister and two of

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Speaker 1: the others, along with a handful of nephews daughters, were

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Speaker 1: important diplomatic tools to forge alliances with other powerful families,

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Speaker 1: something Muserin was especially in need of at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Muserin was acutely aware that he was a new voreche,

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Speaker 1: so to speak, an outsider among the highly born noble

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Speaker 1: French families, and tensions were especially high after a rebellion

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Speaker 1: called the Fronde, during which several high born princes rebelled

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Speaker 1: against the control of the monarchy. Really Muserin's power because

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Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth had yet to reach the age of

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Speaker 1: major party, and so Mozerin needed all of the weapons

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Speaker 1: at his disposal to solidify his place in French society.

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Speaker 1: To use the common metaphor of chess for social climbing,

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Speaker 1: Cardinal Mazarin was simply importing seven ponds from Italy. The

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Speaker 1: girls came in three shipments. Hortens was in the middle batch,

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Speaker 1: aged six, traveling with her older sister Marie. Hortons should

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Speaker 1: have been too young to come to French court, but

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Speaker 1: even at that early age she was precocious and considered

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Speaker 1: the best looking of the lot. Muserin met his nieces

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Speaker 1: outside of Paris to size them up. When they first arrived,

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Speaker 1: the girls had come by galleon ship from Italy rode

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Speaker 1: by twenty slaves, which Hortense conveniently neglects to mention in

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Speaker 1: her memoirs, although perhaps she was too young to understand.

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Speaker 1: Before the girls formerly came to court, Mauserin wanted to

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Speaker 1: make sure that they were well trained enough in basic

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Speaker 1: French etiquette to hold their own. The young girls giggled

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Speaker 1: as he reminded them of the French habit of kissing

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Speaker 1: on the cheeks and greeting. They passed Mazarin's inspection, but

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Speaker 1: Hortense and Marie wouldn't remain at court for long. Marie,

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Speaker 1: suffering from preteen angst or something more severe, was considered

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Speaker 1: unruly and too skinny. Some sources describe her as having

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Speaker 1: an eating disorder, and so in order to try to

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Speaker 1: straighten her out, Marie was sent to a convent for

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Speaker 1: her education, with Hortense along with her. The pair of

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Speaker 1: sisters bonded through the experience, which meant that Horton's would

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Speaker 1: witness first hand and feel it acutely when Marie would

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Speaker 1: suffer her first disastrous heartbreak back at court after their education,

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Speaker 1: the seven nieces of Cardinal Mauserin became known as the Mazerinettes,

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Speaker 1: a group of girls charming and pretty and distinctly Italian

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Speaker 1: in French court, where blonde beauties had dominated the social scene.

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Speaker 1: The girls caught the eyes of several admirers, which made

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Speaker 1: Mazarin's job of securing marriages easy enough. But then Marie

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Speaker 1: caught the eye of the wrong person, or rather an

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Speaker 1: impossible person. She fell in love with the young King

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Speaker 1: Louis the four. He was just a year older than

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Speaker 1: her twenty at the time, and the feeling was absolutely mutual.

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Speaker 1: The two were besotted with one another, and as they

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Speaker 1: strolled through the gardens of Fulton Blue at midnight, they

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Speaker 1: comforted each other with the fantasy that they would get

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Speaker 1: married and lived together forever as king and queen. Quietly,

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Speaker 1: I imagine, even Horton's knew that her sister's fantasy was ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: but she never would have told Marie so. So So what

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Speaker 1: mattered was that Cardinal mazar And knew it, and the

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Speaker 1: King's mother, Anne of Austria, certainly knew it. The King

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Speaker 1: of France was never going to marry such a low

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Speaker 1: born girl from an all but random Italian family. Eventually

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Speaker 1: the King would learn it too. Their love was idealistic

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Speaker 1: and childish and most likely never consummated, but it was

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Speaker 1: love nevertheless. When the Queen forcibly separated the pair, sending

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Speaker 1: Marie and Hortons to La Rochelle for a temporary exile,

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Speaker 1: it said that Louis sobbed while Marie entered the carriage.

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Speaker 1: He desperately tried to press his final gift of pearls

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Speaker 1: into her hands. The secret letters back and forth continued

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Speaker 1: for a while, as did the gifts that Louise sent

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Speaker 1: to his Marie, including a tiny pet dog. But then

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Speaker 1: the letters became more distant, more cordial, than they slowed.

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Speaker 1: Even Louis understood the truth of the situation, the inevitability

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Speaker 1: of his important, high ranking marriage. I imagine it probably

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Speaker 1: affected King Louis when Mauserin wrote him a letter describing

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Speaker 1: his own niece by saying, quote, she has an ambition

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Speaker 1: without bounds, a restless and awkward spirit, a contempt for

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Speaker 1: all the world, no prudence in her conduct, and inclination

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Speaker 1: to all extravagancies end quote. The marriages of his nieces,

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Speaker 1: the Cardinal ensured would be on his terms and for

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Speaker 1: his own advantage. Murray was heartbroken, and Hortense listened to

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Speaker 1: her sobbing every night. Her sister was in love with

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Speaker 1: a king, and a king loved her, and yet even

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Speaker 1: God's own vessel on earth wasn't more powerful than the

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Speaker 1: laws of family dynasty that compelled him to marry a

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Speaker 1: foreign princess. Louis Fourte was quickly married off to a cousin,

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Speaker 1: Maria Theres of Spain, and Muserin equally quickly arranged a

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Speaker 1: marriage between Marie and an important Italian nobleman, Lorenzo on

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Speaker 1: Frio Cologna, who apparently was shocked to find that his

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Speaker 1: bride was still a virgin, coming from the den of

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Speaker 1: sin that was France. Finally, it was Hortense's turn for

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Speaker 1: marriage for her uncle Mazerin, a man these sisters would

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Speaker 1: come to loathe for his coldness and disciplinarian manner. To

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Speaker 1: pick one of the many glittering offers on the table

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Speaker 1: for the prettiest of the Mazzarinets. One of the offers

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Speaker 1: was from the exiled Charles the Second, the son of

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Speaker 1: the executed English king Charles the First. Charles the Second

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Speaker 1: had escaped England after the rise of Oliver Cromwell. While

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Speaker 1: in France, Charles had been captivated by the young Hortens,

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Speaker 1: but Mazarin rejected his proposal. He didn't believe a man

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Speaker 1: in exile would have much to offer his young niece.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure he was kicking himself just a few months later,

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Speaker 1: when the English monarchy was restored and Charles b hime

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Speaker 1: King Charles the Second. Another of the proposals was from

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Speaker 1: Charles Emmanuel the Second, the Duke of Savoy, but his

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Speaker 1: squabble over the inclusion of an important castle in Horton's

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Speaker 1: dowry caused the Duke to withdraw his offer. Still, no

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Speaker 1: one doubted that Hortens would make a fantastic marriage. Horton's

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Speaker 1: was Mauserin's personal favorite of the girls for her beauty,

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Speaker 1: her wit, and intelligence, and he decided that she, more

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Speaker 1: than the others, would be his primary heir. This may

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Speaker 1: be partly explained why the husband he chose for her

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Speaker 1: was a rich, prominent man, the son of an important

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Speaker 1: military officer, but surprisingly not a man with an illustrious

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Speaker 1: family history. Mazarin knew that he was approaching death, and

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Speaker 1: he wanted Horton's husband to be able to take on

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Speaker 1: the mauserin title and so at her uncle's behest, fifteen

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Speaker 1: year old Hortens married a twenty a year old man

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Speaker 1: named Armand Charles de Lamour de la Millier. Eight days later,

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Speaker 1: Mazerin died, Armand became the new Duke de Mazarin, and,

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Speaker 1: with the combined wealth of his new bride, became one

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Speaker 1: of the richest men in Europe. Armand was an awful man.

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Speaker 1: For one, the report that he had an interest in

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Speaker 1: Hortance from the time that she was nine years old,

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Speaker 1: which is absolutely creepy enough, But after their marriage he

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Speaker 1: became a downright terror. I don't know if it's worth

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Speaker 1: diagnosing him posthumously with mental illness. Certainly some of his

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Speaker 1: behavior comes across as erratic. Armand was wildly jealous of

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Speaker 1: Hortens and possessive of her. He also became strangely religious

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Speaker 1: and prudish in a way that veered into instability with

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Speaker 1: her dowry. Horton's inherited from her uncle a vast art

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Speaker 1: collection of masterpieces, paint things and sculptures. Screaming that they

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Speaker 1: were immoral, her husband raced through the halls of the palace,

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Speaker 1: using a knife to cut or scratch over the exposed

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Speaker 1: genitals of any nude paintings and chipping away at the

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Speaker 1: nude sculptures. Horton's had to watch in tears as her

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Speaker 1: deranged husband destroyed some of the most beautiful art in

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Speaker 1: the world. Armand also had it in mind that milking

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Speaker 1: cows was too erotic for women, the utters he believed

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Speaker 1: would lower them into immorality. He had all of the

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Speaker 1: front teeth of all of his female servants knocked out

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Speaker 1: so that they wouldn't attract any attention from the male servants.

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Speaker 1: As for his wife, Horton's, well, she simply shined too

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Speaker 1: brightly in social situations in Paris. Jealous of her happiness

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Speaker 1: and the time she spent with others, Armand forced her

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Speaker 1: away to travel with him to the distant rural corners

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Speaker 1: of France where he had inherited property. Even when Horton's

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Speaker 1: was eight months pregnant. He would burst in on her

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the night to try to catch

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Speaker 1: her cheating, and he had her followed nearly any time

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Speaker 1: she left her chambers. But yes miserable as their marriage was,

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Speaker 1: Hortense had four children with armand though in her memoirs

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Speaker 1: her maternal warmth is somewhat lacking, the children are really

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Speaker 1: only mentioned in regards to her own suffering, being forced

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Speaker 1: to travel while pregnant, never allowed to rest. Perhaps that

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Speaker 1: was a defense mechanism, distancing herself from her children because

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Speaker 1: of what Hortons would do next. With the help of

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Speaker 1: her brother, Hortens plotted her escape. Her brother procured the

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Speaker 1: horses for her and arranged the secret travel. Dressed as

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Speaker 1: a man, Hortense left France by carriage, leaving her four

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Speaker 1: young children behind. Under cover of darkness, Hortens made her

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Speaker 1: way to Rome to escape her husband and be with

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Speaker 1: her sister Marie, by then the Princess Colonna. Horton's attempted

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Speaker 1: to end her marriage legally, but she had no power

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Speaker 1: or recourse against the demands of her husband, who insisted

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Speaker 1: that she returned to him. Still, King Louis the fourteen

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Speaker 1: took mercy on her, the girl he had grown up

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Speaker 1: alongside at court and whose sister he had once loved.

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Speaker 1: He offered Hortons his protection and an annual pension of

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Speaker 1: twenty thousand livres. Hortens was also offered the protection of

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Speaker 1: her former suitor, the Duke of Savoy, who allowed Hortons

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Speaker 1: to come and live on his property and who may

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Speaker 1: or may not have been having an affair with Horton's

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Speaker 1: at the time, depending on who you read. It was

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Speaker 1: there at the Duke's comfortable estate in Chambre that Hortense

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Speaker 1: wrote her memoirs. It was a brilliant strategic move on

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Speaker 1: her part, even though Horton was at this time still

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Speaker 1: in her twenties. It was a chance for her to

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Speaker 1: frame her life on her terms, to tell of her

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Speaker 1: escape from her husband, which was already well known as

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Speaker 1: a scandalous piece of gossip, but to tell it with

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Speaker 1: her as the heroine. The book was a wild success,

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Speaker 1: so popular that it actually spawned imitations. There were fake

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Speaker 1: memoirs that claimed to be written by her sister Marie,

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Speaker 1: who had also by this point run away from her

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Speaker 1: own unhappy marriage. Marie actually eventually did follow Hortens's lead,

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Speaker 1: and she wrote her own real memoir, claiming that she

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Speaker 1: needed to set the record straight from all the fakes.

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Speaker 1: While in Chambre, Hortense wrote that she had finally found

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Speaker 1: the piece that had eluded her for the early part

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Speaker 1: of her life, but peace wouldn't last long. The Duke

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Speaker 1: of Savoy died, and whether or not he and Hortense

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Speaker 1: were actually lovers, his widow believed that they were, and

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Speaker 1: she cast Hortense out. Horton's own husband took advantage of

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Speaker 1: the tumultuous situation to freeze all of Horton's income, including

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Speaker 1: the money that she was receiving from the king. Horton's

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Speaker 1: options were running dry and she had few places left

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Speaker 1: to turn. Fortunately for her, she was about to receive

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Speaker 1: an interesting offer. The English ambassador to France, a weasel

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Speaker 1: faced man named Ralph Montague, was unhappy with his position

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Speaker 1: in England. He blamed it on Charles the Second's favorite mistress,

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Speaker 1: Louise de Caral, Duchess of Portsmouth. Montague needed his own

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Speaker 1: way to advance himself, to gain the King's favor to

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Speaker 1: return to the inner circle. His answer was Horton's Mancini.

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Speaker 1: By this point, Horton's was a bona fide celebrity, beautiful

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Speaker 1: and rich in terms of clout, but poor in terms

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Speaker 1: of money. Montague suggested a mutually beneficial arrangement. Try to

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Speaker 1: become King Charles the Second's mistress. After all, he had

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Speaker 1: been charmed by her a lifetime ago when he wanted

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Speaker 1: to marry her, and now she was famous. So Hortons

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Speaker 1: snuck into England on the pretense of visiting one of

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Speaker 1: her nieces, Mary of Modina, who was married to King Charles,

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Speaker 1: the second younger brother James, the Duke of York. The

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Speaker 1: seduction plan worked almost instantly. Charles was appropriately charmed by

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Speaker 1: Hortense and accepted her into his retinue of mistresses, an

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Speaker 1: illustrious group of women that included Portsmouth, the Duchess of Cleveland,

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Speaker 1: and the actress Nell Gwynn. Portsmouth was apparently distraught and

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Speaker 1: came to Montague weeping when she found out that the

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Speaker 1: king was giving his attention to Hortense instead of her,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure Montague did his best to conceal his glee.

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Speaker 1: But Portsmouth didn't need to weep for long. Though Hortons

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Speaker 1: was one of the king's mistresses, and though he gave

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Speaker 1: a generous stipend to her, she didn't remain the favorite

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Speaker 1: for long, and soon enough he returned to Louisa's portsmouths arms. Hortense,

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Speaker 1: famous and attractive as she was, was too social for

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Speaker 1: the King's tastes, and by that I mean she tended

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Speaker 1: to flirt and do more than flirt with other men

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Speaker 1: and women. There was the relationship with the King's illegitimate

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Speaker 1: daughter and the daughter of one of her fellow mistresses,

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Speaker 1: and which we discussed earlier. Anne's husband was so scandalized

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Speaker 1: by the fencing in their underwear thing that he whisked

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Speaker 1: her away from London to the country, where it said

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Speaker 1: Anne spend weeks in bed doing nothing but crying and kissing.

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Speaker 1: A portrait of Hortense. Hortens also had a relationship, whether

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Speaker 1: flirtatious or more, with the Prince of Monico, which so

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Speaker 1: miffed the King that he cut off Horton's salary, though

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Speaker 1: he reinstated it a few days later. The King of England,

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Speaker 1: for his part, liked Hortense plenty and couldn't, for the

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Speaker 1: life of him understand why the King of France couldn't

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Speaker 1: find a way to provide for this charming creature. But

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Speaker 1: Hortons's real coup in England wasn't finding her way into

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Speaker 1: the King's bed. It was the parties and society events

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Speaker 1: that she held in her living room. The term salon

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Speaker 1: is a little anachronistic here, but it's what best described

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Speaker 1: what Hortons was doing, bringing scientists, philosophers and writers to

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Speaker 1: talk and drink and gamble. The salons were wildly influential

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Speaker 1: in terms of culture. The scientific articles that she brought

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00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:40,400
Speaker 1: up would become widely read and popular. In the case

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Speaker 1: of a paper by Fontanelle, it actually led to it

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Speaker 1: being translated, and Horton set London fashion what to wear,

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Speaker 1: what to eat, what to drink. The salons were also

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Speaker 1: tremendously important when it came to women. During a time

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Speaker 1: when women were thought to be frivolous and unable to

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00:22:58,440 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: handle their own finances, Horton's and her friends were playing

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00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: cards and gambling, women gambling alongside men, losing and winning

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Speaker 1: money as equals. All the while her incredibly litigious, stubborn

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00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: and jealous husband back in France was attempting to get

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Speaker 1: the courts to force his wife to come back to him.

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Speaker 1: After the death of King Charles the Second in England,

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Speaker 1: the throne went to his younger brother James, a Catholic,

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Speaker 1: which didn't sit well with the Protestant population. In sixteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight, the Glorious Revolution in England bloodlessly overthrew James

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Speaker 1: to leap frog the throne to his daughter and son

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Speaker 1: in law, who ruled jointly as William and Mary. The

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Speaker 1: next year, Hortons's husband Armand, filed a lawsuit in France

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Speaker 1: which said that Hortons had no right to her dowry

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Speaker 1: and either needed to return to him or be locked

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Speaker 1: away in a convent. The court ruled in his favor,

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Speaker 1: but Horton's lawyers had an angle. Horton's had racked up

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Speaker 1: a considerable debt in England, and English law prevented her

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Speaker 1: from leaving the country until those debts were paid. Well,

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00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous, Armand scoffed. My wife had no legal right

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Speaker 1: to contract debts without her husband's permission. He refused to pay,

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Speaker 1: let alone recognize those debts, and so legally he and

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00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: Hortons were in a stalemate. Horton's remained in England through

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Speaker 1: the brief reign of James into the rule of William

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Speaker 1: and Mary, who still provided for her, albeit at a

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Speaker 1: much reduced pension. They provided for her until Horton's died

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Speaker 1: in six nine at age fifty three. Some euphemistically say

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Speaker 1: that she drank herself to death but more realistic scholars

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Speaker 1: understand that it was most likely suicide. The diarist John

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Speaker 1: Evelyn wrote of her death that you was quote reported

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Speaker 1: to have hastened her death by the intemperate drinking strong spirits.

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Speaker 1: It's understood that the euphemism meant that she drank a

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00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: number of tonics that were known to cause death. At last,

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Speaker 1: her jealous husband Armand would be able to get his

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Speaker 1: claws into her. After Hortense's death, he did pay her

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Speaker 1: English debts, and he claimed her remains, carding her casket

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Speaker 1: along to all of his remote visits to the French countryside,

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Speaker 1: the way he had tried to take her in life.

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Speaker 1: Only in a coffin was Hortense finally silent and obedient.

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Speaker 1: Eventually she was buried with her uncle, as she had requested,

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Speaker 1: but in the end that didn't matter. When the French

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Speaker 1: Revolution came, her bones and Cardinal Mazarine's bones would be

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Speaker 1: thrown into the river. So ends the strange, fantastic life

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Speaker 1: of Horton's Mancini, who did all she could to live

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00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: of her life on her own terms, who took lovers

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00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:06,360
Speaker 1: and charmed kings, and wrote her own story in her

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00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:09,919
Speaker 1: own words before anyone else fully understood the power of

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00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: that stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear

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Speaker 1: a little bit more about her legacy. One strange footnote

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00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: in the story of Horton's Manzini is that her granddaughter

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00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: would become the mother to five daughters herself, and four

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00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,760
Speaker 1: of those daughters would go on to become mistresses of Louis.

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Speaker 1: There's another Hortons legacy that I find more personally relevant.

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00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: While in England, her salons became the center of culture

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Speaker 1: and trends. The food and beverages she served not only

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00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: became trendy, but also became associated with the upper class

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Speaker 1: and the intellectual elite. Hortons is final affair and affair

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00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: of mind, not the body. Was with the older fellow

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Speaker 1: French exile, Charles de Saint Evremond. Hortense and Evremonde shared

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00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 1: a taste for a newly popular type of wine, sparkling

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00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: and especially grown in France. Although the Benedictine monk most

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00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: famous for making it was trying his best to rid

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00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: his wine of the bubbles, that monk was dumb. Parignon

400
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,680
Speaker 1: and Horton's Mancini serving his wine at her party's helped

401
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 1: to craft the drink's reputation for being sophisticated. He drink

402
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,880
Speaker 1: for bon vivants who enjoyed living life to the fullest.

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00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: It's a reputation for the beverage that still persists to

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00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: this day. I'm speaking, of course, of champagne. Noble Blood

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Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and

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00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: Mild from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted

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00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams,

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00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,120
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rema Ill

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00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: Kali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media

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00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

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00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com. For

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00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart

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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows. M