WEBVTT - The Runaway Duchess 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:08.119 and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minkie. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.480 It was after the restoration of the monarchy in England 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.000 at the end of the seventeenth century, and two women 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:25.160 were fencing in Saint James Park. The fencing match wasn't violent. 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:29.040 Neither woman parried or lunged with any attempt to maim. 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.239 They were giggling and twirling around each other as they 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.960 fought with their training swords, gathering a small crowd of 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.560 spectators around them. I'm sure it's easy for you to 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.440 imagine why they attracted so much tension, after all, they 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.760 were two women publicly fencing in a park in the 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.479 sixteen hundreds. But there was another reason the crowds were 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.920 drawn to the fencers. Both women were famous. One was 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.160 Anne Leonard, Countess of Sussex, the illegitimate daughter of the 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.800 King Charles the Second and one of his long time mistresses, 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.520 the Duchess of Cleveland. Rumor had it that Anne was 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.759 conceived on the night of the king's coronation. The other 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:13.880 woman was one of the biggest celebrities in Europe at 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:18.360 the time. A woman famous across multiple countries for her 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.679 charm and looks and her outlandish gallivanting. This woman was 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:29.959 Hortense Mancini, Horton's. Mancini was born in Italy but raised 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.680 and educated in France as one of the seven nieces 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:39.160 of the influential minister Cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin's nieces, called the Mazarinettes, 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.039 were all well regarded in French court for their good looks, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.560 but Hortense was considered the most beautiful. Before Horton's was 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.520 twenty five, she was married to one of the richest 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.560 men in Europe. She ran away from her husband disguised 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.560 as a man, and she became the first woman, after 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.440 Margaret of Valois to write her memoir. Certainly she was 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.120 the first to publish it within her lifetime under her 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:09.040 own name. Horton's memoir was a runaway hit, widely translated 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.880 and widely read, the modern day equivalent of a bestseller. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.440 But Mancini's story didn't end there. To continue to escape 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.600 her abuse of husband's control, she fled to England, where 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:25.239 she became mistress to King Charles the Second. She also 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:30.119 began a relationship, most likely sexual, but certainly romantic with 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:35.320 Charles's illegitimate daughter, and the two women took fencing lessons together, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.080 hence the whimsical practice in the park, all of which 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.080 brings us to the final reason that people were staring 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.720 at the Countess of Sussex and the Duchess Mazarine fencing 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.840 in St James Park. The two women were wearing only 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:56.960 their undergarments. Horton's story has fascinated historians and biographers for centuries. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.600 It's the type of story of a woman in the 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:03.000 six teen hundreds that seems tailor made for people to 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:08.120 describe as quote badass, a woman with multiple lovers of 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.000 both genders, a woman who dressed as a man, who 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.080 enjoyed a life of freedom, almost unheard of for a 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.919 woman of her era. Freedom certainly only afforded her because 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.919 of her privileged birth and good looks. It always struck 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.000 me as a shame that the vast majority of interesting 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.440 women who led lives that were written about in the 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.600 early modern era also happened to be the ones whom 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:35.480 people remark were unusually attractive. For centuries, the path to 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.600 power for women was proximity to power. In other words, 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:45.320 marriage or sexual relationships with powerful men. But Horton's case, 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.880 being able to charm royals wasn't merely a path to 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.720 notoriety or relevance. It was essential to her very survival. 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.000 When Horton's attempted to wrestle herself away from her domineering husband, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.080 the league system held her vast inheritance entirely in his control. 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.480 It was the men whom Morton's charmed who provided her 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.840 political and financial security. That her story ends in tragedy 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.680 only makes all of this seem like some misbegotten morality tale, 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:22.240 as in see Foolish Modern Women The Cost of a 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:25.280 Life of Freedom. But I do hope that if this 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:30.000 podcast serves as anything, it's a reminder that historical figures 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:35.480 are people, not heroes or idols, not quote badass girls 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.520 to be molded into plastic action figures. Hortons took the 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.479 cards that she was dealt and played them to the 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:47.800 best of her magnificent ability. The results well nothing short 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:52.240 of scandalous. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is noble blood. 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.600 Horton's man seen, born in Italy, was brought to France 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.680 at six years old because her uncle, the Cardinal Mazarin, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:11.320 was incredibly powerful and incredibly wealthy, both important factors when 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.919 it came to arranging marriages for young women. And the 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.480 Mancinese had five young women that they needed to marry off, 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.839 the arrangement was mutually beneficial for the cardinal as well. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:26.200 Muzzerin was a man who had clawed his way up 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:30.640 from nothing with only his intelligence and a preternatural gift 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.440 for knowing the right people to befriend. The son of 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.640 a chamberlain to a powerful Italian family, Muzerin studied at 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:42.760 college in Rome and Madrid before eventually coming to France 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.520 as part of a diplomatic envoy from the Vatican. He 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.159 was taken under the wing of the famous statesman Cardinal Rishelieu, 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:55.680 who served as first Minister to King Louis. When Rischelieu died, 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.440 Muserin took his place. When King Louis died, Muserin served 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.640 as the de facto head of the government while young 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.359 King Louis was too young to rule. But being a 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.120 man of the cloth, the cardinal had no heirs to 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.919 inherit the massive fortune he had massed or to continue 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:19.280 on his title or legacy, but he did have nieces, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.159 seven of them, five from one sister and two of 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:26.000 the others, along with a handful of nephews daughters, were 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.880 important diplomatic tools to forge alliances with other powerful families, 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.719 something Muserin was especially in need of at the moment. 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.480 Muserin was acutely aware that he was a new voreche, 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.640 so to speak, an outsider among the highly born noble 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:48.320 French families, and tensions were especially high after a rebellion 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:52.680 called the Fronde, during which several high born princes rebelled 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.200 against the control of the monarchy. Really Muserin's power because 0:06:57.279 --> 0:06:59.640 Louis the fourteenth had yet to reach the age of 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.799 major party, and so Mozerin needed all of the weapons 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:08.240 at his disposal to solidify his place in French society. 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.400 To use the common metaphor of chess for social climbing, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:18.800 Cardinal Mazarin was simply importing seven ponds from Italy. The 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.960 girls came in three shipments. Hortens was in the middle batch, 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:28.280 aged six, traveling with her older sister Marie. Hortons should 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.000 have been too young to come to French court, but 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.800 even at that early age she was precocious and considered 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.040 the best looking of the lot. Muserin met his nieces 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.440 outside of Paris to size them up. When they first arrived, 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.080 the girls had come by galleon ship from Italy rode 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:50.560 by twenty slaves, which Hortense conveniently neglects to mention in 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:54.200 her memoirs, although perhaps she was too young to understand. 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.240 Before the girls formerly came to court, Mauserin wanted to 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.920 make sure that they were well trained enough in basic 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.760 French etiquette to hold their own. The young girls giggled 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.400 as he reminded them of the French habit of kissing 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.840 on the cheeks and greeting. They passed Mazarin's inspection, but 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.960 Hortense and Marie wouldn't remain at court for long. Marie, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:21.000 suffering from preteen angst or something more severe, was considered 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.600 unruly and too skinny. Some sources describe her as having 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.760 an eating disorder, and so in order to try to 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.160 straighten her out, Marie was sent to a convent for 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:36.960 her education, with Hortense along with her. The pair of 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.800 sisters bonded through the experience, which meant that Horton's would 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:45.240 witness first hand and feel it acutely when Marie would 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:53.360 suffer her first disastrous heartbreak back at court after their education, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.240 the seven nieces of Cardinal Mauserin became known as the Mazerinettes, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.319 a group of girls charming and pretty and distinctly Italian 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.640 in French court, where blonde beauties had dominated the social scene. 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.080 The girls caught the eyes of several admirers, which made 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.720 Mazarin's job of securing marriages easy enough. But then Marie 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.000 caught the eye of the wrong person, or rather an 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:25.360 impossible person. She fell in love with the young King 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.040 Louis the four. He was just a year older than 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.480 her twenty at the time, and the feeling was absolutely mutual. 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.280 The two were besotted with one another, and as they 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.640 strolled through the gardens of Fulton Blue at midnight, they 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.600 comforted each other with the fantasy that they would get 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.800 married and lived together forever as king and queen. Quietly, 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:55.240 I imagine, even Horton's knew that her sister's fantasy was ridiculous, 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:57.840 but she never would have told Marie so. So So what 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.079 mattered was that Cardinal mazar And knew it, and the 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:04.880 King's mother, Anne of Austria, certainly knew it. The King 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.840 of France was never going to marry such a low 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.920 born girl from an all but random Italian family. Eventually 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.120 the King would learn it too. Their love was idealistic 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.440 and childish and most likely never consummated, but it was 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:26.840 love nevertheless. When the Queen forcibly separated the pair, sending 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.439 Marie and Hortons to La Rochelle for a temporary exile, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.800 it said that Louis sobbed while Marie entered the carriage. 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.480 He desperately tried to press his final gift of pearls 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:43.240 into her hands. The secret letters back and forth continued 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.600 for a while, as did the gifts that Louise sent 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:50.640 to his Marie, including a tiny pet dog. But then 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.080 the letters became more distant, more cordial, than they slowed. 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.120 Even Louis understood the truth of the situation, the inevitability 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:05.320 of his important, high ranking marriage. I imagine it probably 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.880 affected King Louis when Mauserin wrote him a letter describing 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.319 his own niece by saying, quote, she has an ambition 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.680 without bounds, a restless and awkward spirit, a contempt for 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:20.239 all the world, no prudence in her conduct, and inclination 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:25.040 to all extravagancies end quote. The marriages of his nieces, 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.679 the Cardinal ensured would be on his terms and for 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:33.559 his own advantage. Murray was heartbroken, and Hortense listened to 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.200 her sobbing every night. Her sister was in love with 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.160 a king, and a king loved her, and yet even 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.200 God's own vessel on earth wasn't more powerful than the 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.280 laws of family dynasty that compelled him to marry a 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.240 foreign princess. Louis Fourte was quickly married off to a cousin, 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.720 Maria Theres of Spain, and Muserin equally quickly arranged a 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:01.839 marriage between Marie and an important Italian nobleman, Lorenzo on 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.000 Frio Cologna, who apparently was shocked to find that his 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.880 bride was still a virgin, coming from the den of 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:13.760 sin that was France. Finally, it was Hortense's turn for 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:17.559 marriage for her uncle Mazerin, a man these sisters would 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.880 come to loathe for his coldness and disciplinarian manner. To 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.720 pick one of the many glittering offers on the table 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:29.880 for the prettiest of the Mazzarinets. One of the offers 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:33.560 was from the exiled Charles the Second, the son of 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.440 the executed English king Charles the First. Charles the Second 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:41.520 had escaped England after the rise of Oliver Cromwell. While 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.280 in France, Charles had been captivated by the young Hortens, 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:49.360 but Mazarin rejected his proposal. He didn't believe a man 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.120 in exile would have much to offer his young niece. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.800 I'm sure he was kicking himself just a few months later, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.280 when the English monarchy was restored and Charles b hime 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.160 King Charles the Second. Another of the proposals was from 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.800 Charles Emmanuel the Second, the Duke of Savoy, but his 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.560 squabble over the inclusion of an important castle in Horton's 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.160 dowry caused the Duke to withdraw his offer. Still, no 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:21.600 one doubted that Hortens would make a fantastic marriage. Horton's 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.240 was Mauserin's personal favorite of the girls for her beauty, 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:29.320 her wit, and intelligence, and he decided that she, more 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:33.280 than the others, would be his primary heir. This may 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.360 be partly explained why the husband he chose for her 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.040 was a rich, prominent man, the son of an important 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:44.920 military officer, but surprisingly not a man with an illustrious 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:49.200 family history. Mazarin knew that he was approaching death, and 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.680 he wanted Horton's husband to be able to take on 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:57.720 the mauserin title and so at her uncle's behest, fifteen 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.800 year old Hortens married a twenty a year old man 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:06.040 named Armand Charles de Lamour de la Millier. Eight days later, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:11.280 Mazerin died, Armand became the new Duke de Mazarin, and, 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.600 with the combined wealth of his new bride, became one 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:20.680 of the richest men in Europe. Armand was an awful man. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.000 For one, the report that he had an interest in 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.120 Hortance from the time that she was nine years old, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:32.000 which is absolutely creepy enough, But after their marriage he 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.720 became a downright terror. I don't know if it's worth 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:40.240 diagnosing him posthumously with mental illness. Certainly some of his 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:44.600 behavior comes across as erratic. Armand was wildly jealous of 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:49.720 Hortens and possessive of her. He also became strangely religious 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:54.120 and prudish in a way that veered into instability with 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.600 her dowry. Horton's inherited from her uncle a vast art 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:02.840 collection of masterpieces, paint things and sculptures. Screaming that they 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.680 were immoral, her husband raced through the halls of the palace, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.440 using a knife to cut or scratch over the exposed 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.880 genitals of any nude paintings and chipping away at the 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:18.160 nude sculptures. Horton's had to watch in tears as her 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.000 deranged husband destroyed some of the most beautiful art in 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:26.280 the world. Armand also had it in mind that milking 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:30.160 cows was too erotic for women, the utters he believed 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.920 would lower them into immorality. He had all of the 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.480 front teeth of all of his female servants knocked out 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.320 so that they wouldn't attract any attention from the male servants. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.640 As for his wife, Horton's, well, she simply shined too 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:50.200 brightly in social situations in Paris. Jealous of her happiness 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.600 and the time she spent with others, Armand forced her 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.360 away to travel with him to the distant rural corners 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:00.920 of France where he had inherited property. Even when Horton's 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.080 was eight months pregnant. He would burst in on her 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:05.880 in the middle of the night to try to catch 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.240 her cheating, and he had her followed nearly any time 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:14.000 she left her chambers. But yes miserable as their marriage was, 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:19.280 Hortense had four children with armand though in her memoirs 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:24.080 her maternal warmth is somewhat lacking, the children are really 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.880 only mentioned in regards to her own suffering, being forced 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:31.960 to travel while pregnant, never allowed to rest. Perhaps that 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:37.200 was a defense mechanism, distancing herself from her children because 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.440 of what Hortons would do next. With the help of 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.360 her brother, Hortens plotted her escape. Her brother procured the 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:50.560 horses for her and arranged the secret travel. Dressed as 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.280 a man, Hortense left France by carriage, leaving her four 0:16:55.400 --> 0:17:00.400 young children behind. Under cover of darkness, Hortens made her 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:03.440 way to Rome to escape her husband and be with 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:13.400 her sister Marie, by then the Princess Colonna. Horton's attempted 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.320 to end her marriage legally, but she had no power 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.200 or recourse against the demands of her husband, who insisted 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.720 that she returned to him. Still, King Louis the fourteen 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.280 took mercy on her, the girl he had grown up 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.320 alongside at court and whose sister he had once loved. 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.800 He offered Hortons his protection and an annual pension of 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.159 twenty thousand livres. Hortens was also offered the protection of 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.879 her former suitor, the Duke of Savoy, who allowed Hortons 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.840 to come and live on his property and who may 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.359 or may not have been having an affair with Horton's 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:51.199 at the time, depending on who you read. It was 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:54.600 there at the Duke's comfortable estate in Chambre that Hortense 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.439 wrote her memoirs. It was a brilliant strategic move on 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.560 her part, even though Horton was at this time still 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.280 in her twenties. It was a chance for her to 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.680 frame her life on her terms, to tell of her 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.320 escape from her husband, which was already well known as 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.080 a scandalous piece of gossip, but to tell it with 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:18.240 her as the heroine. The book was a wild success, 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.520 so popular that it actually spawned imitations. There were fake 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.719 memoirs that claimed to be written by her sister Marie, 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.239 who had also by this point run away from her 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:33.560 own unhappy marriage. Marie actually eventually did follow Hortens's lead, 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.760 and she wrote her own real memoir, claiming that she 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.240 needed to set the record straight from all the fakes. 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.639 While in Chambre, Hortense wrote that she had finally found 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:46.200 the piece that had eluded her for the early part 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.240 of her life, but peace wouldn't last long. The Duke 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:53.360 of Savoy died, and whether or not he and Hortense 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.800 were actually lovers, his widow believed that they were, and 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:01.399 she cast Hortense out. Horton's own husband took advantage of 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:06.679 the tumultuous situation to freeze all of Horton's income, including 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.960 the money that she was receiving from the king. Horton's 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.240 options were running dry and she had few places left 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.359 to turn. Fortunately for her, she was about to receive 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:23.800 an interesting offer. The English ambassador to France, a weasel 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.960 faced man named Ralph Montague, was unhappy with his position 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:32.440 in England. He blamed it on Charles the Second's favorite mistress, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.160 Louise de Caral, Duchess of Portsmouth. Montague needed his own 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.119 way to advance himself, to gain the King's favor to 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.200 return to the inner circle. His answer was Horton's Mancini. 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:50.359 By this point, Horton's was a bona fide celebrity, beautiful 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.680 and rich in terms of clout, but poor in terms 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:59.359 of money. Montague suggested a mutually beneficial arrangement. Try to 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.800 become King Charles the Second's mistress. After all, he had 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.280 been charmed by her a lifetime ago when he wanted 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.560 to marry her, and now she was famous. So Hortons 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.560 snuck into England on the pretense of visiting one of 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.240 her nieces, Mary of Modina, who was married to King Charles, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:21.199 the second younger brother James, the Duke of York. The 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:26.840 seduction plan worked almost instantly. Charles was appropriately charmed by 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.119 Hortense and accepted her into his retinue of mistresses, an 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.359 illustrious group of women that included Portsmouth, the Duchess of Cleveland, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:40.040 and the actress Nell Gwynn. Portsmouth was apparently distraught and 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.720 came to Montague weeping when she found out that the 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.880 king was giving his attention to Hortense instead of her, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.679 and I'm sure Montague did his best to conceal his glee. 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.360 But Portsmouth didn't need to weep for long. Though Hortons 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.920 was one of the king's mistresses, and though he gave 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.679 a generous stipend to her, she didn't remain the favorite 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:07.560 for long, and soon enough he returned to Louisa's portsmouths arms. Hortense, 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.919 famous and attractive as she was, was too social for 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:14.719 the King's tastes, and by that I mean she tended 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.800 to flirt and do more than flirt with other men 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:22.359 and women. There was the relationship with the King's illegitimate 0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:25.640 daughter and the daughter of one of her fellow mistresses, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.560 and which we discussed earlier. Anne's husband was so scandalized 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.920 by the fencing in their underwear thing that he whisked 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.840 her away from London to the country, where it said 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.040 Anne spend weeks in bed doing nothing but crying and kissing. 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:45.560 A portrait of Hortense. Hortens also had a relationship, whether 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.800 flirtatious or more, with the Prince of Monico, which so 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.600 miffed the King that he cut off Horton's salary, though 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.680 he reinstated it a few days later. The King of England, 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.080 for his part, liked Hortense plenty and couldn't, for the 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.960 life of him understand why the King of France couldn't 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.199 find a way to provide for this charming creature. But 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:11.359 Hortons's real coup in England wasn't finding her way into 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:15.080 the King's bed. It was the parties and society events 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:18.400 that she held in her living room. The term salon 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.280 is a little anachronistic here, but it's what best described 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:27.480 what Hortons was doing, bringing scientists, philosophers and writers to 0:22:27.520 --> 0:22:32.840 talk and drink and gamble. The salons were wildly influential 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.680 in terms of culture. The scientific articles that she brought 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.400 up would become widely read and popular. In the case 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.320 of a paper by Fontanelle, it actually led to it 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:48.320 being translated, and Horton set London fashion what to wear, 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.680 what to eat, what to drink. The salons were also 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.600 tremendously important when it came to women. During a time 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.399 when women were thought to be frivolous and unable to 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.600 handle their own finances, Horton's and her friends were playing 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:08.560 cards and gambling, women gambling alongside men, losing and winning 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:13.880 money as equals. All the while her incredibly litigious, stubborn 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:17.280 and jealous husband back in France was attempting to get 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:23.640 the courts to force his wife to come back to him. 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.360 After the death of King Charles the Second in England, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:30.000 the throne went to his younger brother James, a Catholic, 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:34.840 which didn't sit well with the Protestant population. In sixteen 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.560 eighty eight, the Glorious Revolution in England bloodlessly overthrew James 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.640 to leap frog the throne to his daughter and son 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:46.879 in law, who ruled jointly as William and Mary. The 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.440 next year, Hortons's husband Armand, filed a lawsuit in France 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.200 which said that Hortons had no right to her dowry 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.280 and either needed to return to him or be locked 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:00.439 away in a convent. The court ruled in his favor, 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:04.840 but Horton's lawyers had an angle. Horton's had racked up 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:08.880 a considerable debt in England, and English law prevented her 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:12.480 from leaving the country until those debts were paid. Well, 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.600 that's ridiculous, Armand scoffed. My wife had no legal right 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:20.960 to contract debts without her husband's permission. He refused to pay, 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.320 let alone recognize those debts, and so legally he and 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:32.440 Hortons were in a stalemate. Horton's remained in England through 0:24:32.480 --> 0:24:35.080 the brief reign of James into the rule of William 0:24:35.080 --> 0:24:38.320 and Mary, who still provided for her, albeit at a 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:42.760 much reduced pension. They provided for her until Horton's died 0:24:42.880 --> 0:24:48.680 in six nine at age fifty three. Some euphemistically say 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:52.919 that she drank herself to death but more realistic scholars 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:57.800 understand that it was most likely suicide. The diarist John 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:01.840 Evelyn wrote of her death that you was quote reported 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:06.359 to have hastened her death by the intemperate drinking strong spirits. 0:25:06.960 --> 0:25:10.159 It's understood that the euphemism meant that she drank a 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:14.359 number of tonics that were known to cause death. At last, 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:17.280 her jealous husband Armand would be able to get his 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:21.800 claws into her. After Hortense's death, he did pay her 0:25:21.800 --> 0:25:25.800 English debts, and he claimed her remains, carding her casket 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:29.240 along to all of his remote visits to the French countryside, 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:31.840 the way he had tried to take her in life. 0:25:32.600 --> 0:25:36.600 Only in a coffin was Hortense finally silent and obedient. 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:41.160 Eventually she was buried with her uncle, as she had requested, 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:44.000 but in the end that didn't matter. When the French 0:25:44.040 --> 0:25:48.159 Revolution came, her bones and Cardinal Mazarine's bones would be 0:25:48.200 --> 0:25:56.920 thrown into the river. So ends the strange, fantastic life 0:25:56.920 --> 0:25:59.959 of Horton's Mancini, who did all she could to live 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:03.080 of her life on her own terms, who took lovers 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:06.360 and charmed kings, and wrote her own story in her 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:09.919 own words before anyone else fully understood the power of 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:13.520 that stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear 0:26:13.600 --> 0:26:26.200 a little bit more about her legacy. One strange footnote 0:26:26.200 --> 0:26:29.520 in the story of Horton's Manzini is that her granddaughter 0:26:29.840 --> 0:26:33.240 would become the mother to five daughters herself, and four 0:26:33.280 --> 0:26:36.760 of those daughters would go on to become mistresses of Louis. 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:42.680 There's another Hortons legacy that I find more personally relevant. 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:47.040 While in England, her salons became the center of culture 0:26:47.160 --> 0:26:50.920 and trends. The food and beverages she served not only 0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:55.160 became trendy, but also became associated with the upper class 0:26:55.240 --> 0:26:59.840 and the intellectual elite. Hortons is final affair and affair 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:03.320 of mind, not the body. Was with the older fellow 0:27:03.359 --> 0:27:08.280 French exile, Charles de Saint Evremond. Hortense and Evremonde shared 0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:12.480 a taste for a newly popular type of wine, sparkling 0:27:12.600 --> 0:27:16.800 and especially grown in France. Although the Benedictine monk most 0:27:16.880 --> 0:27:19.800 famous for making it was trying his best to rid 0:27:19.880 --> 0:27:23.280 his wine of the bubbles, that monk was dumb. Parignon 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:27.680 and Horton's Mancini serving his wine at her party's helped 0:27:27.720 --> 0:27:31.879