Hortense Mancini

Biography

Origin

It was brought to Paris at the six years age and was raised by the care of the cardinal Mazarin, his uncle, who had for it a tenderness of father. The king of England Charles II and the Duc of Savoy asked it in marriage; but the cardinal did not believe to be able to accept the honor which made him two sovereigns seek his alliance.

Family

Girl of Geronima Mazzarini and the baron Michele Mancini.

It Maria her niece, on March 1st 1661 with the duke of Meilleraie. (Armand-Charles of the Door, duke of Mayenne and Meilleraye), under the condition that this one would take the name and arm with Mazarin.

Five children were born from this union, of which:

Marie-Charlotte of Meilleraie (1662 - 1729), it married Jean-Baptist-Amador of Vignerot, marquis de Richelieu

Marie-Anne of Meilleraie (1663 - 1720), it was abbess of the Lily

Paul-Jules of Meilleraie (1666 - 1731), marquis de Meilleraie, duke of Mazarin. Two children: Guy-Paul-Jules of Meilleraie, duke of Mazarin, Armande-Happiness of Meilleraie.

Never union was more badly matched: Hortense, young person, sharp and light, liked the world, where she saw herself unceasingly surrounded by a crowd of admirers; the duke of Meilleraye on the contrary, miserly and jealous, exaggerated in his devotion, fled the company and obliged a woman whose dowry, had been of thirty million to give up the stay of Paris and to follow it city downtown in his various governments. It will reside thus with him at the Large-Home of Mayenne.

The escape in Italy

Hortense took finally the resolution to be freed from what it called an odious slavery; and it carried out it by the help of Philippe, duke of Nevers, his brother, who got horses and an escort to him to go to Rome, where it hoped to take refuge near her sister Marie, the constable Colonna.

Its escape took place in the night of the June 13rd 1668. The duke of Meilleraye, which, pled then against his wife, returned felt sorry for to the Parliament against the duke of Nevers to have supported the departure of Hortense, and obtained a stop by which it was authorized to make it stop everywhere where it would be found. However Hortense, annoyed annoyances, which it had to wipe on behalf of her parents, wrote to the duke of Mailleraye to request it to forgive him its thoughtlessness and to receive it, promising to act in the future only according to its councils; but it made him answer that, when it would have remained two years in a convent, he would see what he would have to do. The money which it had was exhausted soon: there remained to him only its precious stones, which it engaged for a sum much lower than their value; and it passed by again in France in order to request a pension on the large goods which it had brought to her husband.

The protection of Louis XIV and the duke of Savoy

The king Louis XIV, which had declared its guard, was touched of his situation; he made him obtain an annual pension of twenty-four thousand books and twelve thousand books money cash to go back itself some to Rome, which her husband was far from approving. She flees of this city little time afterwards with her sister the constable. By leaving this one, it was withdrawn with Chambéry, where it remained three years in the company of the people most distinguished by their spirit and their birth. After the death of Charles-Emmanuel II, duke of Savoy, which in its turn had also declared its guard, fearing not to have not also to rent itself of the regent, it passed in England (1675) followed Abbé of Saint-Réal, who had conceived for it much attachment.

Charles II of England

Charles II accommodated it with benevolence and on its cassette a pension of four thousand pounds sterling assigned to him; it would have probably replaced the Duchesse of Portsmouth in the heart of the English monarch, if it had not been sensitive to the care that returned to him the Prince de Monaco. Charles, irritated beyond preference which it seemed to grant to its rival, removed the pension that he made him; but it restores it afterwards a few days, ashamed of being had abandoned a movement of jealousy which did not have any real reason.

The house of Hortense became soon the appointment of the most pleasant men and most spiritual of London; among the beautiful spirits which met there, one quotes Justel, Vossius, gr. Leti and Saint-Evremond. It appeared to deal itself with the study with much heat; but the innocent taste of the letters that of the play of the Bassette succeeded: it spent there the nights, loser of the considerable sums on his word, and making sometimes pay its stupidities with her friends. However, obsessed as it was it of a crowd of admirers, it. finally decided to make a choice: it threw the eyes on the Baron de Banier, gentleman Swedish of a rare merit; the preference that it marked to him excited the jealousy of the prince Philippe of Savoy, his nephew; it caused Banier in duel and killed it out of a blow of sword (1683).

Hortense was affected highly of this catastrophe; it made paper its room of black, and remained locked up several days without wanting there to take any food. Saint-Evremond, best of his friends, showed again to him how much it harmed itself by posting a so excessive pain; she answered that she was decided to pass in Spain and to finish her days in the convent where his sister the constable languished; but it did not have a sorrow to prove to him that she could never accustom herself with the regular and quiet life of a nun.

The company of London

However, with health, Hortense took again the taste of the pleasures, and it reopened its door at the most brilliant company of London. The revolution of England, which called with the throne Guillaume de Nassau, deprived it of the pension which it received, its single resource. The duke of Mazarin benefitted from this circumstance to bring a new lawsuit to him (see: Claude Erard); and it-obtained, in 1689, a stop of the great council which declared it déchue of all its rights if she would refuse to return with him.

Hortense represented that it had contracted debts and that it could not leave England without to have paid its creditors. All that she says, all that she tried was useless: she saw her seized pieces of furniture and she was exposed with greatest destitution, when king Guillaume, informed of his situation, ensured to him a pension of two thousand pounds sterling. She returned then to her practices, spending the winter in London and the beautiful season with Chelsea, village on the edges of the the Thames, where she tasted the pleasures of the countryside. She fell sick there in June and died there the July 2nd 1699. With its death, the inhabitants of Mayenne made celebrate a service for the heart of their duchess and sent to the duke and to his son a letter of condolence.

Epilog

Hortense had not still lost anything of its first beauty nor of its approvals. It had always had much indifference for the life; and she did not contradict the feelings that she had testified in this respect, She was endowed with a sharp spirit and spoke in a very pleasant way; but never it did not claim to pass for author: a proof that one can about it give, it is that it made it possible Saint-Evremond to scoff it, on its spelling errors.

It was the great-grandmother of the four Sœurs of Nesle, successive mistresses of Louis XV, and, by her back-back-small daughter Louise d' Aumont, the ancestor of the current princes of Monaco of the dynasty Grimaldi.

Internal bonds

Pierre Mazzarini

Jules Mazarin

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