Hortense Mancini

Hortense Mancini Hortense Mancini was one of the first women to openly publish her life story and what a story it was. The adventures of this Italian beauty unfold like a novel and would take her across Europe from Rome to Paris and on to London where she would become mistress of the King. But this is just the beginning; she was an intrepid, independent and rebellious celebrity, who dared to thumb her nose at convention and who chose to live in the way she pleased and more importantly, she wielded her fame and status to allow other women to embrace freedoms only enjoyed by men. Come with me to explore the rock and roll journey of this 17C Kardashian… Ortensia Mancini was born in Rome on 6 June 1646 to an italian aristocrat, Baron Lorenzo Mancini and his wife Girolama Mazzarini. She was the fourth of five sisters, each of whom would go on to have colourful lives and who would become known as the Mazarinettes. Her father died when she was a young child and at the age of six Hortense, already strikingly beautiful with long curly black hair, found herself waiting at the dockside in Citavecchia preparing to board a magnificent Genovese galley bound for France. The vessel was powered below by twenty young men, most of them prisoners or slaves, and she and her family were carried as if they were royalty on the first of many journeys in her life, to be deposited a week later into the heart of French society. The voyage had been arranged by Hortense’s powerful uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, who had worked his way up in the French court to a position of prestige and influence, amassing a fortune as he did so. On arrival the newcomers were the subject of curiosity and excitement. Mazarin’s intention was to marry his many young nieces to the best in elite society and there would be no shortage of offers. In Paris, Hortense and her older sister Marie stayed in a convent, where they studied French, literature, religion and the arts, but after the death of her mother when Hortense was ten, the two were educated by a governess and become accomplished young women. Anne of Austria, mother to the young King, Louis XIV, took the beautiful sisters under her wing and by the age of 14 Hortense had become engaging, beautiful and much admired at court. Her uncle’s health was declining and he was determined to arrange a marriage for her before he died. In 1649 King Charles I of England had been beheaded, and in most of the intervening years his son Charles had been in exile in France. He was much taken with Hortense and approached Mazarin to suggest a match, but as the Cardinal harboured doubts as to the young King’s future, the offer was declined. Very soon in 1660 Charles was restored to the English throne as King Charles II, at which point Mazarin attempted to renegotiate. It was too late. Now in a position to seek a more ambitious proposal Charles had turned his sights to Portugal and the princess Catherine of Braganza. His union with her would sadly produce no offspring, but she would introduce England to the habit of tea drinking! In haste to arrange a marriage before he died, Mazarin turned his attentions to Armand-Charles de la Porte de la Mailleraye, an awkward figure and religious fanatic, who had been in love with Hortense since she was 9 years old. On his deathbed Cardinal Mazarin chose to marry the 14 year old to this religious nobleman, bestow on them the title of Duke and Duchess of Mazarin and leave them his entire fortune. As Hortense would later write the move was to make her “the richest heiress and the unhappiest woman in Christendom. It was soon apparent that Armand-Charles was sexually obsessed with his new wife. He banned her from seeing her friends, forbad the staging of plays and concerts at their palace and soon was insisting they take long journeys out of town to the provinces away from society. Hortense gave birth to a daughter in 1662, by which time the increasingly fanatical Armand-Charles was believing that the Angel Gabriel was speaking to him in dreams. He became concerned with the sleeping arrangements of the servants, who were forced to retire early. Conversation and laughter were not allowed. He warned the milkmaids not to spend too long milking the cows, which he saw as having sexual connitations and he was also in the habit of knocking out the front teeth of female servants to make them look less attractive. If Hortense showed a servant signs of favour, they would be immediately dismissed and her rooms would be searched nightly to look for hidden paramours. She wrote that he would display a “tireless diligence in disparaging me to everyone and in putting a shameful cast on all my actions.” In short he was delusional, erratic, obsessively jealous and a tyrant. He was also mismanaging the family fortune and squandering it away. 2 more daughters were born, followed by a son and heir at which point the Duke moved his family to Brittany. He was so terrified that Hortense would leave him, he ordered her to give him her jewellery, the only part of her fortune that she legally owned, so denying her access to funds. Hortense sunk into a depression. She was reluctant to openly oppose her husband, but in 1666 driven by desperation, she took her first steps toward a legal separation. She was ordered back to her husband, whereupon he attempted to physically restrain her and lock her up. She was finally driven to seek refuge in a convent. Soon King Louis XIV had interceded and Hortense found herself escorted by Royal armed guard to be incarcerated in another convent where she was kept under surveillance by the nuns and which also served as a prison for wayward noblewomen. Her plight was desperate. As a wife was seen to be her husband’s property, the threat of being locked up in a convent for going against your husband wishes, was a regular occurrence at the time. However the status of marriage and its power to enslave women was being vigorously challenged by writer and philosopher Madeleine de Scudery and was questioned in society at large. At the convent she met a friend, the Marquise de Courcelles who was in a similar predicament and with whom it appears she had an affair. By all accounts the two resisted their incarceration with mockery, resilience and by playing pranks, which gradually wore the elderly nuns down. They garnered support from the ladies of Paris and popular opinion was on their side. They were then moved to another convent. The two would speak to visitors through a metal grill and together they would plan their escape, whilst they appealed to the courts for legal separations, which would allow them both the income to live independently. Hortense managed to secure an authorised separation and returned to the Mazarin Palace and to public life. However when she started to host productions in a small theatre at the palace her husband had it demolished. The separation meanwhile was fragile and with the threat of an enforced reconciliation hanging over her, she realised she would have to act. Assisted by her brother Philippe, a secret plot was hatched to help her flee. In the weeks leading up to the escape she was so nervous she became ill and couldn’t eat, but on the night of June 13th 1668, leaving her four children behind and with no idea what was ahead of her, Hortense made her audacious flight from her husband. Just before midnight and disguised in men’s clothing she left Paris through a city gate accompanied by two servants. Travelling by carriage, postal coach, open buggy and on horseback, they covered nearly 250 miles in two days. They rested in Nancy, the capital of the independent Duchy of Lorraine and then accompanied by twenty armed guards, were escorted safely through Switzerland and the Alps. On learning that travellers arriving in Milan were being quarantined due to an outbreak of plague, they decided to settle for a time in Altdorf, where they heard that Duke Mazarin was planning to kidnap his wife and have her brought back. But, finally they were able to make the dangerous journey to Milan, where Hortense was reunited with her brother and sister Marie, who was said to be embarrassed by Hortense’s Parisian stylishness and her fashion sense. Four months after her departure she arrived in Rome. Here she joined her sister in high society, and together they would sponsor theatrical productions, in which Hortense would sometimes sing and dance. They would enjoy flouting the conventions of the time, moving around the city on their own and Hortense became a celebrity. She would sit for numerous portraits, many of which were miniatures and these be mailed around Europe to be coveted and fought over. Her image soon became the face of beauty in European paintings. The images were set against a backdrop of the sky and natural surroundings, which contributed to the idea of her as a free spirit, who defied convention and who was known for her escapades. In 1670 Hortense returned to Paris, but when her husband discovered that his wife by now had the support of the King, who had sent orders she should not be molested, he was so enraged that he set out for the Mazarin Palace with a hammer, a knife and a bucket of black paint.

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