Hortense Mancini - After Charles II's Death

After Charles II's Death

Following the death of Charles II, Hortense was well-provided for by James II, possibly because of her kinship with the new queen, Mary of Modena. Even when James fled England and William and Mary came to power, she remained in place, albeit with a much reduced pension. During this time, she presided over a salon of intellectuals. Charles de Saint-Évremond, the great poet and epicurean, was a close friend and brought to her door all the learned men of London.

Evelyn recorded her eventual death in 1699:

June 11th, 1699. Now died the famous Duchess of Mazarin. She had been the richest lady in Europe; she was niece to Cardinal Mazarin, and was married to the richest subject in Europe, as was said; she was born at Rome, educated in France, and was an extraordinary beauty and wit, but dissolute, and impatient of matrimonial restraint, so as to be abandoned by her husband, and banished : when she came to England for shelter, lived on a pension given her here, and is reported to have hastened her death by intemperate drinking strong spirits. She has written her own story and adventures, and so has her other extravagant sister, wife to the noble family of Colonna.

With the exception of Marguerite de Valois, Hortense and her sister, Marie Mancini, were the first women in France to put their memoirs into print. Both women were partly motivated by the help that producing a body of evidence would bring to the cause of separation from their abusive husbands.

Hortense may have committed suicide, keeping her life dramatic until the very end. Her husband managed to continue the drama after her death; he carted her body around with him on his travels in France, before finally allowing it to be interred by the tomb of her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin.