Vulgar History - International, part 21： Hortense Mancini Invents Champagne (pt 4⧸6)

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is 0.73

00:00:18.700 Anne Foster, and this is part, I want to say, four, part four of Hortense Mangini. Now,

00:00:26.620 as per ever, if this is the first episode you've ever listened to of Vulgar History,

00:00:30.420 welcome, etc. I do recommend you might want to listen to parts one through three first,

00:00:37.180 just to like understand what's going on. But at the same time, these are kind of,

00:00:40.960 each episode has its own sort of plot we're talking about. So I feel like you probably

00:00:45.320 could jump in. If you're the sort of person who just likes to jump into random podcast episodes,

00:00:49.340 do that too. But I do think listening to the whole thing will make it all make a bit more

00:00:53.520 sense to you in context. For instance, like I don't even remember what the name is of Hortense's

00:00:59.580 horrible husband. All my notes at this point from episode one on just say AC, which is what we're

00:01:04.920 going to call him. Forget what his name is. He doesn't deserve a name. So my major sources as

00:01:09.620 per the last few episodes are the two books. So Mistresses, Sex and Scandal at the Court of

00:01:14.640 Charles II by Linda Porter and The King's Mistresses, The Liberated Lives of Marie Mangini, 0.84

00:01:19.780 Princess Colonna and her sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin, by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith.

00:01:25.240 So I read an article from theguardian.com, which is about Hortense. And a lot of that is an

00:01:31.040 interview with Annalisa Nicholson, who is a researcher in French studies at Cambridge

00:01:35.140 University, who's doing or maybe has completed her PhD about Hortense Mancini. And then I also

00:01:42.440 got information from an article from winemag.com. But again, that's also an interview with Annalisa

00:01:48.420 Nicholson. And then also an interview with Annalise Nicholson from thecambridgelanguagecollective.com.

00:01:54.540 Also some information direct from Annalise Nicholson, who I emailed to ask some questions,

00:01:58.860 and she was fabulous enough to answer. So she has not yet published a book about Hortense Mancini,

00:02:06.180 but she's like the person who knows the most about her in existence on the planet, I'm pretty sure.

00:02:11.340 so last time was kind of setting the scene what's going on in London in England Charles II is the

00:02:20.280 king what does that mean finally so Hortense everything's catching up to each other the two

00:02:26.780 plot lines coinciding like a late season episode of Westworld so Hortense is in England we're gonna

00:02:34.220 of get into how she and Charles reconnected and what that meant for her life. Two people were

00:02:42.160 writing letters with Hortense that sort of encouraged her to come to London. One of them

00:02:46.020 was Ralph Montague. So in the Linda Porter biography, she describes Ralph Montague as

00:02:51.940 the arch intriguer, which I presume means messy bitch who lives for drama. So we talked about 0.99

00:02:59.180 this a ton last time, but Charles II had mistresses and the mistresses kind of all had

00:03:03.720 either their own family or other people who were sort of like supporting them. And they wanted the

00:03:08.040 mistresses to sort of be close to the king and give him a certain point of view. And so Ralph

00:03:11.880 Montague wanted in on that. He wanted to be able to influence the king by putting a mistress there

00:03:16.940 who reported back to him. And he said Hortense could be useful for him as a pawn. But guess what,

00:03:22.620 Ralph Montague? Hortense was used like a pawn when she was married, aged 14, to her stalker. 0.88

00:03:27.920 it had been uh what 17 years since then and she is no longer willing to just bat her eyes and do

00:03:34.360 what she's told not that she ever really was like she'd been traveling around europe being amazing

00:03:38.860 for basically a decade she had her own plans but ralph kind of oversaw her getting there

00:03:44.980 meeting charles so you know thank you ralph she arrived on a rainy day in december 1675

00:03:53.060 So she arrived in London on horseback and in sodden men's attire.

00:03:57.460 I think we talked about that last time.

00:03:58.820 She arrived on like a postal horse or something.

00:04:01.480 She's wearing a long cloak and people thought that they didn't realize that it was even a 0.82

00:04:04.900 woman, let alone Hortense.

00:04:07.280 I'm going to tell you what this guy said and I'm going to explain what it means because

00:04:10.460 I had no idea.

00:04:12.080 So the French ambassador, when he was writing about her arrival, because remember, although

00:04:16.520 she like, well, she lived in France from ages, what, like six till 20.

00:04:22.260 So she's effectively a French person, although she had been born in Italy, but she was not

00:04:27.320 here to represent French interests, and that was kind of why Ralph Montague wanted her.

00:04:31.180 The other mistress, Louise, was doing that.

00:04:34.640 And I'm just like, I talked to you about that last time, didn't I?

00:04:37.600 Yeah, no, I told you about Louise last time.

00:04:39.440 Anyway, Ralph Montague wanted her there to be sort of like, arguing not like an anti-French

00:04:43.780 sort of person.

00:04:44.320 And to be sure, Hortense was not a fan of Louis XIV because of how he kept not helping

00:04:49.640 her separate from AC.

00:04:52.260 So the new French ambassador, all of which to say, was a hater. He was not excited to have

00:04:56.900 Hortense there. He was not happy about it. And so he said that she arrived on horseback in

00:05:02.480 sodden men's attire. And he said that she entered the English court, like Armida entered Godefroy's

00:05:07.960 camp. So if you're like, who is Armida? And also who is Godefroy? And what is Godefroy's camp?

00:05:15.220 There was a book or a play I didn't write down called Jerusalem Delivered,

00:05:19.340 which was like a popular story that like lots of people knew at this time. So it's written by

00:05:24.800 Torcato Tasso. So it's, uh, I think it's a book or like an epic poem or whatever about the, um,

00:05:31.340 crusaders. And it's all like, it's a made up fictional story. So a woman called Armida is an

00:05:37.360 enchantress and she enters the camp of Godefroy, who is like the hero of that story. So Armida

00:05:43.980 enters and she seduces the crusaders and persuades them to convert. So effectively, 0.79

00:05:48.620 be, this hater is saying that Mancini, Hortense Mancini, entered the English court like this

00:05:53.900 enchantress who's there to sort of like seduce everybody into changing their allegiances.

00:05:58.380 What that really means is that everyone knew she hated the French king, everyone knew she was

00:06:03.440 gorgeous, and people were just worried that she was in town and she's going to seduce Charles

00:06:07.700 and diminish his pro-French agenda, which is not what the French people wanted to occur.

00:06:14.800 The other person she'd been corresponding with was Mary of Medina, who was her cousin's daughter. 0.51

00:06:21.860 So Mary of Medina was not apparently as gorgeous as her mother. Remember her mother was one of the

00:06:29.400 Masarinettes. Mary of Medina was like daughter of a Masarinette, but she was cute and she was pleasant. 0.94

00:06:36.740 She had gotten married at age 15 to James. So at this point, there's the king who's Charles II,

00:06:44.040 sexy young Captain Hook. His brother is James, and James is the heir because Charles has not

00:06:49.880 had any legitimate children, although he's had numerous illegitimate children. Anyway,

00:06:54.800 so Mary of Medina had wanted to join a convent, apparently, and not be child bride to a stranger,

00:07:02.000 but she did what she was told. And James was, my notes here say, an okay husband to her,

00:07:10.160 even as he had numerous affairs but that's just what things were like

00:07:13.420 and like he was basically fine to her like on a scale of like ac to whatever like james was like

00:07:20.000 okay so he had two daughters who we know from the ann the first episode and the first from the

00:07:25.140 favorite is her full name he had daughters who were mary from william and mary who became later

00:07:32.040 the king and queen of england after they like spoiler like usurp the throne from james and

00:07:37.380 then Anne. Anyway, so Mary and Anne were both, like, I think around Mary of Medina's age,

00:07:40.780 or maybe they were a bit older. They were not super thrilled with this teenager being their

00:07:44.080 new stepmother anyway. That's all back in the Anne, the first episode, if you want to re-listen

00:07:48.720 to that from a couple seasons ago. So Mary of Medina was lonely. Mary was also, well,

00:07:56.100 she was lonely because she was, like, French and Catholic. She was maybe going to be the next 0.99

00:08:00.300 Queen of England because her husband was the heir, because Charles didn't have any legitimate

00:08:04.080 children. And so all the people who didn't like French people didn't like her either. So she'd

00:08:11.240 been riding with Hortense being like, can you just come over here and like, we can hang out, 0.96

00:08:14.300 we can be friends. I would imagine Hortense maybe saw in Mary some of what happened to her,

00:08:20.020 being married off age 14, 15 and being sort of like isolated. So Mary was, of course, at this

00:08:26.080 time, I think she was 17 and she was pregnant. Anyway, so she'd been corresponding with Ralph

00:08:31.120 Montague is like, you know, if you come to London, there's like so many French people here now,

00:08:34.640 which there were because for various political reasons, a lot of the French, I think the

00:08:39.940 Protestants, the Huguenots, which is potentially pronounced Huguenots, had all been fleeing

00:08:45.720 because Protestants were not having a good time in France. Anyway, so there was like a whole French 0.92

00:08:50.900 expat community and Ralph and Mary were like, Hortense, like just come and like hang out here

00:08:56.100 slash also being an England man, she was far, far away from AC's unrelenting Terminator T-1000

00:09:02.880 nonstop attempts to force her to come back and be his like wife again. Hortense stayed at the

00:09:10.900 royal court. So she was like often at the bedside of, I'm just going to call Mary of Medina, her 0.98

00:09:16.740 cousin, because it's her cousin's daughter. Anyway, so she was staying at Mary's bedside

00:09:23.080 during her sitting in, which I think is a period of time, like before you have the baby, like around

00:09:27.600 when you have the baby, like I'm sure Mary loved the company. Hortense could also be like, hey,

00:09:32.120 I know what it's like to have a baby when you're a teenager, because you might have forgotten,

00:09:36.160 but this is going to come up in a bit. Hortense had four children with AC, who she had left behind

00:09:42.160 in France. And her oldest daughter was a similar age to Mary of Medina. So she might have seen a

00:09:47.100 bit of herself in her. She might have imagined like, maybe this is like what my daughter is

00:09:51.540 like, Charles also, the king, Charles, sexy Captain Hook, also visited frequently the bedside

00:09:59.640 of Mary and Medina. So like, of course, these two like saw each other, they reconnected.

00:10:04.020 So she had arrived in London, like Armida at Godefroy's camp on New Year's Eve. And by the

00:10:10.640 end of January, so like one month later, Charles had already sent a request to Louis XIV that

00:10:15.920 Hortense should be provided with more income, income worthy of her station. By that point,

00:10:21.020 I don't know if they were lovers, but like he was clearly like there for Hortense and wanting to

00:10:25.220 help her out as best he could. Louis refused and Charles himself began providing her with an

00:10:30.920 allowance. So at that point it's probably like, okay, she's probably a mistress because he gave

00:10:35.920 his mistress's allowances. That was just kind of like a thing he did. Hortense and Charles.

00:10:41.840 And at this point, I don't even know if they like had actually met each other 17 years ago when she

00:10:46.320 was on the marriage market and he had approached Mazarin to see if like he could marry Hortense,

00:10:52.480 but like they had almost gotten together then. And then now they're reconnecting again after

00:10:56.660 17 years, literally the period of time between J. Lo and Ben Affleck's two engagements and now

00:11:02.400 they're married. So, you know, it's a very like J. Lo, Ben Affleck slash Jane Austen's persuasion

00:11:07.600 situation of like two former kind of lovers, like reuniting later. They're a bit older,

00:11:12.980 they're a bit wiser. Hortense was staying at St. James's Palace with Mary, who like had her baby

00:11:20.840 by now, and her husband James. Everybody got along, which is nice. Shortly after she arrived,

00:11:26.600 James bought a house next door. And so then he offered that Hortense could stay there with her

00:11:31.960 household. So like her servants, she had arrived with like not lots of servants, but like some of

00:11:36.580 them. Past people, we've talked about Nanol, who I think is definitely in the running for the Lady

00:11:43.100 Jane Seymour Supporting Character Award, because Nanol is just always there with her. Although I

00:11:47.520 have to say, she is a servant. I'm not sure what other options she has, but Nanol has been with

00:11:51.440 her ever since the first escape in pants. Mustafa is also there, the young black man who, wasn't he

00:11:58.920 like someone gave him to her as a gift at some point? Anyway, so the whole squad moved in,

00:12:06.580 along with her growing collection of pets, which included hunting dogs and exotic parrots,

00:12:11.740 which reminds me of Catherine Gray, who had all the pets and monkeys and things.

00:12:16.760 At her house, like her house quickly became like Hortensis Salon. 0.99

00:12:20.920 She entertained lots of visitors, mostly men, at this house where she maintained an open household.

00:12:27.140 So usually in this era for people like her, you'd just be like,

00:12:31.020 if you think of, I don't know, Bridgerton or Downton Abbey or whatever,

00:12:34.160 it's like someone comes at a certain time.

00:12:36.580 you're like, you know, Lord and Lady so-and-so are here. Like, you invite people to come over

00:12:40.480 at various times, but she just had an open-door policy. Visitors were always welcome day or night.

00:12:45.300 People could even just come by and find a quiet corner of the library just to read a book. Like,

00:12:49.060 they didn't even have to, like, hang out with her. It's just like her door was always open,

00:12:52.100 open-door policy. And this confused and fascinated people because that was not 0.87

00:12:57.060 the English way. This was, of course, the French way. This was modeled after the French practice

00:13:03.180 of just people hanging out and having fun together. And we're going to talk a lot more

00:13:07.400 about what all happened at Hortense's salon in a bit, but just bear in mind, that's what she's

00:13:13.420 doing. So she has this house that's her salon, but then she also has given apartments at White 0.63

00:13:19.160 Hall, which is the King's residence, which is where the same apartments where Barbara Villiers

00:13:23.520 used to live, which is where we're like, okay, she's now like the mistress. So the person she

00:13:28.480 who was most recently mistress before her was Louise, who is still around, but not excited

00:13:33.560 about being ousted. For Hortense, Louise, it seemed like she wound up befriending Hortense

00:13:40.460 just because that was the best way to save face and to not seem like bitter or angry about it and

00:13:44.780 figure out her next move. But as usual, Hortense didn't give two shits about the haters and just 1.00

00:13:49.200 set about having a nice time. Like she was 29 years old. She'd gone from child bride to a stalker 0.97

00:13:54.540 to fugitive, to finally maybe being able to settle somewhere and just like live her life

00:14:00.060 like she wanted it to. And what she wanted to live life like was Hortense's salon. And that

00:14:05.100 is what she did. She was also the lover or the mistress, the official mistress of Charles,

00:14:10.180 who was the king. Nobody in this story is monogamous. I just want to note that. And

00:14:15.620 that's kind of like not a secret and everyone's kind of cool with it. Her bestie, who we're

00:14:23.360 going to talk about later, a lot of the information we know about her were from the writings of this

00:14:28.120 person who became her friend who mentioned that Hortense had lovers. I think he described it

00:14:33.720 of both genders. I would describe it as of all genders. So she was noted bisexual and she,

00:14:43.120 she just had various lovers. And so did Charles and everyone's just cool with it because that's

00:14:47.100 just what's going on like here we go so because of her known or strongly suspected bisexuality

00:14:56.720 which again in a christine of sweden moment a lot of it tends to dwell on the fact that like she

00:15:01.260 sometimes wore pants which is like anyone can wear pants doesn't necessarily speak to your gender or

00:15:08.480 your sexuality but anyway she was this bisexual icon wearing pants sometimes which lends the sort

00:15:14.380 of air of sexuality to all of the people who she was friends with. And one of the people she was

00:15:21.020 friends with was a person named Anne, the Countess of Sussex, who was actually Barbara Villiers'

00:15:28.500 daughter by Charles. So Anne, Countess of Sussex, daughter of Hortense's lover, Charles, Anne's

00:15:36.660 mother, Barbara Villiers, one of Hortense's sort of like frenemies there. Anyway, so she's just

00:15:41.160 like this young girl, who again is like similar age to Hortense's oldest daughter. These two

00:15:46.520 started hanging out with each other. And Anne had been recently married to a guy named Thomas.

00:15:53.100 So we're talking about a 14 year old and a 30 year old, two female people hanging out. But bear

00:15:59.440 in mind that the 14 year old was married because that was a thing that happened. Anyway, Anne's

00:16:05.660 husband Thomas liked being out on the countryside, but Anne, like Hortense, preferred royal court.

00:16:09.540 Um, she liked being in the city more. So fundamentally incompatible people and was

00:16:16.200 enchanted by Hortense, like everybody, because she had this, um, superpower slash curse that 0.88

00:16:21.560 everybody who met her became entranced by her. And so these two had like a, enough of a friendship

00:16:28.440 that it kind of like got people talking about it. So when you, like, I have been look at various

00:16:35.240 sources of, about information about Hortense and her life. And like it was scandalous about her

00:16:40.300 and is often mentioned as one of her lesbian lovers. Like was she, how would you confirm that?

00:16:50.120 I don't know. We, however you would confirm that it has not been confirmed. So this is a question

00:16:54.660 that I asked Annalisa Nicholson because I was curious about it because of the age thing. Also,

00:17:01.340 So Hortense also had been maybe in a sexual and or romantic relationship with Marie Sidonie de Courcelles back when she was in like the first convent she was staying in.

00:17:11.960 And there's a thing that like were they lovers. 0.56

00:17:13.780 So it's, I don't know, it's like backwards evidence where it's like we know that Hortense was bisexual.

00:17:19.520 We know that she had lovers who were women. 0.67

00:17:22.120 That sort of recasts knowing that people look back at the people she hang out with and assume that she was lovers of all of them, which is like the reverse Christina of Sweden.

00:17:31.340 where it's like there's people who christina like we know that she was not into having sex

00:17:39.480 then we assume that she didn't have sex with anybody so it's all god knows anyway here's

00:17:44.360 what annalisa nicholson hortense montini scholar um she notes that they clearly had a very close

00:17:50.860 relationship so their antics were drawing attention and outrage so this included stuff

00:17:56.900 like she taught hortense taught her about how to hunt which was hortense's favorite hobby that's

00:18:04.600 why she's always being drawn as diana goddess of the hunt uh they took fencing lessons together

00:18:09.160 and so the thing that always keeps coming up is like at one point they went outside like in the

00:18:13.960 middle of the night in their nightgowns and they were practicing fencing in the evening in their

00:18:18.240 nightgowns at saint james's park so like the royal palace area and everyone was just like

00:18:24.140 that was like the most scandalous thing in the world which to me is like okay but like this was

00:18:28.960 really um really distressing to a lot of people i don't know i don't know if this if there's an

00:18:36.680 element even if they're whether they were lovers or not i do suspect there's an element of like

00:18:40.660 cool older sister or taunce might have seen again like her young self she might have thought like 0.84

00:18:45.200 anna's like similar to her own daughter like maybe this is like how she would have acted with her own

00:18:50.080 daughter anyway at one point anne's husband thomas so yeah so his reaction was so extreme

00:18:58.280 her husband thomas just found their antics so outrageous so even if it wasn't sexual like he

00:19:05.140 still was like there was intense speculation about the relationship her husband had anne

00:19:10.500 sent to um to france to like he sent her off to like live in a convent forcibly which is just like

00:19:17.400 what terrible husbands were doing to lots of people at this time. So yeah, she was forcibly

00:19:23.120 removed from Hortense's household and sent to France to be incarcerated in a convent.

00:19:27.140 So something was going on. Clearly their behavior together, combined with the reaction of Anne's

00:19:34.260 husband, revealed that it was a relationship that bordered on outrageous, even if it wasn't

00:19:38.520 actually sexual. Like something doesn't need to be sexual to be intense or shocking or even

00:19:45.040 romantic and then in like okay there's gonna be a lot of multi-generational dating of people here

00:19:51.000 that makes me think of like days of our lives or something where it's just kind of like

00:19:56.020 you know somebody could have I don't just the different generations of people and you're just

00:20:00.500 kind of like we're okay with it there were a lot of people who are just okay with it

00:20:04.580 so like people would have an affair with for instance like potentially Hortense was having

00:20:12.360 an affair with Charles and then also with his daughter and, but then other people were just

00:20:17.300 kind of Ralph Montague, for instance, uh, later had an affair with Anne. I think he was the one

00:20:23.240 who went and rescued her from France. He was an adult man. She was a teenager. There were just a

00:20:27.360 lot of people. I don't know. It's kind of like, and at least it describes this as like some of

00:20:32.720 these restoration courtiers were less concerned by things like sexual pasts and histories, age

00:20:38.360 gaps and family relationships of their lovers. So like, let's just get over that hurdle, I guess,

00:20:45.980 because that's what's going to be happening. Just a lot of people having sexual relationships and or

00:20:52.720 intense, outrageous, non-sexual relationships with people of various ages. So another one of

00:20:58.700 Hortense's known lovers, like she had lots of other lovers too, presumably, was Prince Louis

00:21:03.460 I of Monaco, who came to England for a visit. I don't know if he came because he heard Hortense

00:21:08.000 was there. At this point, that would not surprise me because her reputation was so exciting. He fell

00:21:14.140 in love with her like all men did, and he was very messy and dramatic about it. He threatened to leave

00:21:20.940 England out of despair for how much he loved her, and she took pity on him, is how it was described

00:21:27.280 in a letter by her bestie. He began to encourage his overtures and persuaded him to stay, which was

00:21:33.620 a bad idea. And in fact, her best friend was telling her, please don't do this. But Hortense

00:21:38.620 has, and we're going to see this more and more, a bit of a self-destructive or self, not destructive,

00:21:44.320 but just like, what's it called when you're like, are just not making things easy for yourself on

00:21:50.000 purpose? I guess self-destructive. I don't know. Non-helpfulness, self-non-helpfulness.

00:21:55.660 But the thing is like, yeah, she's taking lots of lovers. Charles was taking lots of lovers,

00:21:58.940 like everyone sleeping with everyone and Charles was famously not jealous like Barbara Villiers

00:22:04.060 for instance and other lovers and he didn't care like he's cool with it like we're it's just like

00:22:08.900 a polyamory situation and let's go but yeah Charles was cool with the situation because he knew that

00:22:16.720 Hortons and the Prince of Monaco weren't like a serious thing he was like her primary partner I

00:22:20.760 guess but it started to make Charles look bad like as word started to spread the truth sleeping with

00:22:25.880 this other royal he was not cool with people like making fun of him for it we know what happened

00:22:31.240 next because do you know who else showed up in london is former friend potentially lover and

00:22:36.800 ongoing hater marie sidonie is in london now she fled her husband again for some reason just like

00:22:43.340 a lot of women were fleeing their husbands and coming to england and that's just what was going

00:22:47.080 on marie sidonie just like professionally i don't know not i don't want to use the term stalker

00:22:53.680 lightly. AC was an obsessive stalker of Hortense. Marie Sidonie is just like a hater. So she wrote

00:23:01.320 how foolish Hortense was to relinquish her role as official mistress to the English king in favor 0.99

00:23:05.900 for an affair with a visiting noble man of little consequence. She assumed because she just was a 0.97

00:23:11.800 hater and wanted to see Hortense fail. She assumed that Hortense would have no choice but to return 1.00

00:23:15.740 to France. Marie Sidonie wrote Hortense is even more unhappy than I and sees no one. So she was

00:23:22.540 assuming, like other people did, that Hortense would maybe be cut off by Charles financially 0.99

00:23:27.620 and then have nowhere else to go. And yeah, so Charles cut off much of Hortense's allowance 1.00

00:23:32.340 because she was no longer his main official mistress. I'm guessing she didn't live in those

00:23:36.800 fancy apartments anymore, but he was a cool ex. He kept giving her enough funds so that she could

00:23:42.080 stay living in the little house in St. James so the salon could keep going so she was okay to stay

00:23:47.900 in London. Like this is a conscious uncoupling. They just kind of like ended their sexual affair

00:23:52.460 and like life goes on. And that's where it's so fascinating to me that so much of the sort of

00:23:59.260 casual writing about Hortense is like, and she was the mistress of Charles II. It's like, yeah,

00:24:03.080 I just talked about that for actively 10 minutes. Like that was one of like 750 interesting things

00:24:10.900 that she did. And it's not even in the top 10 anyway. Yeah. So she's in London. She's no longer

00:24:18.860 the official mistress of the King. And yeah, so life settled into a new normal. Part of this new

00:24:26.100 normal, like for them, I mean, like things in London were kind of like still a little tense 0.70

00:24:32.820 with the whole like Protestant Catholic thing. So there was a alleged Catholic conspiracy to

00:24:39.040 assassinate charles during which 15 people were tried and executed even though it wasn't even

00:24:44.080 a real plot it was just someone was like pretending like it was a plot or tons got caught up in this

00:24:49.620 i think just because she was a person a notable person on the scene but like i think we all know

00:24:53.800 that she was apolitical she was not getting into any of the like lobbying stuff like much to the

00:24:59.500 annoyance of ralph montague who like brought her there so she would meddle with the king and what

00:25:04.100 he thought anyway or tons was like maybe accused in this but charles was like she's cool and everyone's

00:25:08.740 like, okay, among those who were tried and executed was the secretary of her cousin,

00:25:14.060 Mary of Medina.

00:25:14.860 Not Mary herself, but Mary of Medina's secretary.

00:25:17.380 So this was getting a little too close for comfort for Hortons.

00:25:19.860 She's just like, should I move on?

00:25:22.480 She's like, maybe, should I leave London?

00:25:25.680 She was back in conduct with her sister, Marie, who we're going to like do a whole catch up

00:25:31.900 with all the other Masarinettes and what they were up to.

00:25:34.360 Like, you will learn the rest of Marie's story in another episode. 0.84

00:25:38.740 Maybe next week, depends how much I get through today. Anyway, at this point, Maria was living 0.98

00:25:43.960 in a convent in Madrid, and Hortense considered going there to hang out with her, but ultimately

00:25:49.100 she remained in London, and that was partially because her bestie convinced her that that was

00:25:53.800 the best option, and now I will reveal the identity. I didn't mean to not reveal the

00:25:57.860 identity, it's just I like didn't have the name written in my notes until now. So her new best

00:26:04.040 friend is Charles de Margutelle de Saint-Denis, Seigneur de Saint-Everymonde. So his name is

00:26:10.820 Charles de Margutelle. We're going to call him CM for simplicity's sake. And he's, he's kind of like

00:26:18.940 at Soleno was to Christina, CM is to Hortense. He's just like a guy who's probably not her lover,

00:26:26.160 but who just like is there for her and helps out. So who is CM? He was from France. He had been

00:26:32.840 raised to be, he was like 30 years older than her. So she's like 30. He's like 60 ish. He had

00:26:38.240 been raised to be like a scholar sort of person, but his passion was for fencing and he would not,

00:26:43.780 he would not let anything get in the way of his passion for fencing. So he abandoned his studies

00:26:48.860 and entered the army or presumably so he could have access to a sword. He was known for his good

00:26:55.480 manners and his clever wit and being a good swordsman, I assume. So his clever wit, this

00:27:00.820 reminds me of, like, Cyrano, from Cyrano de Bergerac, who is, like, also known for being

00:27:07.680 witty, but sometimes it got him in trouble. He, like, cracked a few jokes. He got, like, a bit too

00:27:12.120 glib about it. So eventually what happened with CM, I'm glossing over a lot, but just the bits

00:27:18.980 you need to know. He insulted the wrong people in one of his, like, sarcastic comments, like,

00:27:24.080 the king, or he might have, I'm not sure if it was Richelieu or Mezarin at this, I think it was 0.99

00:27:28.980 mesaran anyway he's going to be thrown in the best deal just for like being an asshole so he 0.97

00:27:33.980 fled to normandy to avoid prison time then to holland and then to england where eventually 0.97

00:27:39.860 charles ii invited him to live permanently which interestingly you would think he would speak

00:27:46.000 english being a permanent resident in england but no apparently he just never learned which probably

00:27:51.880 made things kind of lonely for him so he was excited when all these french people started

00:27:56.080 coming. He was, because of his great wit, um, he's known as a writer, philosopher, poet, diplomat.

00:28:02.960 And then Hortense showed up and he was like, oh my God, such a fan. We vibe together. Like here's

00:28:09.920 my new best friend. And she's like, do it. Yeah. Bet. So CM was a big fan of being friends with

00:28:16.380 scandalous people. He just liked interesting people. So he's obviously drawn to Hortense.

00:28:20.360 when they first met she was 29 and he was 62 and he knew he did not have a chance to sleep with her

00:28:26.940 like he knew she was out of his league and so he was happy to just be her pal which i love for her

00:28:32.080 like i love her having just a legitimate man friend like her brother philip was this to her

00:28:38.540 but it's like so many people just saw her like i keep thinking of like marilyn monroe or something

00:28:43.400 like people just saw her for her like sex appeal or whatever but it's like no she's a cool person

00:28:47.420 be her friend. And this guy did. So they both missed their days back in French court. So they

00:28:51.980 like reminisce about like missing how things used to be. They probably had fun making fun of English

00:28:56.760 people together. Like they were, they were kind of kindred spirits. So he advised her how to act

00:29:02.660 in London culture, a lot of which she didn't listen to because she was just going to do her

00:29:07.540 own thing. And he would just be like, oh, that or talls. He wasn't like mad about it. He was just

00:29:11.860 indulgent, kind of like a sweet grandpa type person. Yeah, part of what they might have gone

00:29:19.580 along with was he was exiled from France for making fun of her uncle, who she hated, Cardinal

00:29:23.580 Mazarin. He probably enjoyed the part of her memoir where she said her feelings about the

00:29:29.540 death of Cardinal Mazarin were, thank God he's croaked. They could probably bond over that as

00:29:34.960 well. Even though they saw each other constantly, they also wrote letters to each other all the

00:29:38.940 time, thank God, because that's how we know a lot of stuff we know about Hortense, because

00:29:42.840 it's in CM's letters. He would talk about what she did and what she was doing, and he's like a

00:29:49.260 fairly trustworthy source. So at one point, CM, like, Louis gave him permission to return to France,

00:29:54.980 and he was like, thanks, but no thanks. I'm like, cool here in London. He wrote, quote,

00:30:00.860 in the country in which I now am, I see Madame Mazarin every day. I live among people who are

00:30:05.600 sociable and friendly who have great cleverness and much wit like he was cool he also like he

00:30:11.760 saw that people were trying to get Hortense to like take his side in various political dramas 0.97

00:30:15.920 but he was just like he knew that she was too much of a free spirit to give a shit about that 0.94

00:30:19.560 like he knew that she just was not interested in being a spy or a diplomat like she was truly 0.97

00:30:25.100 I keep thinking of Drew Barrymore as well like she was just a free spirit like again had kind of

00:30:30.340 of an incredibly fucked up traumatic teenage years the 20s were also pretty chaotic and then

00:30:37.380 as she settled into this new life she was just kind of like i'm here for good time like you know 0.95

00:30:43.820 let's just like laugh and dance in the rain let's go sword fight under moonlight and nightgowns

00:30:48.880 and now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors welcome to the realms of

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00:31:22.920 The war is over and both sides lost.

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00:32:19.560 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:32:26.480 I'm Mandy.

00:32:27.580 And I'm Melissa.

00:32:28.380 And this is Moms and Mysteries. 0.80

00:32:30.140 We're two Florida moms obsessed with true crime.

00:32:32.680 From infamous cases like Ellen Greenberg to shocking Florida stories like the Dan Markell killing.

00:32:37.780 With 55 million downloads, we bring you new deep dives every Tuesday and Thursday.

00:32:42.200 Listen to Moms and Mysteries on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:32:46.500 i'm anne foster and i have never watched the show spartacus blood and sand and i'm gina berry and

00:32:53.340 i've watched this show numerous times on our new podcast nefer tv we discuss tv shows and movies

00:32:59.380 set in ancient history this season we are discussing spartacus blood and sand

00:33:03.500 follow nefer tv that's n-e-f-e-r tv wherever you get your podcasts

00:33:10.900 and we're back uh cm was a big fan of the book don quixote the spanish book and so the main

00:33:21.780 character in don quixote is don quixote but uh don quixote loves a woman called dulcinea

00:33:27.380 so cm referred to hortense as his dulcinea she signed her letters to him as dulcinea to don

00:33:34.500 Quixote, and he sent his letters to her with to Dulcinea from the sad-faced knight. Like, so cute.

00:33:42.200 And yeah, so Louis, the prince of Monaco, came to town on a visit. Hortense flirted with him.

00:33:48.280 CM was like, girl, don't do it. But like, he knew she would. She knew she would. And obviously,

00:33:53.680 she did. Yeah, so the king dumped her because of that, as we discussed. After this, Hortense,

00:34:03.540 for a while, made a show of devout repentance, like to try and just reputation repair, but also

00:34:10.880 maybe like when she was in Savoy, she also was just like sitting, reading, contemplating, like

00:34:15.380 she was taking some time for herself to be like, why did I just self-destruct my life in this

00:34:20.020 manner? Hortense, what are we doing? But her main thing that she did in London was run Hortense's

00:34:29.020 salon. So this is like, this is so major. I actually added a new, I couldn't not, I added

00:34:37.340 a new design to the merch shop, vulgarhistory.store. Use code titsout10 for 10% off or titsout for

00:34:44.280 free US shipping. Anyway, I made a shirt that says Hortense's Salon International, established

00:34:50.720 1675 because her salon was the place to be so who went to the salon chez Hortense Internationale

00:35:03.020 so uh remember London or England at this time it's called the restoration it's the era of like

00:35:10.140 the restoration of the monarchy but also the restoration of like fun after Oliver Cromwell

00:35:15.320 So it was a time with a lot of flourishing artistic, scientific, literary stuff going on.

00:35:21.300 So writers, philosophers, scientists, and artists, as well as the growing expatriate community,

00:35:27.380 French immigrants, and I guess other place immigrants, flocked to the doors of this salon,

00:35:33.260 her house where she lived in. So a thing happened in France in 1685, which led to the exodus of more

00:35:40.220 than 200,000 Protestant refugees, many of whom came to London. So there's just like a whole lot 0.99

00:35:45.960 of French people there. And it's kind of like, I don't know, you know, like Chinatown in San

00:35:53.200 Francisco or something. It's like if a bunch of people all come from one country to another 0.94

00:35:57.240 country, then they enjoy being together so they can like continue like discussing stuff from where

00:36:03.960 they're from. So like these, this group, the Francophiles will discuss the latest French play

00:36:08.100 or culinary trend. And we're going to get to that. It's very multilingual. This is why I think of it

00:36:15.420 as the salon international, which ties in so well to this season, et cetera. Like there'll be

00:36:20.620 different conversations happening, different languages and people, not CM, but other people

00:36:27.260 presumably like learning languages or like learning new phrases. And so there's also like

00:36:32.780 a whole catholic protestant thing happening because these 200 000 protestants all fled

00:36:38.640 france but hortense is a catholic so people are just kind of like all all different religions

00:36:43.740 like different all different points of view all together in one room like so although we think

00:36:48.620 about old times um especially these periods of like religious wars and stuff is kind of like

00:36:53.240 us versus them like nobody getting along like this is a place where people get together and

00:36:58.380 talk about books and science and it's like christina of sweden wishes this is like what

00:37:02.980 christina of sweden thought she was assembling but she was so strict about who could enter and 0.95

00:37:09.280 she didn't let women in and that's a crucial part of the success because uh women didn't have a 0.96

00:37:16.360 space to talk about intellectual things and to socialize because they were excluded from other

00:37:21.000 spheres where you might do this like you know universities and stuff like that so this is a

00:37:25.460 place where no matter your gender, your religion, whatever, you can just, if you want to like have

00:37:29.440 some like artistic talk and also just like have a good time, Hortense's Salon is the place to do it.

00:37:37.360 Prior to Hortense's Salon, other people had tried to set up this sort of thing in England,

00:37:43.000 like people who had been to France or other places where there were salons, like wanted this to

00:37:46.260 happen, but it just kept not happening. They didn't take off. And that was largely because

00:37:50.920 for this situation to thrive, you needed to have not just men there. Although women couldn't attend 1.00

00:37:57.580 universities, this was a place where they could engage and learn about the latest scientific

00:38:01.920 breakthroughs and things. And also just like having, having women there, having it be not 1.00

00:38:07.340 just all men made it appealing in a different way than just like, I don't know, whatever

00:38:13.280 university group, like you'd have different points of view, like different people with

00:38:16.560 different lived experiences and the salon was also the place to see and to be seen like it was in the

00:38:24.080 house next door to where James and Mary of Medina lived and like Charles who kept a cool relationship

00:38:28.880 with his exes he would come there and hang out sometimes uh the other mistresses current and

00:38:34.940 past would go there like Barbara Villiers hung out there uh Nell Gwynne is known to have gone

00:38:39.900 accompanied by Aphra Ben, who was, again, the writer slash spy, who Nell was patron of. Aphra

00:38:47.640 Ben would later dedicate a novella to Hortense, and Aphra Ben may be one of Hortense's lovers as

00:38:54.200 well. Mole Davis, the former royal mistress, also went. It's likely this is where she met her

00:39:00.820 husband, Jacques Paisible, who was a musician who performed at the Salon. Even Louise de Carouel

00:39:07.880 hung out there sometimes like it's just like the i don't know what what's the i am not enough in

00:39:15.460 tune with current uh carbone is that what it's called the restaurant in new york that they're

00:39:20.380 always talking about on dumois like what's the place it's like if you watch the hills back in

00:39:25.920 the day like les deux is like where all the most important people were all all this salon and it

00:39:32.080 wasn't just like people sitting around talking about like important science literary things

00:39:36.520 are also doing gambling. So Hortense, I'd mentioned it, seeding this plot line. So when

00:39:44.380 she was in Savoy, she had learned the card game Basset. To recap, this is the purely chance-based

00:39:51.380 game that always skewed in the banker's favor with high wins and high losses. It was very

00:39:56.520 addicting and actually it was so addicting and so hazardous, it was eventually outlawed in France

00:40:02.820 in 1691 but this is not that year and also we're in london not in france if there's ever a vulgar

00:40:08.200 history like in person con i feel like we can we can have like a basset table we can get down

00:40:14.860 so hortense was one of the first gambling hostesses in europe and everything she did 1.00

00:40:23.120 became so popular like even when she was in when she went to italy people were like oh look at her 0.94

00:40:29.040 like French outfits. Like people are painting her and stuff. Like she just had this knack. She was

00:40:33.260 like the it girl. She was the original it girl. Like everything she did became a trend and she 0.98

00:40:39.360 started a gambling salon that women could go to. And suddenly this became a trend to have gaming 1.00

00:40:44.720 like casinos presided over by women. So yeah, Bassett was just a different form of entertainment 1.00

00:40:53.520 besides the usual conversation. There was also performances that went on there. Like people,

00:40:58.060 I guess I would do plays like musicians and singers would perform. But yeah, around the

00:41:03.520 gambling table, like the same way that it was the Salon Internationale, it's like

00:41:07.740 all different genders were there, different religions represented, different languages

00:41:11.380 being spoken. Like no matter your gender, your rank, your nationality, like everyone would just

00:41:16.500 sit around the table and just like have fun playing this extremely addictive game where you

00:41:22.060 lost money frequently. And also usually up to this point in general in London, gambling places have

00:41:30.200 been just for men, but here it's like men and women, at least around this table, were basically

00:41:35.160 equals and women were able to make independent financial decisions in the form of how much

00:41:40.940 they're going to bet and stuff like that. So it's like a different kind of influence on 1.00

00:41:46.820 understandings of like gender equity and women's rights so often discussions of women's rights are 0.94

00:41:54.000 just like about owning property and about being able to vote or like with hortense being able to

00:41:58.340 like end a bad marriage and those are all important obviously but this was a place

00:42:02.100 i like this kind of informal way that it just kind of like would unconsciously maybe make

00:42:07.840 people think like oh yeah men and women maybe are not you know so can sit around a table they can

00:42:14.500 like there doesn't have to be this disconnect or this sort of like uneven unequal treatment

00:42:19.880 and so women like again the whole thing about like money and having being able to make decisions

00:42:26.920 about money so like even for someone like Hortense or um Nell Gwynn like Louise Caroy 0.99

00:42:34.760 whatever like for the royal mistresses like they were dependent on the money that Charles was 0.76

00:42:41.140 giving them like they were not able to get another job like Hortonsa's whole deal since she fled AC 0.97

00:42:46.920 was like she needed to rely on the kindness of strangers generally strange men to give her a

00:42:51.680 home to give her money like she wasn't allowed to get a job like that it's not just like she 0.91

00:42:58.040 couldn't get a job it's like there wasn't jobs women like that she would have been able to do 1.00

00:43:02.960 but in gambling she's able to take some control over her money at least the illusion of complete 1.00

00:43:10.320 financial authority although if it's her salon and it tends like if the house always wins then 1.00

00:43:15.660 she's making money off of other people so you know it's a good grift and yeah the royal mistresses

00:43:21.820 hung out at the salon they may have even been friends because like i don't know there's like

00:43:28.820 famous a lot of what's known about the royal mistresses is like they're um quarreling with

00:43:35.320 each other like there's one time one of them put laxatives and one of the others drinks

00:43:38.620 before the other one was having a date with Charles

00:43:40.820 so that the one could have the date with Charles 0.97

00:43:43.000 and the other one would be ruined.

00:43:44.140 Like there's a lot of like quarreling

00:43:46.460 that's talked about with them,

00:43:47.660 but also like they could hang out too.

00:43:49.980 You know, it's a funny thing.

00:43:51.140 Like there's this small group of people,

00:43:54.200 the courtiers and stuff,

00:43:56.580 who are just always like the fact that Charles

00:43:58.420 just kind of cycles through these mistresses and stuff.

00:44:00.660 It's like, I don't know,

00:44:02.460 like a TV show or whatever that takes place

00:44:05.780 in a high school where it's like,

00:44:07.200 yeah, all these people are having

00:44:08.060 all these dramatic situations but like you still have to all go to English class tomorrow and then

00:44:12.640 like you might have to do a group assignment together like they're all in each other's

00:44:16.280 worlds and so there was fighting and rivalries and stuff but they were also like friends in

00:44:21.420 some ways and the salon was like it's like Sweet Valley High that's what I was thinking of it's

00:44:26.360 like Sweet Valley High so like people are sometimes rivals and sometimes friends but like you all get

00:44:29.640 together when there's a big dance oh also at the salon and like all of this info about the salon

00:44:36.400 is from the interviews that I read with Annalisa Nicholson giving information. I really don't want

00:44:43.860 to like not credit her enough because she's been like doing the work on this. And I'm just here

00:44:48.700 sharing highlights of it with you. Like, thank goodness for, for people like that who do, who

00:44:53.940 find all these interesting facts that people don't know about. Like, this is so important to learn

00:44:57.340 about. The salon of it all, like the two books that I have about her, like not that a title

00:45:03.160 necessarily means what the book is about, but both of the books that I've been reading

00:45:06.460 about Hortense are just like, she was a mistress where it's like, yes, she was a mistress. She was

00:45:11.320 a runaway wife. And she also like did this cool thing. So at the salon, there was scientific 1.00

00:45:18.620 lectures. Um, she also had a museum like culture. So you like exotic objects and animals. So I don't

00:45:26.300 know, some sort of petting zoo type situation, like looking like show and tell situation. And

00:45:31.840 her bestie CM was a wine connoisseur. And he was especially a fan of the sparkling beverages from

00:45:39.440 the Champagne region in France. He had French wine imported because he hated English wine

00:45:44.160 or Tons hated English wine. All the French people hated English wine. I'm sure they still do.

00:45:48.340 and so she started serving champagne at the salon and in fact it was because she was serving

00:45:56.580 champagne at the salon that champagne was introduced to English society and again she's 0.92

00:46:02.260 like such she's the influencer like she's the it girl like the same way that um Catherine of 0.99

00:46:07.600 Braganza came over and then everyone started drinking tea because she was drinking tea like

00:46:10.940 Hortense had this like place everyone wanted to be and what was happening there is everyone was 0.97

00:46:14.980 drinking champagne and so champagne becomes interwoven with like aristocrats with socializing

00:46:22.060 with like celebrations like the reason why champagne is such a thing now in so many places

00:46:28.160 all around the world well is because it was that in england and then england colonized the world

00:46:33.040 but champagne so like i want to give credit also to cm he's the one who like bought it there but

00:46:39.920 then Hortense is the one who like made it the thing you know it's like when god what even is

00:46:45.180 the thing now but for a while it was like cronuts were the thing or I don't know like frozen yogurt

00:46:50.200 like Aperol spritz like any of the like the trendy thing that somebody does on TikTok or whatever and

00:46:56.640 suddenly everybody or you know it's like when you see a famous person like anytime Meghan Markle

00:47:01.300 shows up wearing a certain necklace it's like that necklace sells out like Hortense Mancini

00:47:05.840 was having the same effect to the level of like the drink she served at her salon became the

00:47:11.180 drink that everybody wanted to drink so yeah so I mean and like a salon is a place I don't know

00:47:18.600 it's like it's such a place of festivity and enjoyment like it's not exactly like a bar type

00:47:24.760 atmosphere but people are just like it's a party like it's a party atmosphere so like the whole

00:47:29.560 thing of just like people having fun holding up their goblets like cheersing with their champagne

00:47:34.360 Champagne just becomes interwoven with this idea of celebration and joy and partying.

00:47:40.640 And side note, if you want to learn more about the history of Champagne,

00:47:45.160 there is a book called The Widow Clicquot by Talar J. Medzeo.

00:47:54.620 So the full title is The Widow Clicquot,

00:47:56.720 The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It.

00:47:59.600 so it's a biography of so if you know veuve clico is like a famous expensive brand of champagne

00:48:05.460 veuve clico means the widow clico and so who was a person and she was a hashtag girl boss

00:48:12.120 and anyway this book tells her story and how she how she got it all done i'm using hashtag girl

00:48:18.560 boss because one of the reasons i found this book really interesting but it's not going to be a

00:48:23.260 history episode because she was i don't know her story is like very like businessy and it's not

00:48:30.900 very like scandalousy but it's interesting and i love knowing that um so i checked that book because

00:48:37.160 i have a copy of it i'm like oh does it mention hortense it doesn't but it does mention cm and

00:48:41.100 how he brought it over to england anyway an interesting book so yeah and there's also sort

00:48:47.240 of like a trickle down effect of what she does like again like today's influencers like

00:48:51.840 first like a small group of people are doing a thing and then people hear about it who's like

00:48:57.220 the less popular people and they start doing it then the less popular people are doing and

00:49:00.860 eventually it like trickles down and then anyway so it's this ripple effect of like

00:49:05.860 champagne but also like certain scientific trends or like a certain book or a play like it was 0.97

00:49:13.860 yeah she was a renaissance influencer so the way that she dressed people would copy i don't know

00:49:23.380 if they copied the sailor moon double buns but presumably actually i have a cute story which is

00:49:28.900 after i posted the first picture of or taunts um on the instagram when we started doing these 0.63

00:49:32.800 episodes a tits with bricky listener said hey i bet i could do that with my daughter's hair 0.69

00:49:36.760 and she did and she sent me a picture and it's so cute so i think the sailor moon double buns

00:49:41.660 is maybe the official hairstyle of Tito Brigade. Another option could be shave your head, wear a

00:49:48.040 bad wig in the Christine of Sweden manner, or the Lord Farquaad blunt cut bob. Those are the three

00:49:55.240 options we have, I think. Again, think about vulgar history con. Those are the hairstyles I expect to

00:50:00.300 see. Not that that's happening, but you know, maybe one day. Anyway, people are copying her outfit,

00:50:06.500 they're copying her hairstyle. Although I do feel like that's similar to being like, oh, if you like

00:50:11.640 buy this whatever you know face cream you'll look like this celebrity who like has a team like a

00:50:17.960 glam squad and hair extensions and like professional lighting and photoshop like she was so beautiful 0.87

00:50:24.260 and glamorous it's like why i want to be like her and the only way i can see to be like her is to

00:50:28.080 just like again it's well it's like the megan markle effect again where it's just like i want

00:50:31.800 to be like this person so like if i buy this tote bag i will be i'll feel like them anyway she was

00:50:38.180 so beautiful. Everything she did looked great is what I'm saying. Were these things the reason why

00:50:42.460 she looked great? No, like she was just inherently supernaturally beautiful anyway. So yeah, at the

00:50:49.520 salon, like whatever authors were being discussed or scientists, like they became popular. Um, the

00:50:54.580 type of food and wine that she was serving became popular. And then again, of course, like the

00:51:01.780 gambling thing. So like, because people are gambling, other women started to want to gamble 0.86

00:51:07.300 as well yeah so over the next even it's not just an immediate effect that comes and goes like 0.99

00:51:12.880 today's tiktok trends it's like over the next decades lots of other women set up gambling 1.00

00:51:17.420 houses that they were in charge of as annalise nicholson says so organizing things independently 1.00

00:51:24.240 as a woman in the 17th century is an act of resistance against the general patriarchy 1.00

00:51:28.340 which often can like limits women to the domestic sphere but hortense was just showing like what if 0.90

00:51:35.820 you just like do this instead so it's kind of like inspiring other women and other people to 0.99

00:51:41.220 just kind of to try new things like I'm recording this as Beyonce's new album Renaissance just came

00:51:47.740 out which I love and adore and I've been listening to it non-stop and it's so good but it's sort of

00:51:53.180 like I saw it was another singer I mean SZA is that how you say that I was saying just like

00:51:59.000 what Beyonce did in this album makes other creative people think like oh like this is

00:52:05.480 new, this is a different way to do things. Like it just opens up people's creative horizons to

00:52:09.360 see someone doing something that no one else has done before. And so I think just seeing Hortense

00:52:13.620 living this tits out life as like an effectively an independent woman just made people think like,

00:52:20.100 oh wait, like sometimes you don't know you can do a thing until you see a person doing that thing. 1.00

00:52:24.960 So remember all this for the significance portion when we're eventually scoring her one day,

00:52:30.060 because this story is not at the end of it yet yeah so Hortense is running this like cultural

00:52:37.220 hub but again like so much of the history written about her is like well she was the

00:52:42.260 mistress of Charles II and she ran a gambling den and like that's all you talk about

00:52:46.680 where it's like no this is like a major situation also just side note again I mentioned her pets

00:52:54.340 earlier, more pets info. So Hortense had, there were animals at the salon, not just the like

00:53:01.800 museum ones. So she had many cats and dogs. She also filled her salon with exotic birds,

00:53:07.340 including parrots. Oh, and then here, so this is, sorry, my notes here say the sorts of like

00:53:13.380 museum things people would look at. So like objects imported from the colonies. So like from

00:53:18.040 the Western hemisphere. So like ribbons, feathers, shells, brightly colored stones,

00:53:22.800 just always something new and fun to talk about the salon itself so it's not like her whole house

00:53:28.920 it's not just like come it's not a house party situation like the salon was contained to

00:53:33.240 two rooms about 500 square feet in total so a cozy intimate space of just like buzzing with

00:53:42.260 just like interesting people doing cool stuff so at this point or taunts she's well into her 30s

00:53:49.680 She's been in London for like several years. She is in her 30s. She's flirty. She's thriving.

00:53:55.700 And her story is still not over. Things are going to change pretty shortly, which is

00:54:01.120 the death of Charles II. James takes over as king. So, you know, we're going to talk about

00:54:06.860 how does Hortense handle that transition? Is she able to still stay in the salon? Is she still able 0.99

00:54:12.660 to keep her status as it girl? Also, like what was her relationship with James's family? Remember

00:54:19.540 his daughters, Mary from William & Mary and the first, like what was Hortense, was she cool with

00:54:24.720 them? And then what we're also going to talk about next time is just kind of like her final years and

00:54:29.940 what happened. And one of the things that happens is her oldest daughter flees her husband in France,

00:54:37.040 comes to England to meet up with her long estranged mother. And we'll see what the fallout

00:54:43.080 of all that is, I think next week, I think next week is going to be probably the final

00:54:50.000 bit of the Hortense saga. I think we're going to get around to scoring next week. So next week is

00:54:54.780 Hortense colon the final years. And like, much like Christina of Sweden, like she did not

00:55:03.040 stop being interesting. Fascinating things did not stop happening to her, which is interesting too.

00:55:08.980 Like with Christina of Sweden too, it's kind of like, you know, she's trapped in this life that

00:55:12.640 she didn't necessarily want she fled that life started something new and now we're at a point

00:55:16.620 where we can see like what did she want that life to look like and what she wanted to look like was

00:55:19.760 just like independence having a good time intellectual stimulation lots of lovers i think

00:55:25.960 it's also interesting it was one of the first details about her as a young woman was her sister

00:55:29.900 marie was so in love with uh louis the 14th and or like young hortense was just like romance not

00:55:36.580 for me and it continues to not be like i don't i haven't come across anything that said that she

00:55:40.520 was in any way seeking out the great love of her life or whatever she just had lovers and was having

00:55:46.400 a nice time and I think that's great to see someone who's able to do that if that is what

00:55:52.460 they want to do so yeah if you go to oh sorry p.s. I wanted to let you know this also as I'm

00:56:01.640 recording this there's been I'm like a couple weeks ahead of when you're listening to this but

00:56:05.820 this week there's been some discussion about Prince William which I keep thinking about how

00:56:10.040 in the last episode i talked about um how charles had the the yacht that he called the hmy fubs

00:56:16.300 after an affectionate word to describe a curvaceous woman and the nickname he gave his mistress

00:56:22.880 and i was like haha what if like modern day prince william had a yacht and he called it like

00:56:27.480 thick anyway so some stuff has come out about well okay some discussion has been occurring

00:56:34.040 there was a blind item about prince william on dumois which is d-e-u-x-m-o-i the um instagram

00:56:42.220 blind items page i don't know a blind item i mentioned this before i think but it's like

00:56:49.420 it's a way that somebody can describe something that a famous person did but without giving the

00:56:53.680 famous person's name so you can't be sued so if i was doing a blind item about hortense i would be

00:56:58.060 like well this italian-born beauty was seen with her sister bathing in the river on a hot day in

00:57:05.620 rome and everyone would know it was hortense mancini but i never actually said it was her

00:57:09.000 but i gave like some clues to know it was her but also you can't ever verify if it's true or not

00:57:13.140 and the minute that a famous person like refutes it then that gives it legitimacy so generally

00:57:17.700 famous people just like ignore this stuff so dumas posted a thing that mentioned that prince

00:57:24.440 William uh has a mistress and it's like an open secret among people in like aristocratic circles

00:57:30.180 in England or whatever and there's also details about like the sex act he prefers but that's not

00:57:35.720 what we're getting into what we're getting into is the fact that I was reading that just as I was

00:57:39.920 doing all this Hortense stuff and I'm just like you know what like the way that Charles had it

00:57:42.980 set up where it's like have a mistress it's cool no one minds it's maybe healthier for some people

00:57:48.480 rather than having to pretend I mean the same thing with like when Prince Charles was with

00:57:53.800 camilla like having to pretend like he and diana were married but he had a mistress it's like let's

00:57:58.920 just like have mistresses and like be open about it or if you don't want a mistress don't have one

00:58:03.680 but just to like pretend like you don't have a mistress when like a bunch of people know you

00:58:07.920 have a mistress it's like anyway the connection i wanted to make as well is that so charles ii had

00:58:14.180 so many illegitimate children and a lot of those children were given titles and whatever because

00:58:20.260 they were like the illegitimate children of the english king so unlike in france where illegitimate

00:58:25.700 children can or then could inherit the throne in england it had to be the legitimate children

00:58:31.640 like the children of the wife of the king so none of charles's children could inherit but they all

00:58:37.040 went on to largely mostly um pretty successful privileged lives and then kind of set up new

00:58:44.900 like rich a whole bunch of wealthy families right so two of those wealthy families eventually

00:58:50.300 combine and that is uh lady diana spencer like diana princess of wales was a descendant from

00:58:57.400 in two different ways uh charles ii's illegitimate children so the way that the british royal family

00:59:05.040 goes is that like none of charles's children took over james his children so william and

00:59:12.600 Mary took over, but they didn't have children.

00:59:14.700 Anne I had so many children, none of them survived.

00:59:17.020 So then the crown went over to George I, et cetera, over in Germany.

00:59:21.380 So like the Stuart line ended with Anne I.

00:59:26.740 But in so doing, it means that when Prince William becomes the king of England,

00:59:32.840 he's going to be the first Stuart or the next Stuart monarch since Anne.

00:59:37.680 And it's through his having been descended from Diana, who is descended from the illegitimate children of Charles II.

00:59:44.540 Just a weird connection between Charles II and William during a week where I'm like researching an oldie times thing and all these modernie times things are happening.

00:59:53.800 Anyway, that's just my historical fun fact for you.

00:59:58.220 Yeah, so if you go to vulgarhistory.com, please send me your feedback.

01:00:02.400 I love to hear what you have to say, ideas for new episodes, corrections or whatever.

01:00:07.680 suggestions. If you go to, there's the link in the show notes, but also if you go to bookshop.org

01:00:13.120 slash shop slash vulgar history. And if you buy books through there, including the Widow Clicquot

01:00:18.460 or one of the books about Hortense, then a little bit of that money goes to support this podcast as

01:00:23.880 well. And I mentioned there's a new Hortense's Salon merch at vulgarhistory.store. So you can

01:00:30.560 get that. We've got mugs, we've got, I forget, stickers, t-shirts, different things. And you

01:00:35.720 can always for that or anything else on that website use code tits out for free us shipping

01:00:40.320 or tits out 10 for 10 off you can support the podcast which is me well it's me and then christina

01:00:48.740 we there's an editor now you might have noticed and there's end credits now and i credit the

01:00:54.540 editor so i've been wanting to have an editor of the podcast forever um things worked out and now

01:01:00.680 now christina is on team vulgar history so really excited about that and things like that can happen

01:01:05.520 because of the financial support of listeners like you. So patreon.com slash Anne Foster

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01:01:36.040 posting one shortly. Actually, it'll be there by the time you hear it, but about Cardinal Mazarin.

01:01:40.520 And then from the poll results, I'm going to be doing one about Christopher Columbus. That's

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01:02:04.060 version anyway that's all on there i love when people support me on patreon.com but also the

01:02:11.500 most important thing is you're listening to this right now so thank you for listening

01:02:14.060 uh for free i also appreciate that obviously you can follow the podcast on instagram at vulgar

01:02:21.480 history pod on twitter at vulgar history and yeah next week is going to be the thrilling

01:02:27.920 conclusion of this, uh, saga of Hortense Mancini. So till then, keep your pants on and if it's out,

01:02:37.760 I'll talk to you next time.

01:02:41.080 Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster and edited by Christina Lumagi.

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Vulgar History - August 10, 2022

International, part 21： Hortense Mancini Invents Champagne (pt 4⧸6)

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