Vulgar History - International, part 22： Hortense Mancini's Lasting Legacy (pt 5⧸6)

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

00:00:16.760 Anne Foster, and this is Hortense Mancini, part five of five asterisks. I think, based

00:00:25.400 on how long I've taken to read the previous notes I had for Hortons, I think this is going to be it.

00:00:30.760 This is going to be the grand finale. We're going to score her on the Scandalicious Scale.

00:00:35.400 It's all happening. So I will note, there's going to be part of the story where we're going to talk

00:00:41.260 about suicide, but I will let you know when that part of the episode is coming up, if you are not

00:00:47.220 in the headspace to listen to that sort of discussion at the moment. But then also, I will

00:00:52.160 also put in the show notes to what time I just come back to talk about the scoring so if you

00:00:56.420 wanted to skip ahead to that but like most of the episode is not talking about suicide it's just

00:01:01.120 it comes up at one point as the conclusion of this kind of like series within a series like

00:01:06.640 we're still in the international season frankly Hortense lived quite an international life going

00:01:12.560 from country to country her salon as I talked about last time her salon international bringing

00:01:18.280 together people from all over the place but this is kind of like the series within a series

00:01:22.060 the Hortense saga. And I really want to make sure to give all the credit to all of the fabulous

00:01:28.360 research sources I was able to find. So the two books, which I found the most helpful,

00:01:35.180 so there's one called Mistresses, Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II by Linda Porter.

00:01:40.420 There's at least one chapter more in some cases about each of the mistresses. We talked about

00:01:47.240 almost all of them last time. So there's Nell Gwynn, Barbara Villiers, Maul Davis. I learned how

00:01:52.980 to pronounce that from a Titside Brigade member who generously explained to me, it's like Molly,

00:01:57.260 but without the Y. Maul Davis. Hortense herself. Oh, and Louise de Caruel. So anyway, that's a 0.98

00:02:05.220 great book. And it talks about Charles II, I think all of our historical crush at this point. Also,

00:02:11.720 several people from Titside Brigade have sent me this link to the point that I feel like this must

00:02:15.780 be a real sensation over on that side of the Atlantic. People both in the UK and also in

00:02:20.580 Ireland sent me a link to Greg Jenner from Horrible Histories, which is a TV show that I

00:02:26.320 think airs in the UK and Ireland, did a fabulous song slash rap where he's being Charles II. There's

00:02:34.400 a nice moment about Hortense Mancini in that. I'll put a link to that in the notes as well,

00:02:38.180 in case you haven't seen it. Greg Jenner also does a really good podcast called You're Dead

00:02:42.260 to me where he talks with historians and comedians about different people from history super

00:02:47.020 recommend that as well anyway mistresses sex and scandal the court of charles ii by linda porter

00:02:51.580 it's quite a new book and i often find when i'm doing research for this show that the newest books

00:02:57.400 tend to have kind of the the the take on things that i most appreciate like a bit more nuanced a

00:03:05.780 bit less like like the newer the history book is the more other things they're able to reflect back

00:03:12.100 upon. And so it's less kind of like, well, here's what we think about her at the end. It's more just

00:03:16.500 like, well, this person said this and this person said this. Anyway, the newer, the better, I say.

00:03:21.200 Anyway, I also read another recent-ish book, The King's Mistresses, The Liberated Lives of

00:03:26.300 Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith.

00:03:31.320 So that's kind of a dual biography of Marie and Hortense. Also really good. Also really recommend

00:03:38.000 that. They're both really written. Again, I find this in my research. Sometimes the books are like,

00:03:43.520 this is written for like academic level people with a lot of knowledge, but both of these books

00:03:47.820 are really written for like the everyday person. Kind of hold your hand through and explain who is

00:03:52.340 who. And thank God, because like everyone in the story is called Philippe and I really need that

00:03:56.040 handholding. I also referred to Wikipedia all over the place. I've mentioned this before. I know

00:04:04.060 Wikipedia gets some hate and I find it a really useful resource. I often go there like some,

00:04:11.300 especially for like, if you're researching, I don't know, Charles II or like Thomas Jefferson

00:04:15.520 or some like famous man from history, like all the facts are there, frankly. And they're all,

00:04:20.440 there's footnotes. They explain where they got the information from. I support Wikipedia with

00:04:24.640 a monthly donation because I really appreciate what they do. So I've mentioned her the last

00:04:31.400 couple of times, but Annalisa Nicholson. I mean, thank God for the work that she's doing.

00:04:36.440 Annalisa is, I'll put a link to her research page as well. So right now she's at the Queens

00:04:41.960 College, University of Oxford, where she is a laming, perhaps lambing, junior research fellow.

00:04:49.240 Anyway, she is researching Hortense Mancini. And every time I looked up any detail about Hortense

00:04:54.340 Mancini that I couldn't find from these books that I wanted to clarify, like Annalisa was out

00:04:58.080 They're doing an interview somewhere about, like, the history of her in Champagne or whatever.

00:05:02.240 So, like, Annalisa is doing so much work about this.

00:05:05.500 And she wrote an article for, so it's a publication from the University of Chicago Press called Early Modern Women, an interdisciplinary journal.

00:05:14.460 And she wrote an article for them called Like Mother, Like Daughter, Hortense Mancini, Duchess de Mazarin, and Marie-Charlotte de la Porte Mazarin, Marquise de Richelieu, which is her daughter.

00:05:24.860 and that has got a lot of facts about Hortense and her later years and her relationship with

00:05:29.980 her daughter. So I use that for research as well. And then also we're going to be talking this week

00:05:33.700 about a very specific painting of Hortense. And I got some clarification about that from a blog

00:05:40.640 called theartwanderer.co.uk. And I'll put that link in the notes as well, because when we get

00:05:46.380 there, you'll know why I'm talking about it. So this is Hortense part five. At this point,

00:05:52.320 I have to assume you've listened to numbers one through four, and if you haven't, welcome. I hope

00:05:57.980 you're not too confused. Or taunts, last time we got into, she was running the Salon Internationale.

00:06:04.000 She was, she had been the mistress of Charles for a minute, and then the word I couldn't remember 0.68

00:06:10.200 last time, but which I have since remembered, is self-sabotaging quite spectacularly by having an

00:06:16.520 affair with the Prince of Monaco in the midst of English Monaco, like diplomatic talks. So that

00:06:22.440 relationship ended, but Charles was still supporting her. Not as much as when she was a

00:06:27.420 mistress, but like he's a cool ex. Anyway, even as Hortense was doing things like along with her

00:06:34.040 best friend CM, introducing champagne to the people of England, being a muse for artists and

00:06:40.020 writers. And also because in her salon, like just sort of showing the women could have independent 0.95

00:06:45.220 things. They could gamble, bring together writers and authors and all the important stuff we talked 0.99

00:06:50.520 about last time, comma, at the same time, she never stopped petitioning Louis XIV to get an 0.95

00:06:56.040 income from him, which she deserved as the heir of Cardinal Mezarin. But you remember the whole

00:07:02.260 complicated thing where she and her husband, A.C., became co-heirs, but then because she was a woman,

00:07:09.360 and a lot of the paperwork didn't give the money specifically to her. AC used the money to control

00:07:16.320 her, much like people in abusive relationships do today, and that's why everyone should have 0.85

00:07:20.620 separate bank accounts. But also Louis, he knew that Charles was supporting her, so he was like,

00:07:27.920 does she need my money? Maybe not, but also, as we mentioned last time, AC was Louis XIV's major

00:07:33.420 creditor. And so he really couldn't cross him. Anyway, Hortense, post-consciously uncoupling

00:07:40.360 from Charles, she kept on being the most amazing hostess at her salon. So she wasn't just like,

00:07:48.020 you know, the maitre d' of the salon. She's like in there with them. So she was doing stuff too. 0.79

00:07:52.480 Like she wrote her book. Remember she wrote her memoir before, which is wild. Like she wrote her

00:07:56.960 memoir at what was it like age 29 or something. And now she's like into her thirties. Woodst that

00:08:03.500 she wrote a second memoir about this period of her life, but she didn't anyway. So we know that

00:08:07.560 she is like a good writer. So in fact, and her best friend, CM, also a writer. So they collaborated

00:08:14.780 at one point they collaborated with musicians and composers on to write like some operas,

00:08:20.180 which were performed at her salon she also sang in these operas and I I do wonder was she talented

00:08:28.200 at singing I mean she had all those lessons to like become a fancy court lady etc so I'm sure 0.97

00:08:34.280 she had singing lessons but you know is it like was she a good singer or was she just very pretty

00:08:39.300 as a person auto-tune wasn't a thing yet anyway I like to think that she was talented

00:08:44.240 yeah and the salon international became like a big deal like people coming from the continent

00:08:50.460 like i.e europe to come just because they'd heard about the salon and how it's such a great place

00:08:56.760 for like playing basset and hearing music and also like talking about academic ideas and stuff

00:09:02.200 so like tourists and travelers are coming and a lot of the draw honestly was to see her because

00:09:06.700 she was so famous she was like i don't know you know i she's in her 30s which is like

00:09:14.240 not an old person by any means, but just the amount of time she'd been doing stuff and the

00:09:18.640 level of fame that she got. I'm feeling sort of like a Cher level, like Madonna, just sort of

00:09:24.600 like a living legend, like Diana Ross, like someone where you're like, wait, that person

00:09:28.100 is still around, that person who did so much stuff and is such an iconic diva.

00:09:32.640 So the people of London are kind of proud to have this famous icon living amongst them.

00:09:39.340 So CM wrote about her.

00:09:42.100 He wrote that Hortense had the air, habit, and equipage of a queen of the Amazons. 0.97

00:09:47.260 She appeared equally equipped to charm and to fight. 0.99

00:09:50.040 And queen of the Amazons is a thing that Christine of Sweden also got a lot. 0.97

00:09:53.440 I think it's to do with, that was like the only sort of like cultural understanding anyone had of like a woman who was independent and didn't need no man was like the Amazons, I guess.

00:10:05.040 but I mean I would think she appeared equally equipped to charm and to fight that goes along 1.00

00:10:09.160 with like she ran this salon so you know she was she wasn't just hanging out there looking cute 0.99

00:10:15.020 she was also I don't know breaking up bar fights and stuff do you remember that detail I've 1.00

00:10:19.500 forgotten about it but about how she was she had no poker face like how she had to wear a mask when 0.98

00:10:24.740 she was playing cards because her emotions were so obvious on her face all the time like bear that 0.99

00:10:30.500 in mind for like what she's doing with her life. Like she's just like an open book is part of her

00:10:35.980 whole deal. And she continued to be the muse to artists who drew her as Cleopatra, as the goddess

00:10:43.260 Diana, which was sort of like the thing she got a lot because she liked hunting. And then also

00:10:47.980 because she was in London. So she was, remember, she was like from Rome originally, then she grew

00:10:53.060 up in France. And so to people in London at that time, like being Italian slash French was like

00:10:58.260 very exotic and mysterious and kind of a bit like dangerous and scary. So she had this kind of like 0.89

00:11:04.040 sexy background too. But combined with that, she's also, she still had her personal interest 0.98

00:11:09.480 in hunting, sword fighting. Remember the whole thing? She was sword fighting with Anne Leonard

00:11:15.140 in their nightgowns at night that time. She liked gambling. She liked exotic pets. So she's just

00:11:20.340 like, no one else in London is like her. And people are just fascinated. And also she's still

00:11:25.840 like the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. So this is a quote from the book by Elizabeth

00:11:32.500 Goldsmith, the king's mistress says, the most stunning painting of her produced during her

00:11:37.580 early years in London was a huge oil canvas, 90 by 70 inches by Benedetto Gennari, which is called

00:11:44.720 Duchess Mazarin dressed as Diana, and which she probably commissioned and hung in her logic. So

00:11:51.180 everyone could see this like beautiful portrait of her, like literally tits out like a topless 1.00

00:11:56.540 portrait of her. But okay, this painting, we need to talk about it. I came across this painting as 0.99

00:12:03.940 well myself when I was doing research about these like later years of Hortense and I saw the painting

00:12:08.200 and I was just like, oh no, oh no. So I'm going to describe the painting to you.

00:12:15.420 And I will also put a picture of this painting on Instagram for you to see and understand.

00:12:21.080 So Hortense is in the middle of it.

00:12:22.320 She's like very pale, ghostly pale, like she is in all of her portraits.

00:12:25.900 She's got this snow white coloring, right?

00:12:27.780 Like the really pale skin, the really dark hair.

00:12:30.720 In this portrait, so she is like nude from the waist up.

00:12:35.080 Her hair is loose around her shoulders and she's holding a spear.

00:12:39.080 And remember, this is a painting of her dressed as Diana.

00:12:41.660 So again, a quote from Elizabeth Goldsmith.

00:12:44.120 Unlike the goddess Diana, instead of being surrounded by nymphs, 0.73

00:12:48.160 she is surrounded by hunting dogs and four dark-skinned boys dressed as pages. A parrot 0.92

00:12:54.140 is perched on a fountain behind her. The pages wear silver collars identical to those worn by

00:12:59.940 the dogs. One of the pages, the only one not smiling, is a young man older than the others

00:13:05.040 who stands behind Hortense collecting water from the fountain as he gazes at her. This figure is

00:13:09.960 thought to be Mustafa, one of only two people in her circle who are consistently described as loyal

00:13:14.980 to her. So first I'll just note, because I was like, wait, who is the other one who's loyal to

00:13:19.460 her? Nanon? Is she still there? Not sure. But in terms of this book, the other person consistently

00:13:25.540 who's got this loyal to her was her best friend, CM. But like, oh my God, this painting. So like

00:13:31.520 we've been having fun talking about Hortons, thirsting after Charles, like hearing about

00:13:37.640 their lives and all the wild stuff she did. But like this painting is so fucking racist. It's 0.99

00:13:43.380 impossible to avoid realizing that at this point, the society in which Hortense was living was 0.99

00:13:51.220 incredibly fucking racist. So here's some commentary on the painting from the Art 0.96

00:13:56.640 Wanderer blog, which was written in early 2020, which was at the time that the Tate Britain

00:14:03.940 had included this painting in an art show called British Baroque Power and Illusion.

00:14:08.700 so the art wanderer i'm sorry i don't know that person's name rates the painting depicts a white

00:14:14.800 woman in a frothy gown surrounded by dogs and child slaves it's a difficult painting to look

00:14:19.960 at and not because of the baroque excess that the tape wants you to see in relating slavery to the

00:14:24.800 decadence and excess of the baroque period the gallery completely ignores the troubling links

00:14:29.380 not only with slavery but child slavery so this post on the art wanderer is um giving a critique

00:14:37.340 to, not to the tape written for, um, including this painting, but just for not contextualizing 0.90

00:14:42.460 it in the context of like it being incredibly fucking racist and a portrayal of society 0.95

00:14:47.880 at that time. 0.96

00:14:49.220 Yeah.

00:14:49.920 So when you read descriptions of this painting, sometimes the black children are described

00:14:54.440 as servants.

00:14:55.820 And so technically that's correct because the painting is from 1688 and slavery wasn't

00:15:01.680 officially legal in Europe until 1776.

00:15:04.840 but i mean people we talked about this in like the harem sultan like in and jinga like in all

00:15:12.260 these other previous episodes this season like slavery itself was a concept that existed

00:15:17.820 and people in england had been selling and using enslaved people since the 16th century

00:15:23.380 these enslaved people were often given as gifts to wealthy families as mustafa had been given to

00:15:30.940 Hortense that time in Savoy. So it's like it's not just like this like very pale woman tits out 0.99

00:15:37.460 surrounded by like clothed black children wearing metal dog collars. It's just the fact that like 0.99

00:15:46.940 this represents what society was like. So this is more of a description from The Art Wanderer.

00:15:54.240 So the Duchess Hortense Mancini sits breasts exposed and surrounded by children who are

00:15:58.680 evidently not her own. In some ways, we have become numb to the uncomfortable balance of nudity

00:16:03.460 and inappropriateness that is so prevalent in this period of painting, but we don't have to sit back

00:16:07.700 and admire it just because it's art. Gennari's painting is disturbing, and we should recognize

00:16:12.720 that. The painting is also composed to assert racial superiority, and it epitomizes the morally 0.99

00:16:17.580 distorted upper classes of the 17th century. The slaves are carefully positioned at the same level 0.78

00:16:22.820 as Mancini's pet dogs, and with unfaltering, adoring gazes, they are poised for her entertainment

00:16:27.960 with instrument and weapons. In this painting, there's no mistaking these child slaves for

00:16:32.880 servants. Note the chains around their necks. And so note, as much as Hortense has been painted by

00:16:39.080 so many people so many other times, and, you know, like models nowadays, it's like, you know,

00:16:44.040 an artistic director has the vision, like a painter does it, like the models are not necessarily

00:16:48.860 involved in deciding what the picture is going to look like. But it sounds like Hortense, like,

00:16:54.780 this was kind of her vision. She commissioned someone to paint her like this, surrounded by

00:17:00.860 little Black enslaved children. Bear in mind, we're talking about an Italian-French duchess,

00:17:09.380 Hortense. As we've discussed, she obviously dealt with enormous struggles of her own, 0.51

00:17:15.980 comma, also the era, the culture in which she lived was one where Black people were enslaved

00:17:21.940 by white people including her so just I hope this podcast you know this isn't just like being like 0.52

00:17:31.480 woo tits out we love these women but it's kind of like this there's there's complexity in like 0.66

00:17:36.240 the societies in which everyone lived like think back to um I'm thinking back to like the Catalina 0.99

00:17:42.180 episodes where it's like haha lol like she's so great stabbing people and then it's like oh no and

00:17:46.760 she also like actively participated in genocide. Like I'm giving it a whole picture here. And this

00:17:53.120 painting when I encountered it was sort of just like a reminder to me that like Hortense has this

00:18:01.280 like, she has struggles in her life. I'm not discounting that. But also she did not face

00:18:06.180 the same struggles that were faced by enslaved black children or adults at the same time.

00:18:13.340 Anyway, speaking of her struggles, so Hortense was having a nice time hosting her salon,

00:18:19.960 drinking, like introducing champagne, playing Bassett, but CM started to notice that she was

00:18:25.520 maybe hitting those things a little bit harder than she had been before, both gambling and

00:18:30.740 drinking. And his concern was not moralistic about like gambling is like bad or whatever,

00:18:35.960 because gambling at this point had not, this is interesting to think about, it was not yet a thing

00:18:40.520 that like very moralistic church people were like, well, you shouldn't do that. He was more just like

00:18:46.000 he knew she was broke and she couldn't afford to lose money. And she played really hard. Like,

00:18:53.040 is that the way to phrase it? I don't know. But she like won big and lost big. She was not like

00:18:57.120 casually gambling. And in fact, money was her biggest challenge. So as I said, she continued

00:19:04.200 writing regularly to Louis XIV for the restitution of her dowry, but he never did that.

00:19:10.520 Yeah, so she became famous as a gambler, basically because she had these big wins,

00:19:15.640 these considerable losses, and she kept accumulating more and more debt because she

00:19:20.120 couldn't stop playing Basset, which is a game I've not been able to find the rules for,

00:19:24.460 but which apparently is really random and also very addicting. In addition to this,

00:19:32.040 so her salon was famous for the literary and political discussions, as well as musical

00:19:36.280 performances featuring her and others. There's kind of like some crossover-ish with like what

00:19:42.140 Christina of Sweden kind of wanted to be doing. Like I feel like this is the salon Christina of

00:19:46.320 Sweden would have wanted to host and maybe could have if she didn't hate women. Because as we 0.77

00:19:53.420 talked last time, women's presence was really important to the success of this salon. And

00:19:57.620 Hortense herself was like really, she loved learning. She was very curious, like intellectually

00:20:01.260 curious at what point she was so just like completely consumed by discussing this one

00:20:07.440 paper one of her saloniers had written about astronomy to the point that she even stopped

00:20:12.900 playing Bassett because all she wanted to do was talk about this astronomy paper. CM wrote,

00:20:17.680 no one would dare speak of Bassett even for a moment. All is moon, sun, circle, orb, and firmament.

00:20:23.360 So she had intellectual curiosity as well. And this whole time, like, I think if you're just

00:20:30.560 like tracking her life story where it's like she was a little kid in Rome. Then she went to learn

00:20:34.900 how to be a courtly lady in France. Then she was married to AC age 14, was kind of kept prisoner

00:20:41.500 for those years, forced to have four children. Then she was literally on the run for a decade.

00:20:47.020 And now she's in England and she can finally just kind of be like, like she kind of settled down a

00:20:52.000 bit. And this is where also I think it's interesting. This is where she develops her

00:20:55.780 issues with both alcohol and gambling addiction because she had been literally on the run for so

00:21:03.520 long. I think when you're just so concerned constantly with your survival, you can also

00:21:10.300 kind of like psychologically be on the run from like your trauma. But when she was in England and

00:21:15.720 kind of settled in, it's like, it's harder. She wasn't, she couldn't distract herself by like

00:21:19.920 literally being on the run. So this is interestingly where she started, I think, my theory, coping

00:21:26.760 with all of this trauma of her entire life with alcohol and drinking. Anyway, so she was just

00:21:32.960 kind of like, this is the longest she's in any place, and also doing her own thing and happy.

00:21:39.780 But then a couple dramatic things happened that kind of fucked things up for her. The first one,

00:21:44.640 the first thing that happened is. So her sister, Olympe, one of the other Masarinettes, her older 0.97

00:21:50.020 sister, had a son named Philippe, of course, because everyone's called Philippe in the story,

00:21:56.000 Philippe of Soissons. So he was 17 years old and he came to visit his auntie Hortense. And this isn't

00:22:02.000 unusual. A lot of her family members came to visit her as well. Her sisters did at various times.

00:22:06.700 We're going to talk about that. So 17 years old, Philippe, her nephew, like every human who

00:22:12.380 encountered her became completely infatuated with her to the point that he felt, I don't know if it

00:22:18.100 was a rivalry or just a hatred for one of her admirers, who was a Swedish baron, who I presume

00:22:23.700 was her lover. Philippe challenged the baron to a duel and, to everyone's astonishment, stabbed him

00:22:30.020 fatally. So the Swedish baron died. Hortense was furious and also upset because that was like

00:22:37.360 her guy. She draped her rooms in black and refused to go outside. She's really sad about it. 1.00

00:22:42.380 Philippe had to flee to avoid arrest, which is kind of Catalina de Arraso vibes, the stab and run.

00:22:49.280 And this not only was distressing for her because her like lover had just been murdered by her

00:22:53.600 nephew, but also this kind of fucked things up with her relationship with like France and also

00:22:59.520 with her family back in France. Like it's kind of an international incident. And hater in chief,

00:23:05.560 Marie Sidonie, who just like get a hobby other than obsessing over Hortense and like writing 1.00

00:23:12.340 gossip about her. Anyway, I'm glad Marie Sidonie has this record. She wrote, who would have thought 1.00

00:23:17.720 that the eyes of a grandmother could still wreak such havoc, which is such a read. Hortense being

00:23:24.100 the grandmother, she means, and she's at this point 39. Although she'd had kids as a teen mom,

00:23:30.520 so like her kids, some of her kids were married already, although she's not technically a 0.88

00:23:34.320 grandmother, but she was 39, Marie Sidonie stepped down. So although this kind of damaged her 0.74

00:23:40.880 relationship with France, um, her friends in London got over this quickly because I don't

00:23:46.480 know, they just loved her so much. And she was able to like, including the King, like they had

00:23:51.440 this really amicable breakup, which he did with all of his mistresses and the mistresses, like

00:23:55.460 we're friends. Like I talked last time, like the other mistresses, like came to her salon and stuff.

00:23:59.720 They were all just cool with each other. In fact, one night in early February 1685, Hortense was

00:24:05.900 spotted on Dumois playing cards with Charles, Barbara Villiers, and Nell Gwynn, while a young

00:24:13.440 French boy serenaded them. So they're just having a nice time. But then, this is the second thing.

00:24:20.560 Six days after that, Charles was dead. So he was, I think, 54 years old. And he came down

00:24:29.620 with a fever, then he had a stroke, probably caused by kidney failure after several what is

00:24:34.800 described as agonizing treatments. And I think we all know something worse than brandy with

00:24:40.800 peppercorns. He and his physicians prepared for the worst. Summoning his brother James and Louise

00:24:47.900 de Caruel, who is, I guess, his mistress at this point, he's kind of bouncing between them.

00:24:52.280 He asked for a Catholic priest. So remember, his brother James is Catholic. Louise is Catholic.

00:24:56.780 In A King's Last Hours, Louise, a.k.a. Fubbs, brought in the priest who received Charles into the Catholic Church just before he died.

00:25:05.740 So he died February 6th, 1685, age 54, super secret, Catholicly.

00:25:12.180 And so his heir was James.

00:25:14.380 James, who was Charles' brother, his Catholic brother, married to Mary of Medina, Ortonsa's cousin's daughter, took over as the next king, and they were friends.

00:25:25.440 They were cool. So he let Hortense stay in her home next to him. So she kept hosting her salon.

00:25:33.200 And so although Charles was dead, things kind of stayed the same for her for a bit. Although I

00:25:40.120 can't say the same for like England or like a lot of other people around her. But she's, when we get

00:25:47.460 to the scoring in terms of scheminess, like she didn't give a shit about politics. She was just 1.00

00:25:52.920 here for a good time she's here for her own intellectual curiosity hanging at her salon 1.00

00:25:58.040 like she was not she didn't pay super close attention to like matters of state but like

00:26:04.800 james being the catholic king not a popular thing for like the country of england i mean like

00:26:11.640 spoiler not spoiler like two or three years later he was overthrown but we'll talk about that

00:26:17.960 but in terms of like hortense and her life and like what she's paying attention to

00:26:21.900 what happened next involves her daughter and so i understand if you forgot that she had had

00:26:31.100 four children with ac but she had and it's interesting to me in our current context where

00:26:39.360 like you know women being mothers is seen as like such an important thing and like that's like the

00:26:45.860 relationship between uh parent especially mother and children are seen as so important and stuff

00:26:51.060 but like back then it wasn't. Like, you know how on Downton Abbey, like Lady Mary had a son,

00:26:56.580 but then it's kind of like she didn't actively raise him. It was the same sort of thing there

00:27:02.180 where it's just like, wow, I don't know if you can hear Hepburn, but she is purring really loudly

00:27:08.040 right now. I don't know about you either, but like I've started calling Hepburn Fubbs because

00:27:13.920 it's a delightful nickname considering putting some fubs merch in the store let me know on

00:27:21.240 instagram if you'd be interested in having like a t-shirt that just says fubs because i kind of

00:27:27.060 would anyway so hortense had had four children three daughters and one son so marie charlotte

00:27:34.340 was the oldest and then marie ann i have to say as much as there's a lot of philippes in this story

00:27:41.460 like the fact that Hortense has a sister who's Marie-Anne, and then a sister who's Marie,

00:27:47.580 and then one of the other Mazarinettes, her cousin, was Anne-Marie. It's just, it's a lot of,

00:27:51.660 anyway, so she's a daughter, Marie-Anne. A daughter called Marie Olympe, and then a son,

00:27:56.040 Paul Jules, were her children, who were left behind when she left AC. It's an unnecessary

00:28:02.140 decision that was the best thing for her at the time. And children were not really raised by

00:28:07.860 their parents, so I don't know how they felt about this. I mean, we'll worry about to hear

00:28:13.040 about it. So Marie Charlotte, who was, when Marie Charlotte, like we don't know a lot about her

00:28:19.940 growing up, there was that thing about like AC wanted to like knock out the daughter's front 1.00

00:28:24.060 teeth so they would look less sexually appealing. Not sure if he went through with that because I

00:28:28.500 don't think there are any existent portraits of Marie Charlotte. So when she was about 17 years

00:28:34.220 old. She fled France to come see her mother in England. Here's what her situation was.

00:28:42.840 Marie-Charlotte was born in 1662. She was around six years old when Hortense took off for good, 0.91

00:28:48.820 which left Marie-Charlotte and her siblings under the care of A.C., although hopefully again they

00:28:54.360 were mostly raised by governesses and A.C. didn't see them very often, I hope. Nothing was really

00:28:59.800 written about her until Marie Charlotte was about, well, when she was embroiled in this

00:29:04.260 scandal. So she wanted to marry a person named Louis Armand de Vigneron de Placis,

00:29:11.040 Marquis de Richelieu, which is a name you might recognize, because he was the son of the great

00:29:16.260 nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, who had been Cardinal Mazarin's mentor, slash the villain

00:29:21.460 of the Three Musketeers. Her father, AC, didn't love this match, and so he sent her off to a

00:29:28.100 convent while he thought over whether he should agree to this or not. And everyone thought this

00:29:32.700 was nuts because in terms of a marriage, you could not do better than Louis Armand, the son

00:29:39.900 of the great nephew of Cardinal Richelieu. He was connected. He was rich. No one understood why AC

00:29:45.260 didn't want her to marry him, but he probably had his own reasons, which were probably just

00:29:50.280 like, he didn't want anyone to marry anyone. He didn't want his daughters to get married,

00:29:54.180 i'm going to assume because he wanted to control every aspect of their life but i think especially

00:30:00.960 in this story locking a young woman away in a convent is never guaranteed they're going to stay

00:30:07.340 there and now we're just going to take a break the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were

00:30:15.460 reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left

00:30:23.060 of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the shadow dark,

00:30:29.380 the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch

00:30:36.060 ticks down in real time. And when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

00:30:41.440 This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the

00:30:47.340 decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man,

00:30:52.000 It is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

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00:33:09.600 So Marie Sherlot plotted her escape from the convent to be with her lover.

00:33:14.040 And with the assistance of her sister, Marie Olympe, she managed to sneak out through a door left open.

00:33:21.160 Which reminds me of how Hortense had the help of her sister Marie to escape years before.

00:33:26.040 And I think I glossed over that a bit at the time.

00:33:28.340 But one of Hortense's escapes, she was trapped in a convent during her era with Marie.

00:33:35.480 and what Marie did was she came to visit her like with her children like Marie's children and she's

00:33:39.120 like hey we're just here to visit Hortense can you like bring her out and they brought Hortense

00:33:42.180 out to the door and Marie was just like go go go and they just like took off so love that for all 0.82

00:33:47.980 of them anyway so escaping from a convent clearly a genetic skill that Marie Charlotte had and once

00:33:53.880 she was free she eloped with Louis Armand and where did they go but to London to stay with her

00:34:00.480 mother, Hortense, who I don't think she'd seen since she was six. And so while in London,

00:34:06.800 Marie-Charlotte gave birth to her first child, Armand Louis de Vigneron du Plessis de Richelieu.

00:34:12.720 Wait, so her husband is Louis Armand, and then her son is Armand Louis. So this will happen two

00:34:18.640 years before Charles's death. So this was all happening while Hortense was just like having a

00:34:23.880 nice time being a salon owner. AC, her dad, of course, was seeing history repeating. He's just

00:34:33.700 like, oh my God, like my daughter ran away when she's around the same age as my wife when she

00:34:38.100 ran away. And so he issued a warrant for Louis Armand's arrest for the kidnap of Marie Charlotte.

00:34:44.140 But after two years in London, two years, so like she and Hortense could have really,

00:34:48.660 made up for less time, had like a Gilmore Girls moment because their age difference was about the

00:34:54.160 same as Lorelai and Rory Gilmore because Hortense had had this child when she was like 15 or

00:34:59.180 something. Anyway, so two years in London, extensive mediation, like internationally,

00:35:05.960 like between England and France, Marie-Charlotte and Louis Armand were eventually forgiven by AC

00:35:12.360 and they returned to France to live with him. But I'm going to quote from Annalisa Nicholson,

00:35:18.660 Predictably, this domestic situation proved intolerable. AC's difficult behavior translated into absolute control of the household as well as bizarre demands, which were later outlined by CM, Hortense's best friend, who described, because he was best friend, so he would like have hung out with Marie Charlotte as well.

00:35:38.040 so cm wrote behold the crowning achievement of monsieur mazarin in his piety he prohibited the

00:35:44.700 wet nurse of one of madame de richelieu's children from suckling the child on fridays and saturdays

00:35:50.080 so that instead of being fed milk the child would guzzle the sacred practices of mortification and 0.51

00:35:54.840 fasting which like i am very confident despite not being a scholar of religious traditions there

00:36:02.460 is zero religions in the world that involve enforcing fasting on, like, breastfeeding

00:36:08.200 infants. So yeah, living with AC is a nightmare, understandably. And also at this point, seemingly

00:36:16.900 I guess maybe part of the mediation they had gone through was that Louis Armand was now on the same

00:36:21.920 side as AC, and they both just wanted to control Marie Charlotte's every movement, which led to

00:36:27.240 Marie Charlotte being sent to a convent again. Obviously, she escaped again. I don't know. I 1.00

00:36:34.440 just feel like, of course she did. Like, why do you keep trying to do this? It never works. But

00:36:38.520 I love that the convoits were so easy to escape from. Anyway, while Marie Charlotte had been back 0.76

00:36:44.780 in France, that was during the time when, so James was the king, James II of England for like, I think

00:36:50.260 two and a half to three years before he was overthrown because everyone was mad that he was

00:36:56.220 a Catholic. He was overthrown in what is called the Glorious Revolution by his daughter, Mary,

00:37:02.560 who was Protestant, and her husband, William of Orange, also Protestant. And then those two took

00:37:07.960 over jointly as the monarchs, William and Mary. And those are, so Mary from William and Mary 0.60

00:37:14.120 is the older sister of Anne the First, who I did a whole podcast about. So we've talked about these

00:37:19.960 events a bit from like a different point of view. So things in England were kind of messy,

00:37:24.460 you know which Charles II had like brought the fun back but he was also remember he was like okay

00:37:30.760 with Catholics and people were mad about it James II like was a Catholic people were big mad about

00:37:36.120 it so England is just chaos again but Marie Charlotte didn't know where else to go and so

00:37:42.760 once more she went to London to hang out with her mother and in fact because of her position I think

00:37:50.080 because she was like the daughter of the duke of mesran because her husband was like this richelieu

00:37:56.680 heir like she wasn't just like sneaking on a cargo ship like her secretary of state helped

00:38:02.040 arrange her trip so she wanted to go to england and the secretary of state of england like helped

00:38:07.020 her come and i have to let you know do you know what yacht was sent over for her to travel on

00:38:13.820 the HMY fubs she came over to England on everyone's favorite royal yacht fubs love this journey for 1.00

00:38:25.560 for fubs which again makes me think like I think I do need to do some merch that says fubs maybe

00:38:30.480 like a little ship that says fubs on it I don't know again let me know on Instagram so anyway

00:38:36.500 she came over on the fubs and by the end of january 1698 she and her mother were both

00:38:43.880 living in london both estranged from their husbands and both dependent on the benevolence

00:38:49.940 of the english monarchy they weren't as big of fans of theirs anymore due to the whole like them

00:38:56.020 being catholic french italians like charles had been supporting or taunts but james also was but

00:39:02.600 William and Mary, which was really, technically, they were co-rulers, but William was kind of in

00:39:09.680 charge. Not a fan of this whole scandalous French-Italian salon-owning tits-out mother-daughter 0.98

00:39:17.440 team. Yeah, William and Mary were not party people. William had asthma, which lots of people 0.62

00:39:24.960 with asthma are still party people, but in this, sorry, that sentence to another sense really made

00:39:30.040 it sound like they were not party people because he had asthma. No, they were not party people,

00:39:34.720 full stop. Also, William had asthma, which was worse in the damp air of the palace of Whitehall,

00:39:41.920 which is where Charles had lived as king and then James had lived as king. So William and Mary

00:39:45.700 transferred the royal court from Whitehall to Kensington Palace, which is where I think William

00:39:50.960 and Kate now live. But this is William and Mary. So when they took over, there were numerous calls

00:39:57.120 from like important people to expel or taunts from the kingdom for her like scandalous ways 0.99

00:40:03.640 but she managed to ride that out but it did threaten her salon so she had been living in

00:40:11.260 that house in st james palace or st james place anyway so she had to leave there and she moved

00:40:18.220 to a smaller house near kensington palace but then eventually she had to downsize even further

00:40:23.920 she moved to a more modest home on Paradise Row in Chelsea. And CM and her other friends didn't

00:40:29.400 like how far that neighborhood was from like the hustle and bustle of city life and royal court,

00:40:34.820 but that's what she could afford. So deal with it. And honestly, the party scene continued on.

00:40:40.640 The salon just kind of moved to a little smaller place. So just to recap, Charles died. A lot

00:40:47.000 happened really quickly. Charles died in 1685. James took over, but then he was usurped in 1688

00:40:52.820 by William and Mary. In 1694, Mary from William and Mary died, leaving just William in charge

00:40:59.160 now as king. And he just did not like Catholics, not at all. And this is where Hortense is giving

00:41:06.520 me, if you're familiar with the musical Cabaret, it's, um, I'm not going to tell you the story of

00:41:12.320 the musical Cabaret, but the main character, Sally Bowles, played in the movie, so memorable

00:41:16.420 by Liza Minnelli. She's just a person having a nice time, but the thing about it and kind of

00:41:21.540 tragedy of it is she's having a nice time in like Berlin between World War I and World War II

00:41:25.880 as like the Nazis are taking over. And she's just like, I don't care about that. I just care about

00:41:30.660 having fun. And eventually, guess what? She can't have as much fun anymore. And at the end of the

00:41:35.920 movie, spoiler, she stays in the cabaret and it just becomes like, oh, this is, you're like

00:41:41.120 self-destructively removed from what is happening culturally. And that is kind of like not a cool

00:41:48.060 thing and that's kind of the trajectory Hortense is on like she was just having fun hosting her

00:41:54.120 salon and avoiding thinking at all about the politics and what was happening like remember 1.00

00:41:59.640 how when she was a mistress and people were like let's try to get her be like a diplomat and stuff 1.00

00:42:03.280 and she was like or I could just like keep going on vibes like she was just like consciously 1.00

00:42:08.100 uncoupled from politics entirely so she was a celebrity um she was this like libertine cool 1.00

00:42:15.720 beautiful woman living a tits out lifestyle. And, and in addition to this, importantly,

00:42:22.880 her being there and being so famous and glamorous did have an influence on the sort of like overall

00:42:28.600 discussions about the rights of women. So like, maybe unhappily married women should be allowed 1.00

00:42:35.640 to leave their terrible husbands. Like, what about that? Like these were conversations that 1.00

00:42:39.720 she kind of inspired to keep going. In fact, so influential was her example that several

00:42:45.180 prominent women brought divorce cases before the house of lords in london and now that women could 1.00

00:42:50.060 be actors because charles had changed that rule and now there's female playwrights like afra ben 0.97

00:42:55.420 there was like plays written by women acted out by women in which sympathetically unhappy marriages

00:43:02.320 were shown and people started thinking like maybe women shouldn't be trapped in awful marriages all

00:43:07.780 the time it's not like the law changed but like the cultural conversation around it or taunts and

00:43:13.820 her being there and like seemingly thriving really just kind of like opened up that conversation

00:43:20.100 but as I said you know she had been on the run for so long and now that she's not physically on

00:43:26.260 the run she is kind of harder to keep back her like the trauma of her entire life which we've

00:43:34.400 talked about so much yeah so life is starting to take its toll on her as it does to anyone who's

00:43:40.420 lived this stressful and chaotic of a life their entire life like i'm going to recap it again just

00:43:46.860 to like underscore like she was married at age 14 who her stalker lived in a horrific domestic

00:43:52.140 abuse situation with him gave birth to four children all before the age of 20 then she ran

00:43:57.700 for her life for a decade before winding up in england and it's that thing of like when you're

00:44:04.280 used to living crisis to crisis you like you're able to avoid maybe dealing with your feelings

00:44:08.900 because there's like more timely things to deal with, but you can't run from your feelings

00:44:15.080 forever. And she started like her turn to alcohol and gambling became more and more of an issue for

00:44:20.640 her. And so she's just like the alcohol, the gambling, like things getting to be a lot for

00:44:27.760 her right now is like right at the time when Marie Charlotte popped up into her life for the second

00:44:33.060 time. So at the time that Marie Charlotte arrived in London for the second time, Hortense's lover

00:44:38.880 was a guy named the Earl of Elbermarle. And I do want to also mention, because I keep thinking of

00:44:44.460 it, but I don't think I've said it on the podcast. Like I appreciate how as a young girl, Hortense

00:44:48.660 saw her sister Marie being infatuated with Louis XIV. And she was just like, that's sort of like

00:44:53.440 romance. That's not for me. And through her whole story, like everyone writing about her,

00:44:58.540 her writing about herself, like everything I've ever read about her, like no one is ever like,

00:45:02.560 oh, if only she could like find one true love. That was never her narrative for herself. And

00:45:07.820 that was never a narrative anyone put on her. Right, Hepburn? Yeah. She's a strong, independent

00:45:12.740 person just like you. She just like went from lover to lover. And I appreciate that as a narrative

00:45:18.160 because so many, I love a love story. I mean, Pedro and Inez, like that slays me, like the

00:45:25.240 gorgeousness of it. Also like, I'm trying to think of like actual love stories we've ever had.

00:45:30.400 Harem Sultan and Suleiman. Like, I love it. I love a love story, but I also love other kinds

00:45:36.640 I love Christina of Sweden, whose great love of her life was her best friend. And she was probably asexual. And I love that Hortense is just like going from person to person. Like, again, she is bisexual. Just having lovers and that's her deal. And I appreciate it. I love that she's not like a one person person. I think it's great to have just sort of this sort of person on this podcast. I appreciate it.

00:46:02.160 she's giving like Samantha from Sex and the City. Kim Cattrall, I think, would do a great job as

00:46:08.580 Hortense in a movie. Anyway, so by the time Marie Charlotte arrived, Hortense's lover was the Earl

00:46:14.420 of Albemarle. And here's what happened is the Earl of Albemarle saw Marie Charlotte, who I have to

00:46:19.840 imagine looked like a younger Hortense, or at least very beautiful, because Hortense, famously

00:46:25.000 beautiful. AC, as much as I despise him entirely, pictures of him as a young man, he is like

00:46:32.460 physically attractive. So like Marie Charlotte, I'm sure it was gorgeous. It's kind of like

00:46:36.960 Angelina Jolie and her child Shiloh, you know, like when a mother is that gorgeous, like the

00:46:43.280 child is going to be also gorgeous and maybe look like her. I don't know. Anyway. So I don't know

00:46:48.720 if it's exactly like Elizabeth the first being like Latisse looks like me, but younger and hotter.

00:46:52.600 I hate it. I don't know. But Hortense's lover left her for her daughter, which I talked last

00:47:00.940 time about like Hortense and that whole circle, like people just like had affairs with each

00:47:07.440 other's children, not their own children, but like others of Charles's mistresses had

00:47:13.780 affairs with others of Charles's illegitimate children besides Hortense and potentially

00:47:18.340 and Leonard, like the age gap, the family relationship that was not

00:47:22.600 respected by this circle of people. So the Earl of Albemarle left Hortense for her daughter.

00:47:29.820 And this is all the research that Annalisa Nicholson, like her paper was on, the one that was

00:47:34.340 in the journal, her paper from Early Modern Women, an interdisciplinary journal. This is the research

00:47:43.140 she's been doing, just looking at the letters about all this stuff. So this is like not in the

00:47:46.000 books. This is like the stuff she's working on right now. Just kind of looking at the timing

00:47:49.640 of everything. So Hortense was mad about her daughter stealing her lover. And so she still 1.00

00:47:57.740 had some relationship with the king and she got him to have Marie Charlotte. What's it called when 0.81

00:48:04.660 you force somebody to leave the country? Like I'm just going to say expelled from England. But so

00:48:11.900 Marie Charlotte kind of delayed her departure. Like she was sick in bed or she claimed to be 0.81

00:48:16.920 sick in bed so she asked like could you just like delay my departure until i'm feeling better

00:48:20.520 but the king was insistent that she leave like right away um this was written about in letters

00:48:26.320 that was really intense and this is what annalisa is researching where it's just like what happened

00:48:31.200 and everywhere like so many people were like leave the country now marie sherlock really

00:48:36.060 didn't want to leave she was like well i can't i have debts like i have to pay them off she had

00:48:40.480 amassed a lot of debts i don't know if that was from also gambling like her mother or just the

00:48:44.220 like women couldn't have jobs so you have to rely on the kindness of strangers scenario

00:48:47.880 but really the king just wanted her to leave so i don't know if this is ac's influence it has to

00:48:53.900 have been so the english secretary of state was like how much are your debts like we will pay

00:49:00.400 them and they literally did like the king paid off her debts so she could leave marie charlotte

00:49:06.620 though was like my husband is really powerful and he might like send men to catch me so i'd rather

00:49:11.060 leave on just like a smaller boat with less fanfare so that he doesn't catch me or whatever

00:49:16.420 oh she also says like i have powerful enemies and it sounds like one of her enemies is her 0.87

00:49:22.700 mother or taunts which presumably because of the like boyfriend stealing so yeah marie sherlot was

00:49:29.360 not wanting to leave like she tried to get one of the men escorting her to like let her stay

00:49:34.700 secretly in a house he was like uh no i work for the king so anyway she hid out and delayed as long

00:49:40.580 as she could, but eventually she was deported. That's the word. She was deported on December

00:49:44.740 13th, 1698, with her debts all paid off by the king. I'm not sure if she went back on the fubs,

00:49:51.220 but I have to hope she did. Favorite recurring character in this entire saga is the HMY fubs.

00:49:57.940 And this, so Hortense was already struggling. This whole situation was maybe like the final

00:50:04.920 thing for her. So this is where we're getting into the suicide part of the podcast. So

00:50:10.820 if you want to peace out, if you need to peace out, please do. I will put in the show notes when

00:50:17.420 I get to the scoring, if you want to just like fast forward ahead to that. But otherwise,

00:50:22.040 pants on, pits out, give you a moment if you need to step aside. But for everyone who's still here,

00:50:27.400 here we go. So after Marie Charlotte left, Hortense shut herself up in her home and refused 1.00

00:50:33.420 visitors, which is similar to her behavior when her Swedish lover was killed by her nephew that

00:50:38.260 time. So just kind of how she coped with things, I guess. But things were pretty dark with her at

00:50:44.520 this point. So her sister Marie wrote that Hortons has been in a very bad state for some time. She

00:50:49.840 has no pension and no help coming from any side. It is only gambling that sustains her. So I think

00:50:55.480 after James died, she stopped getting the pension from the king, like the new king, William. So

00:51:01.880 she's gambling, she's losing so much money. So her sister wrote, it was only gambling that

00:51:05.540 sustains her. So I think she means that in a monetary sense, but I think it might also be

00:51:08.960 in a psychological sense. Like she had just become like a full on gambling addict. CM was worried

00:51:15.220 about his bestie. He wrote that she had been consuming excessive amounts of alcohol and had

00:51:20.800 stopped taking care of her appearance. And she voiced suicidal thoughts to him. In his last

00:51:26.900 letter to her he wrote you know entreating her to just like be strong keep going he wrote quote

00:51:32.560 your strength makes me believe that you will endure for a little longer the poor state of

00:51:36.340 your affairs and your good sense should keep your mind from latching on to the hope of imaginary and

00:51:40.380 false relief hope madam that your troubles will come to an end leave beer aside drink your wine

00:51:46.360 let mustafa lift your spirits with his usual inspiration that he draws from drink

00:51:50.760 which is interesting because this was oldie times people weren't drinking water you know for like

00:51:55.840 what is a dysentery and things like she's not remember christine of sweden drank orange juice

00:52:01.060 like he's just like oh my god stop drinking beer just drink wine like i don't know those are the 0.93

00:52:06.940 only drinks available she is doing poorly she is in a depressive spiral some people shitty people

00:52:15.340 then and now kind of like the way that um if you listen to the elizabeth bathory episode where it's 0.65

00:52:21.540 just like well she's a woman who's like older and so that must mean she hates younger women and that

00:52:26.500 means she hates herself and like maybe menopause made her insane or whatever so some people were

00:52:31.240 like so she's 53 at this point some writers suggest maybe she felt like without her beauty 0.99

00:52:38.180 and youth like what did she have to live for which is like fuck you but also probably was part of her 0.98

00:52:45.520 depression like she had been idolized for her beauty and youthful appearance since she was 1.00

00:52:49.680 nine years old. Like, so of course you come to value it because it had been really valuable to

00:52:55.280 her. Becoming older, like entering what I consider the era that I'm in personally, my early crone

00:53:02.160 years, I'm delighted to age. It makes me glad. I'm happy to still be here. The older I get,

00:53:09.680 the more I'm grateful for that, but I was not valued exclusively for my beauty since age nine.

00:53:18.520 so yeah that's probably part of what was going on but also so much other stuff was going on with her

00:53:24.400 like a lifetime of undealt with psychological trauma this estrangement from her daughter which

00:53:30.620 although like they had been separated from most of her daughter's life they lived together for

00:53:33.720 two years like i'm sure they became very close so this must have really hurt she's also in debt

00:53:38.640 she was bankrupt like and she was i think still beautiful i'm gonna put a picture on instagram

00:53:44.040 of her like one of the later years portraits like she looked like a beautiful 53 year old woman

00:53:48.920 but also at this point like what good was that like it wasn't giving her money by the beginning

00:53:55.020 of june 1699 she stopped receiving visitors and was drinking all the time one thing i read

00:54:00.280 suggested it was absinthe that she was drinking which is like nowadays absinthe is mostly just

00:54:06.220 kind of like a strong green colored liqueur but back then it was like an extremely potent

00:54:12.240 alcohol slash drug. By mid-June, she had stopped eating entirely. So this is really the trajectory.

00:54:20.820 It's like the Catherine Gray, Arbella Stewart, just kind of like slow motion suicide by just

00:54:26.140 like stopping engaging with any life-sustaining things like food. So this is a concern to

00:54:34.860 those who loved her, including her family. So her youngest sister, Marianne,

00:54:39.200 set sail from France to come join her to try and help her out. Hortense's son Paul Jules was going

00:54:45.500 to come over maybe to give her some money to help her out but by the time Marianne arrived she was

00:54:50.840 told that Hortense had already died. She had simply refused medical care. She'd even refused a priest's 0.67

00:54:57.260 visit like as a Catholic person you're supposed to get those last rites but she just wouldn't let

00:55:01.000 anyone see her. She died without any manner of concern for what was to come as per one chronicler

00:55:08.100 described the whole situation as one bright morning she retired to a little house in the 0.96

00:55:12.120 country that she had near london accompanied by only two or three of her servants and she brought

00:55:17.000 there two large bottles of a certain strong liquor which is made with spirits and juice

00:55:20.800 this was the poison that she wanted to take in this way the duchess died with a resolution

00:55:24.800 truly worthy of ancient rome so in her like suicide comparing her to cleopatra i guess 1.00

00:55:30.700 but she wanted privacy clearly she didn't want to see anybody she wanted privacy and death in a way 1.00

00:55:37.620 like she had never had privacy in life just because she against her will, like became a 0.94

00:55:42.020 celebrity. And later she kind of used that to her advantage, but she was never allowed to just

00:55:45.560 live privately. Her best friend, CM honored this. So although he divulges his grief in numerous

00:55:52.680 letters and writings at the death of his best friend, he never suggests her motivations for

00:55:59.040 why she retreated from everybody or why she may have died by suicide because he just wanted to

00:56:05.440 respect her privacy at this point. Hortense had asked CM to write her funeral oration, and he did.

00:56:13.020 And in that piece, he described Hortense as the marvel of the world, which I think is true.

00:56:18.840 After her death, tributes poured in from all parts of Restoration Society. 0.90

00:56:22.620 So while she was unpopular to some Catholic people or people who didn't love a tits-out 0.83

00:56:27.980 woman who ran a gambling den and had lots of lovers, the number of tributes testify to the 0.91

00:56:33.060 loss that people felt with the news of her death. And so the thing is just like today, if you die

00:56:37.980 with a lot of debts, somebody has to pay them after you die. So anyone who came to claim her

00:56:43.400 body would have to pay the debts, which is why her sister Marianne didn't even disembark her

00:56:48.220 ship. She landed, heard she was dead, and just like peaced the fuck back to France because she's 1.00

00:56:51.860 like, I'm not going to deal with this. And in fact, the person who came to fetch her body and 0.89

00:56:56.800 pay off the debts was AC, her long estranged husband slash stalker, which in a grand irony,

00:57:05.780 so having spent so many decades refusing to give her any money to try and blackmail her to come

00:57:10.460 back, he now had to pay off the debts for her lifestyle. And he did, although he negotiated

00:57:16.640 a reduced sum with some of Hortense's other friends paying off the balance. And then he took

00:57:22.900 and again this weird ongoing thing this season which is like treating a corpse like a real

00:57:28.500 person he took her embalmed body in a coffin on a four-month tour to all the places he had

00:57:35.320 wanted he had forced her to go with him when they were married off his like little country estates

00:57:39.260 eventually so he was just like I don't know it's kind of like Maria Eleonora with the body of

00:57:44.480 Gustav like just being like haha now you're mine finally I don't know eventually he was persuaded

00:57:50.540 to leave the coffin in a church in the country where she was interred. And then a little over

00:57:55.800 a decade later, this coffin was transported after AC died. The coffin was moved from there

00:58:01.140 to the College of Four Nations in Paris, where Hortense was buried next to her uncle, Cardinal

00:58:05.900 Mezarin, and AC, which is just like, giving me like Hugh Hefner buying the plot next to Marilyn 0.99

00:58:12.080 Monroe, just like, even in death, like, asshole can't leave her alone. Anyway, legacy slash 0.98

00:58:20.340 significance. Hortense and Marie, and to a lesser extent, the other Masarinettes, were arguably the

00:58:29.020 first media celebrities because they became famous. Well, I guess maybe they became famous

00:58:34.040 because this is in the earliest era of journalism when news of prominent people and current events

00:58:39.780 was just beginning to be given circulation in print like there was newspaper articles

00:58:43.640 about like all the wars going on and next to them was like what's Hortense up to lately like

00:58:49.580 so they just happened to live at the time when this kind of celebrity first became possible 1.00

00:58:55.220 and they kept doing things that kept people interested in them um she was the first French

00:59:00.600 woman not of royal blood to print her life story under her own name her separation from AC was

00:59:06.760 like I mentioned in the episode like it just spurred on all these conversations about kind of 0.82

00:59:12.640 like women and the rights and like should they be able to leave terrible husbands

00:59:16.620 there was also in the earliest books written about famous gamblers she was often the only 0.95

00:59:24.100 woman listed for her like being famous for gambling she and her sister were among the 1.00

00:59:29.520 first women to travel for pleasure adventure and escape like women just like didn't do this 1.00

00:59:34.740 before that so they served as examples to the first generation of free thinkers and feminists 0.99

00:59:40.700 in France and England so people like Mary Wollstonecraft etc like just their lives like 0.99

00:59:46.820 Hortense and Marie broadened the just the discussion of the equality of women to include

00:59:52.960 a critique of marriage and arguments for like why women should be able to move around independently

00:59:57.980 they should be able to own property she also was a muse for a lot of artists

01:00:02.640 conversations in her salon have lots of ripple effects across science literature theater and

01:00:07.540 music just from the who met who there and what works happened and what effect those works have

01:00:12.280 there's a pope moment at one point pope innocent the ninth oh i'm so bad at roman numerals anyway 0.99

01:00:21.480 the pope declared the mancini sisters a new class of women which he meant in a shitty way but they

01:00:27.140 kind of were. Like their fans described them as the illustrious adventurers. Like they were doing

01:00:35.100 the stuff in real life that like women in novels had been doing. And that was like really exciting

01:00:40.180 for a lot of people to see that like, oh, maybe like this kind of life is possible. So we're going

01:00:45.040 to get into the scoring. And in terms of scoring, I did consult with Hortense Mancini expert and

01:00:50.800 Annalisa Nicholson, to see what she thinks because when I'm not sure, I like to talk to people who

01:00:57.440 know more about these things. Scandaliciousness is absolutely a 10 out of 10 because scandalous

01:01:03.720 is not just like, what do we think about them? Like how tits out do we think they were? It's 0.96

01:01:07.180 like, how did people in their era see them? And it's absolutely a 10. Annalisa says,

01:01:13.000 from being treated as an upstart at the French court to being a fugitive wife,

01:01:16.340 one of the first memoirists a litigant against her husband an epicurean a salonier a royal 0.97

01:01:21.780 mistress even as a course decided on her marriage case and then her suicide in 1699 mancini was

01:01:27.780 everything that was scandalous like i can't the only thing that's missing that maybe other 0.99

01:01:32.920 scandalous people have done this podcast is murdering somebody but she was just like too

01:01:37.440 busy vibing out to like to be a hater you know like she was this is where when i first saw the 1.00

01:01:43.420 portrait of her with the Sailor Moon buns. And I was just like, who's this woman? And I look at

01:01:47.440 the Wikipedia and I was like, oh shit, this is a great story. This is a story that's like 0.94

01:01:50.820 made for vulgar history. Yeah. And it's the scandalousness is huge. The scheminess.

01:01:59.960 My thoughts are she can be applauded for her survival skills and her quick thinking, 1.00

01:02:04.980 but a key personality trait of hers is excluding herself from politics and diplomacy in favor of 1.00

01:02:10.400 minding her own business like she was not scheming annalisa agrees or tons didn't do like what fubs 1.00

01:02:17.900 did to become like a diplomat slash spy instead she chose to become a sort of cultural ambassador 1.00

01:02:23.080 for french styles and interests via her salon like the fact that she had to wear a mask when 0.94

01:02:27.660 she was gambling like she just like was not a schemer and that's not a bad thing or a good 1.00

01:02:32.140 thing that's just like how it went so i'm gonna give her four out of ten for scheminess so 10 0.96

01:02:37.000 out of 10 scandalousness, four out of 10 for scheminess. For significance. So this is where

01:02:43.200 I really just had to turn to Annalisa because she's like doing this huge research project on

01:02:48.300 her. So she says, from her memoir writing to being one of the first women in Europe to make a legal

01:02:53.240 case for divorce, to running a salon that helped to create spaces for women's learning, all of this

01:02:57.180 was very influential. Annalisa has come across so many of these galleries of famous women, like

01:03:02.520 Portraits of a group of women painted on plates or engraved in books, etc.

01:03:06.440 And Mancini is usually in there with people like Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great.

01:03:10.900 When she was moving across Europe, i.e. before she settled in England,

01:03:13.900 her travels were detailed in gazettes alongside news of battles and important political events,

01:03:18.300 illustrating the significance she held for average readers.

01:03:21.280 So both of us feel that like a 7 out of 10 is suitable there.

01:03:27.580 So we have a 4, a 10, a 7, and then the sexism bonus.

01:03:32.340 So I'm going to say what I said, then I'm going to say what Annalisa said, then I'm going to come

01:03:35.580 to a decision. I thought initially 10 out of 10, like she faced the top level possible of sexism

01:03:42.080 getting the way of just living her life from being married at age 14 to her awful abuse of marriage

01:03:46.640 to the way society was set up such that she always needed to find a man to loan her money

01:03:50.400 and support her. She like could not catch a break from the patriarchy. Counterpoint, Annalisa says, 1.00

01:03:56.720 Hortense absolutely experienced a sharp end of misogyny. She never intended to cause a huge 1.00

01:04:00.540 scandal when she petitioned her husband for separation. First, many aristocratic couples

01:04:04.560 lived separately at this time, and second, other women had made similar petitions before her.

01:04:09.080 But A.C. was resolved to be as cruel and as authoritative over his wife as possible.

01:04:13.280 Ultimately, she had to go into exile to live separately from him. But at the same time,

01:04:17.200 she achieved incredible feats and still managed to live a fairly pleasurable life,

01:04:20.960 i.e. she was never incarcerated for a long time. In England, although she did face misogyny,

01:04:26.020 she's still able to undertake quite impressive projects like her salon.

01:04:28.840 and she didn't come up across that much hostility in england towards those projects

01:04:33.460 so this is annalisa i would have to go for something like a seven or an eight a 10 for

01:04:38.400 me would be a woman sentenced to prison or unable to find anywhere to settle a 10 would be multiple

01:04:42.940 rulers refusing sanctuary on the basis of her husband's legal case so i'm gonna say for sexism

01:04:50.540 i'm gonna go with an eight i think so when you add this all up what do you get

01:04:57.480 i think it's a 29 but let me just double check yeah so that's a 29 which lands or taunts

01:05:07.020 towards the middle top of the list of people so other people with 29 include elizabeth bathory

01:05:14.320 mary shelley lady catherine gray um i'll have a 29 so like right there in the back so just below

01:05:22.460 lady jane gray with who's 29.5 queen anne the first has a 29.5 like i think yeah i'm happy

01:05:29.660 with this number for her so this has been such a journée i need to let you know as well next week

01:05:36.280 we're going to be doing sort of like a postscript to hortense mancini we're going to do keeping up

01:05:41.720 with the mazarinettes and i'm just going to catch you up on like what happened to all the other

01:05:45.540 mazarinettes and her brother philippe just like because there's so many interesting little stories

01:05:50.320 two of her sisters got caught up in the affair of the poisons with la voisin like hortense is kind

01:05:55.620 of like the standout masarinette but like everyone else is sorry to tell we're gonna do that next

01:06:00.660 time also um the lady jane seymour memorial award for outstanding supporting performance

01:06:05.300 i'm gonna give this to three people i'm gonna give this to her best friend cm who is always

01:06:10.920 there for her i'm gonna give this to her sister marie for always helping her out and i'm gonna

01:06:16.520 give this to her brother philippe who also helped her out for a minute i was trying to be like oh

01:06:22.020 if i have to choose just one of them who would i choose but then i was like i don't have to choose

01:06:25.600 just one of them like it's rare that i do one of these stories and someone has this many people

01:06:29.820 being kind and helping them but she did and so all three of them deserve that i think um yeah so

01:06:38.480 if you want to give me feedback about this or any other episode there's a little link at vulgar

01:06:43.220 vulgarhistory.com to send me a message. You can also, if you follow me on Instagram at

01:06:46.900 vulgarhistorypod, you can send me a DM there. I'll be posting all the images I talked about today

01:06:51.060 on Instagram over the next couple of days. You can follow me on Twitter at vulgarhistory.

01:06:57.180 If you want to buy some of the books I mentioned about Hortense Mancini, there's a link in the

01:07:01.200 show notes. If you buy them through bookshop.org, then a little bit of money goes to support

01:07:04.880 this little podcast. And if you go to vulgarhistory.store, we've got the Hortense's

01:07:10.780 salon merch. We've got Mezzorinette's merch. I have to assume by the time this posts, there will be

01:07:16.360 Phub's merch and other things. And if you're buying anything from vulgarhistory.store,

01:07:21.240 the proceeds from which help support me in this podcast as well. Remember, you can use code TITS

01:07:25.560 OUT for free shipping in the US or TITS OUT10 for 10% off if you live in another country.

01:07:30.900 You can also support the podcast slash me at patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

01:07:35.680 if you pledge at least a dollar a month you get early access to episodes and then if you pledge

01:07:41.840 at least five dollars a month you get access to the bonus episodes of so this asshole um episodes

01:07:48.040 about gross men and also vulgar peace theater where I talk about costume dramas with Lana 0.88

01:07:53.020 Wood Johnson and Alison Epstein honestly this has been such this is all like I think I said in the

01:07:57.980 first one like this is all a surprise like I had this whole season planned and then Hortense just

01:08:01.740 came into my life with our Sailor Moon buns, and here we are five episodes later. So thank you so

01:08:07.260 much for listening. Keep your pants on, keep your tits out, and I'll talk to you all next time. 0.99

01:08:12.960 Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster, and edited by Christina Lumagi. 0.99

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Vulgar History - August 17, 2022

International, part 22： Hortense Mancini's Lasting Legacy (pt 5⧸6)

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