True Pleasures by Lucinda Holdforth Read Free Book Online Page B

her actions. The English puritan John Evelyn called her
that famous and errant Lady, the Dutchesse of Mazarine
, adding darkly,
all the world knows her storie
. But Hortense’s pursuit of pleasure wasn’t dissolute: it was so arrow-like, so direct and unalloyed, it attained almost to innocence.
    I decide to ignore my tiredness and walk the short distance to see where her adventures began – and to contemplate all that she left behind.
    The Bibliothèque Richelieu on rue de Richelieu was formerly the national library of France, but now houses some of the nation’s specialist manuscript and coin collections. I pause on the street outside to read the plaque. At the center of this complex of palaces and grand houses is the Palais Mazarin, formerly the Hôtel Tubeuf, owned by Cardinal Mazarin and bequeathed to his sixteen-year-old niece Hortense on the occasion of her marriage. I feel a pleased tingle. Here was Hortense Mancini’s home for seven years.
    I walk through the courtyard and then wind my way around the library foyer, poking my head down corridors and into various reading rooms. I’m looking for one particular room but don’t really expect to find it – numerous renovations will surely have submerged it or altered it beyond recognition. But this is Paris, and of course Ishould know better. For, unexpectedly, here I am. I recognize it instantly from the descriptions I have read. The gallery is long and wide. The high ceiling is elaborately painted. Grand alcoves form natural display cases, backlit by arched windows. And here’s the bust of the Cardinal himself, sitting high over the portal. It’s as if I have dropped into Hortense’s life at that decisive moment, when the event took place that would trigger her vagabond wanderings. I look around expectantly, but it’s clear that these scholarly and preoccupied French people do not share my excitement.
    When Cardinal Mazarin bequeathed his home to his niece and her husband, he also left them his priceless collection of classical sculptures, carefully selected and installed in a long gallery built for the purpose. This room. The collection of Greek and Roman antiquities was famous – it was certainly the most important of its kind in France, and one of the greatest in Europe. These were peerless objects of beauty, representing a pinnacle of aesthetic achievement and a monument to the enlightenment of the ancient world.
    But, as I explained to Monsieur at the Institut, Hortense Mancini’s husband, the duc de Mazarin, was mad. His insanity had a prudish, religious edge to it. He wanted his little daughters to have their front teeth extracted so they wouldn’t be dangerously beautiful like their mother. He wouldn’t let the women of his household staff look at cows being milked as he was sure it provoked lewd thoughts. No one liked him: even the King, Louis XIV himself, couldn’t stand him. No wonder. The duc used to lecture the King on his infidelities, saying he was instructed to do so by the Archangel Gabriel.
    One warm night in June 1668, the duc walked into thisroom. He looked around at the four hundred classical statues, the vast majority of which were, of course, nude. He was offended; more than this, he was appalled. He called for a hammer and began slowly, methodically, madly smashing the statues. It took a long time. The King learned of the desecration and sent emissaries to try and stop the tragedy, but it was too late. A priceless collection of antiquities had been destroyed.
    This was the event that triggered Hortense’s flight from her husband. Soon after, she put on men’s clothes, collected her jewels, packed up her bags and left on horseback. Her distraught husband woke Louis XIV at 3 am to tell him the news. But by then the King had lost patience with this proselytizing bore.
‘And why did the Archangel Gabriel not give you warning?’
the monarch asked irritably.
    Hortense