The Kings' Mistresses (18 page)

—Dispatch from Rome to the
Gazette d'Amsterdam,
July 12, 1672

 

 

 

 

W
HEN MARIE HAD LEFT HORTENSE outside of Lyon, to continue alone into the heart of France toward Paris, Hortense had taken the shortest route to the border. After her close encounter with Duke Mazarin's chief military guard Polastron, she knew that for her, remaining in France was too dangerous. The offer of protection that had come from Duke Charles-Emmanuel of Savoy seemed to be her most attractive option. Savoy was an independent state, with its border territories extending to Turin in the east, Nice in the south, and the Swiss confederation in the north. It was a militaristic culture, with an imposing history dating from the fourteenth century, and per capita had the largest army of any European state. That the duke was capable of resisting political pressure from both the French king and Italian nobility was beyond a doubt. In addition to his reassuringly powerful status, he was also reputed to be a charming man, as dedicated to cultural
entertainments as he was to defending Savoy's fierce independence in Europe. He seemed delighted at the prospect of drawing the Duchess Mazarin to the center of Savoyard society, knowing that her presence was bound to enliven the relatively small court at Chambéry, where he would be free to make frequent visits from his primary residence in Turin. And he knew her from the days when she had accompanied the French court on the ceremonial trip to the court of Savoy that was designed as an occasion for the two courts to consider a royal marriage of Louis XIV with Marguerite of Savoy, the duke's sister. During that visit, the fourteen-year-old Hortense had made a deep impression on the duke. He had not forgotten her, and had even at one point indicated to Cardinal Mazarin that he was interested in marrying her. But either his demands as part of the marriage deal were too great, or Mazarin had other plans for his niece already; in any event, the duke's overture had been turned down.

Charles-Emmanuel's delight in hosting the runaway Duchess Mazarin quickly developed into an obsessive fascination once he became more closely acquainted with her. Not satisfied with remaining in touch with his new guest via occasional visits and letters, he designated several emissaries to keep a close eye on her and to send him frequent reports of her activities. This served in part to guide him in how best to keep her happy (he gave her many gifts during the three years that she lived in Savoy), in part to assist him in the diplomatic maneuvering that he was obliged to undertake with France and Italy as a result of her presence in his state, and in part simply to satisfy his own insatiable curiosity about this intriguing woman.

A traveler approaching Chambéry in the seventeenth century would have been struck by the sight of the castle, perched at the edge of the city against a backdrop of the front range of the Alps to the east. To the west, flat marshland made the chateau walls
themselves the outer limits of the town. It was a medieval, fortified castle, surrounded by a moat. The ducal residence was hidden behind turreted round towers and walls built of thick gray granite. The streets through the old city were narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate a small carriage, and a drawbridge was the only entrance to the castle. Inside there was a stone courtyard dominated by the startling facade of a chapel designed in a flamboyant gothic style, in 1672 a gleaming white after the cleaning and restoration that had been the special project of the duke's pious mother. The gardens that lay outside the walls provided the only other bright relief from all of the gray, with their paths following the rounded contours of the hill and lending a softness to the imposing stone structure.

At the end of August 1672, the Duchess Mazarin was greeted at the portal at the end of the drawbridge by Monsieur Orlier, the castle's governor, nervous but eager to provide the hospitality that the duke had ordered. Orlier's letters to Turin in those first days recorded his sense of surprise that the lady did not seem overly demanding:

In the first days and weeks Hortense was uncharacteristically retired, spending long hours in prayer and solitude in the splendid castle chapel. She exhibited little interest in receiving visitors. Charles-Emmanuel's informants were both mystified and amused, reporting that “if Madame the Duchess Mazarin goes on like this she will have to be sainted. Since Sunday she has twice confessed
and taken communion.”
²
Later Hortense would recount to her friends in London that this period in her life was one of reflection, study, and reading. At the end of her stay at the Chambéry court she would write her memoirs, and in the beginning she also wrote tirelessly, mostly letters to Paris and Rome to try to consolidate whatever small favor that Louis XIV and Lorenzo Colonna still felt for her. It was a delicate business. With Lorenzo, she wanted to support her claim that she had not instigated his wife's flight, and with the French king she was desperate to maintain his sympathy so that he would not rescind the financial support he had promised her. Still, she was incapable of being obsequious. In her letters to Lorenzo she denied responsibility and did not apologize for Marie's leave-taking, nor did she suggest that her sister's actions were without justification. She was careful, trying to explain Marie's thinking while avoiding overt accusations:

In letters to Paris, Hortense turned to repairing any further damage she had done to her reputation at court. Working against her, of course, were the gazettes and private letters that were now freely circulating and inventing anecdotes about the runaway sisters. Even her other sisters, Olympe and Marianne, were restrained in their expressions of support. They busied themselves with visiting Marie in Lys and with writing condolence letters to their two abandoned brothers-in-law, holding out the hope of reconciliation. Soon after Hortense had left Rome, Louis had ceded to the demands of her husband that all monies sent to his wife be administered through him—a disaster for Hortense. She wrote in September to Louis from Chambéry, pleading with him to reverse his decision: “I beseech you, Sire, do not reduce me to the extremity of not knowing which way to turn. It is a matter of indifference to you that M. Mazarin have 24,000 additional livres of income, but to give that to me would prevent me from being the most unhappy woman in the world.”
⁴

Astonishingly, Louis agreed, and a grateful Hortense continued for a time to adhere to a new life of prudence and solitude. When in the spring of 1673 Marie came to Chambéry to see her, Hortense disappeared for two days in the country. Marie, hurt, understood that her sister was no longer willing to risk sharing the same path with her: “her affection had given way to circumspection and politic caution, and she hid from me for fear of being drawn into supporting my intentions.”
⁵
But as the weather warmed and spring air penetrated the cold stone walls of the duke's castle, Hortense began to tire of her retired life and started to welcome the local nobility who had been soliciting her company. She began to accept the invitations to their salons and even more frequently, their hunting
lodges, where she could freely indulge her favorite pastime. Orlier, governor of the Chambéry castle, would accompany the skilled huntress and horsewoman as requested by the Duke of Savoy, and as requested, he would send reports of their outings. He wrote of her skill in shooting and wrote about a tireless sequence of hunts for all manner of game in the hills around Chambéry: duck, geese, quail, rabbit, deer. Hortense delighted in her admirers, who called her a Diana of the hunt and followed her and her female companion Madame de Lescheraines as they rode on horseback through country villages at the end of a day's successful excursion. The duke sent her a pair of muskets as a gift, along with some admiring poetry.

Charles-Emmanuel's interest in theater and spectacle meant that he had gathered an excellent troupe of actors in Chambéry. Hortense soon became the guest of honor at their performances of the latest plays from Paris. She became more bold in her responses to the threats that the Duke Mazarin never tired of aiming at her. When she discovered that her husband had bribed one of her ladies-in-waiting to spy on her and to pressure her to yield to his demands, she threw the lady out. When in the autumn of 1673 her husband decided to make the trip to Savoy himself and demanded to see her, she locked herself in her rooms and declared that she “would rather die.”
⁶
Mazarin could do nothing but return home, embarrassed, and attempt to cover up his humiliation by proclaiming that he had made the trip simply to obtain a necessary legal document from his wife that she had promised to give him in person.

It would be in Chambéry that Hortense would learn the card game called basset, newly arrived from Venice. It fascinated her, and she and Madame de Lescheraines would play long into the night. Basset was a gambler's game, based more on chance than on skill, and one could learn, win, and lose quickly. Hortense took to wearing a mask when she played, to disguise the changing expressions that she could not keep off of her face. The duke indulged
her and helped her recoup her losses with his gifts. Soon she had new jewels, new clothes, and new servants, including a dark-skinned boy named Mustapha who would remain in her household for the rest of her life. He had come to Savoy probably from North Africa, as a captive from one of the frequent pirate raids off the Mediterranean coast. He would appear at her side in portraits that continued to be produced long after the Duchess Mazarin had left the Continent.

In early 1675 a new face appeared at the court of Chambéry, a writer by the name of César Vichard de Saint-Réal, just returned to his home city after ten years in Paris. Saint-Réal was a handsome man in his midthirties, and well educated—first by the Jesuits in Lyon and later in the salons and academies of Paris where he had sought to make his career as a novelist and historian. He had returned to Chambéry in a state of discouragement. It was not that his ambitions had been dashed in Paris, but in the years he had spent there it had seemed to him that his works had not been able to receive the sustained recognition they deserved. He was a good writer and was especially proud of his historical novel
Don Carlos,
which had sold well in the bookshops lining the arcades of the Palais Royal, next to the Louvre palace. He had done everything right, placing himself close to the court intelligentsia first in a position as assistant to Louis XIV's archivist and historian Varillas, then as a diligent visitor to the salons frequented by the most admired writers of the day. He enjoyed the company of the writers Chapelain and Ménage, and the well-placed Nicolas Colbert, nephew of the royal finance minister. In the late 1660s he had crossed paths with Duchess Mazarin in the salons of her sisters Olympe and Marianne. And he had achieved a certain status as a writer, even gaining a small pension from the king. But a quarrel with his patron Varillas, followed by the implementation of a new, more austere policy limiting the financial support that could be offered to foreign artists in Paris, led him to decide to return, at least for a time, to his native city.
There he approached his first encounter with the Duchess Mazarin with a combination of curiosity, self-confidence, and humility, for although he expected that she would welcome the company of a newly arrived Parisian, he also remembered that his position in Paris had never quite allowed him into the intimate circles of ladies of her stature.

She received him warmly but to his astonishment did not press him for news, and instead seemed primarily interested in learning all about him personally. He had heard about her adventures and troubles but when he expressed sympathy and interest, she replied modestly that these were not worthy of their conversation, not nearly as interesting as his own work and his own tribulations. It was not long before he was utterly smitten. Later he would describe the moment of their first meeting in a “letter on the character of Madam the Duchess Mazarin,” which he published to accompany the printed edition of her memoirs: