[PDF] The Duchess Of Mazarin eBook

Author : Elizabeth C Goldsmith
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 19,2 MB
Release : 2012-04-03
Category : History
ISBN : 1586488902

GET BOOK

The Mancini Sisters, Marie and Hortense, were born in Rome, brought to the court of Louis XIV of France, and strategically married off by their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, to secure his political power base. Such was the life of many young women of the age: they had no independent status under the law and were entirely a part of their husband's property once married. Marie and Hortense, however, had other ambitions in mind altogether. Miserable in their marriages and determined to live independently, they abandoned their husbands in secret and began lives of extraordinary daring on the run and in the public eye. The beguiling sisters quickly won the affections of noblemen and kings alike. Their flight became popular fodder for salon conversation and tabloids, and was closely followed by seventeenth-century European society. The Countess of Grignan remarked that they were traveling "like two heroines out of a novel." Others gossiped that they "were roaming the countryside in pursuit of wandering lovers. "Their scandalous behavior -- disguising themselves as men, gambling, and publicly disputing with their husbands -- served as more than just entertainment. It sparked discussions across Europe concerning the legal rights of husbands over their wives. Elizabeth Goldsmith's vibrant biography of the Mancini sisters -- drawn from personal papers of the players involved and the tabloids of the time -- illuminates the lives of two pioneering free spirits who were feminists long before the word existed.

Author : Marie Mancini
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 37,10 MB
Release : 2009-05-15
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0226502805

GET BOOK

The memoirs of Hortense (1646–1699) and of Marie (1639–1715) Mancini, nieces of the powerful Cardinal Mazarin and members of the court of Louis XIV, represent the earliest examples in France of memoirs published by women under their own names during their lifetimes. Both unhappily married—Marie had also fled the aftermath of her failed affair with the king—the sisters chose to leave their husbands for life on the road, a life quite rare for women of their day. Through their writings, the Mancinis sought to rehabilitate their reputations and reclaim the right to define their public images themselves, rather than leave the stories of their lives to the intrigues of the court—and to their disgruntled ex-husbands. First translated in 1676 and 1678 and credited largely to male redactors, the two memoirs reemerge here in an accessible English translation that chronicles the beginnings of women’s rights to personal independence within the confines of an otherwise circumscribed early modern aristocratic society.

Author : Elizabeth Goldsmith
Publisher : Public Affairs
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 38,60 MB
Release : 2012-04-03
Category : History
ISBN : 1586488899

GET BOOK

The little-known story of two spirited sisters who flaunted every social convention of 17th century Europe in their determination to live independently.

Author : Arthur Hassall
Publisher : Ozymandias Press
Page : 104 pages
File Size : 44,64 MB
Release : 2018-01-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1531267327

GET BOOK

Richelieu died on the 5th of December 1642; on the following day Louis XIII. announced that he had chosen Mazarin to be First Minister. Giulio Mazarini, or Jules Mazarin, as the French call him, was born on July 14, 1602, at Piscina, a small village in the Abruzzi. His father was a certain Sicilian, by name Pietro Mazarini, his mother was Hortensia Buffalini, who was renowned for her beauty. To the latter the young Giulio owed much of his future success, for it was due to her efforts that he first studied under the Jesuits at the Roman College, and later at the University of Alcalá in Spain. He had early shown signs of uncommon talents, and he was at the age of sixteen remarkable for his handsome face and natural brightness.

Author : Linda Porter
Publisher : Pan Macmillan
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 50,53 MB
Release : 2020-04-16
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1509877088

GET BOOK

According to the great diarist, John Evelyn, Charles II was ‘addicted to women’, and throughout his long reign a great many succumbed to his charms. Clever, urbane and handsome, Charles presided over a hedonistic court, in which licence and licentiousness prevailed. Mistresses is the story of the women who shared Charles’s bed, each of whom wielded influence on both the politics and cultural life of the country. From the young king-in-exile’s first mistress and mother to his first child, Lucy Walter, to the promiscuous and ill-tempered courtier, Barbara Villiers. From Frances Teresa Stuart, ‘the prettiest girl in the world’ to history’s most famous orange-seller, ‘pretty, witty’ Nell Gwynn and to her fellow-actress, Moll Davis, who bore the last of the king’s fifteen illegitimate children. From Louise de Kéroualle, the French aristocrat – and spy for Louis XIV – to the sexually ambiguous Hortense Mancini. Here, too, is the forlorn and humiliated Queen Catherine, the Portuguese princess who was Charles’s childless queen. Drawing on a wide variety of original sources, including material in private archives, Linda Porter paints a vivid picture of these women and of Restoration England, an era that was both glamorous and sordid.