Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/104

96 MANCINI ried in 1634 a sister of Cardinal Mazarin. His 1 HI 1 1: liters became prominent, according to Michelet, as " a battalion of Mazarin's nieces, brought up under the cynical influence of Christina of Sweden, and for whom one of tlu-ir brothers, the duke de Nevers, had a more than brotherly love." I. Lanre (1635-'57), the least dissolute of the five sisters, though her beauty captivated many persons, among whom was the young Louis XIV., married the duke de Mercosur. One of her two sons, the duke de Vendome, became a famous warrior. II. Olynpe (1639-1708), called on account of her dark complexion and mischievous disposition " black soul and black face," was a mistress of Louis XIV. Her uncle found a husband for her (1657) in Eugene de Carignan, of the house of Savoy, who was on his mother's side a French prince of the blood royal, and for whom the cardinal revived the title of count de Soissons. Though superseded fora time in the king's favor by her sister Marie, she soon regained her ascendancy, and they lived openly together. Her husband died sud- denly in 1673, and it was suspected that she poisoned him. In 1679 she was compromised by the revelations of the poisoner Voisin. But she was considered to have been innocent as regarded the death of her husband, to whom she had borne eight children, and nothing was proved against her in connection with Voisin. She was however prosecuted by Louvois and fled to Brussels, where she barely escaped be- ing mobbed, and spent the rest of her life in various countries. While in Spain, where she met her fugitive sister Marie, King Charles II. attributed the sudden and premature death of his wife, Louise of France, to the frequent and clandestine visits which Olympe had paid to the queen in her illness, and to some milk which she had prepared for her shortly before her death. The celebrated soldier Prince Eu- gene of Savoy was one of her five sons, and she had three daughters. III. Marie (1640-1715) excited the passion of Louis XIV. to such an extent that he would have married her if the cardinal had not sent her to a convent, while he planned the king's union with Maria Theresa, and Marie's marriage (1661) with the Roman prince and constable Colonna, with a dowry consisting of an annuity of 100,000 livres. She bore him several children, but he was faithless, and she furtively left Rome together with her sister Hortense, both reaching Marseilles in male attire in a destitute condition. Louis XIV. had her removed to the abbaye du Lis, and subsequently she led a wandering and ad- v.-nturous life. It is not known where she died. Michelet describes her as sombre-look- ith large glittering eyes. She was the least attractive of the sisters. IV. Hortense (1646-'99), the prettiest of them all, courted by Charles II. of England, Turenne, and Charles de Lorraine, was married by her uncle to Arrnand de la Porte, marquis de la Meilleraye. The cardinal died in March, 1661, a month after his niece's marriage with the marquis, who assumed the name of duke of Mazarin. His jealousy of the king and of other persons bordered on insanity. She finally fled with her brother, the duke of Nevers, and her re- puted lover, the chevalier de Rohan, to the house of one of her former admirers, Charles de Lorraine, at Nancy, and thence to the court of Charles Emanuel of Savoy at Chambery, where she spent three years. On his death in 1675 she was immediately expelled by his widow. After an adventurous expedition to the Netherlands and Germany, she paid a visit to Charles II., who was still in love with her, and added an annuity of 4,000 livres to that of 20,000 which had been granted to her by Louis XIV. He also assigned to her a wing of St. James's palace, where gambling and dissipation became the order of the day. The Swedish count Bannier, another lover of hers, was killed in a duel by her nephew, the chevalier de Soissons, who, though a mere boy, was madly in love with his aunt. After the revo- lution of 1688 her pension was cut off, and she was accused of complicity in Jacobite plots. But William III. restored to her one half of her former English pension, and permitted her to remain in England, and she ended her life at Chelsea. Lafontaine celebrated her in verses, giving her credit not only for all im- aginable fine qualities of person, mind, and heart, but also for being adored from one end of the world to the other, and to such an ex- tent as to create jealousy between England and France. V. Marie Anne (1649-1714) reached Paris only in 1655, much later than her sisters. She was also prosecuted as an associate of the poisoner Voisin, and did not live long with her husband, Maurice Godefroi de la Tour, duke de Bouillon, a nephew of Turenne, whom she had married in 1662. She retired to the palace of Chateau-Thierry, where she became the patroness of Lafontaine. Subsequently, after having rejoined her husband in Paris, she made her home a literary centre, with Moliere and the aged Corneille among the habitues. Like her father and all her sisters, she dabbled in necromancy as well as in poi- son, and was obliged to leave Paris in 1680. She lived for eight years with her sister the duchess of Mazarin in England; and after spending two years in Venice and Rome she was permitted in 1690 to return to Paris, where her society was courted to the last by eminent men of letters. MANCINI. I. Pasqnale, an Italian statesman, born in Naples about 1815. He took his de- gree at the university of his native city, where he became professor of jurisprudence. . In 1848 he was a member of the Neapolitan par- liament, and drew up the protest against the king's violent proceedings of May 15. To es- [ cape from the vengeance of the king he fled to j Turin, where he was appointed professor of i international law, which gave him an oppor- | tunity to urge the rights of nationalities ; he