Marie Anne's parents were
Lorenzo Mancini, a Roman baron,
necromancer and
astrologer, and
Geronima Mazzarini, sister of
Cardinal Mazarin. Her four famous sisters were: •
Laure (1636–1657), the eldest, who married
Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, grandson of King
Henri IV and his mistress,
Gabrielle d'Estrées, and became the mother of the famous French general
Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, •
Olympe (1638–1708), who married
Eugene Maurice, Count of Soissons and became the mother of the famous Austrian general
Prince Eugene of Savoy, •
Marie (1639–1715), the third sister, was considered the least beautiful of the sisters but was the one who snagged the biggest prize of all:
Louis XIV. The young king was so besotted with her that he wanted to marry her. In the end, he was made to give her up, and she married Prince Lorenzo Colonna who remarked that he was surprised to find her a virgin as one does not expect to find 'innocence among the loves of kings'. (from
Antonia Fraser's book
Love and Louis XIV) •
Hortense (1646–1699), the beauty of the family, who escaped from her abusive husband,
Armand-Charles de la Porte, duc de La Meilleraye, and went to London, where she became the mistress of King
Charles II. The Mancinis were not the only female family members that Cardinal Mazarin brought to the French court. The others were Marie Anne's first cousins, daughters of Mazarin's eldest sister. The elder,
Laura Martinozzi, married
Alfonso IV d'Este, duke of Modena and was the mother of
Mary of Modena, second wife of
James II of England. The younger,
Anne Marie Martinozzi, married
Armand, Prince de Conti. The Mancini also had three brothers:
Paul,
Philippe, and
Alphonse.
Philippe Jules Mancini was a lover of
Philippe de France, brother of
Louis XIV.
Early life Marie Anne reached
Paris much later than her sisters, in 1655, when she was a mere child of six. The last
Mazarinette became the "spoiled darling" of the French
court and of her uncle, who was greatly amused by the literary six-year-old's
verses and
bon mots. She was considered a wit and a beauty. Even more than her older sister
Hortense, Cardinal Mazarin's favorite niece, Marie Anne is often referred to as "the wittiest and most vivacious of the sisters." According to a contemporary, she was "said to be quite divine, having infinite appeal." Self-possessed, she excelled at such courtly diversions as
dancing and
plays. In 1657, her eldest sister,
Laure, died in childbirth. Marie Anne, despite her young age, was given her sister's three sons to raise. Marie Anne was only a few years older than her nephews. The youngest child, Jules César, died three years later in 1660. The two older boys,
Louis Joseph and
Philippe, however, survived. Both young men became soldiers, with Louis Joseph eventually gaining fame as a general.
Marriage and culture patronage , c.1700 Her uncle died when she was thirteen, in 1661. The night before the cardinal's death, the famous field marshal
Turenne came to his bedside to ask for the hand of Marie Anne in the name of his nephew
Godefroy Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, the
duc de Bouillon. About a year later, on 22 April 1662, Marie Anne wed the duke at the
Hôtel de Soissons, in the presence of King
Louis XIV, the queen and the queen dowager. Her husband was described as a good soldier, but a bad
courtier and even worse literary man. As a result, the intelligent and ambitious fifteen-year-old duchess was left on her own to pursue her political and literary interests. She established a small
salon at her new residence, the
Hôtel de Bouillon. Marie Anne is best remembered for her literary pursuits, and for her patronage of the young
La Fontaine. She and her spouse had a harmonious marriage. Her husband loved her and was tolerant of her love affairs, and refused to follow the wish of his family and have her incarcerated in a convent for adultery. On one occasion, when she herself took refuge in a convent out of fear for his family after a particularly public love affair, her husband himself asked her to leave the convent and return to him.
The Affaire des Poisons She was socially and politically compromised in the notorious
Affaire des Poisons, allegedly for planning to poison her husband in order to marry her nephew
Louis Joseph, duc de Vendôme. She was to have visited
Adam Lesage and expressed this wish to him. Unlike her older sister,
Olympe, comtesse de Soissons, who was forced to flee to Liège and later to Brussels, in order to escape arrest, Marie Anne was never formally convicted. The trial against her was conducted 29 January 1680, and she appeared escorted by her husband and her lover Vendôme holding each of her arms, and stated that she did not accept the authority of the court and had accepted to answer the court summon only out of respect for the king's rank. She claimed that she and Vendôme had merely expressed a wish of frivolity, a joke, harmless and not honestly intended, to Lesage, and that if they believed that she had the wish to murder her husband, they could ask him if he thought so, as he had accompanied her to the trial. She was freed in lack of evidence, but was still exiled to the provinces by the king. She spent some time in Nérac, and was able to return to Paris and the royal court in March 1681. She was greatly admired within the aristocracy because of her wit and lack of fear during her trial, but she was never again well seen by the king, and in 1685, he banished her to the provinces once more, this time for a period of five years. The king finally allowed her to return permanently in 1690, but after this, she preferred to avoid the royal court. ==Issue==