A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CINDERELLA
It was to all seeming a strange whim that caused Cardinal Mazarin, one
day in the year 1653, to summon his nieces, daughters of his sister,
Hieronyme Mancini, from their obscurity in Italy to bask in the sunshine
of his splendours in Paris.
At the time of this odd caprice, Richelieu's crafty successor had
reached the zenith of his power. His was the most potent and splendid
figure in all Europe that did not wear a crown. He was the avowed
favourite and lover of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, to whose vanity
he had paid such skilful court--indeed it was common rumour that she had
actually given him her hand in secret marriage. The boy-King, Louis
XIV., was a puppet in his strong hands. He was, in fact, the dictator of
France, whose smiles the greatest courtiers tried to win, and before
whose frowns they trembled.
In contrast to such magnificence, his sister, Madame Mancini, was the
wife of a petty Italian baron, who was struggling to bring up her five
daughters on a pathetically scanty purse--as far removed from her
magnificent brother as a moth from a star. There was, on the face of
things, every reason why the great and all-powerful Cardinal should
leave his nieces to their genteel poverty; and we can imagine both the
astonishment and delight with which Madame Mancini received the summons
to Paris which meant such a revolution in life for her and her
daughters.
If the Mancini girls had no heritage of money, they had at least the
dower of beauty. Each of the five gave promise of a rare
loveliness--with the solitary exception of Marie, Madame's third
daughter, who at fourteen was singularly unattractive even for that
awkward age. Tall, thin, and angular, without a vestige of grace either
of figure or movement, she had a sallow face out of which two great
black eyes looked gloomily, and a mouth wide and thin-lipped. She was,
in addition, shy and slow-witted to the verge of stupidity. Marie, in
fact, was quite hopeless, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family,
and for this reason an object of dislike and resentment to her mother.
Certainly, said Madame, Marie must be left behind. Her other daughters
would be a source of pride to their uncle; he could secure great matches
for them, but Marie--pah! she would bring discredit on the whole family.
And so it was decided in conclave that the "ugly duckling" should be
left in a nunnery--the only fit place for her. But Marie happily had a
spirit of her own. She would not be left behind, she declared; and if
she must go to a nunnery, why there were nunneries in plenty in France
to which they could send her. And Marie had her way.
She was not, however, to escape the cloister after all, for to a Paris
nunnery she was consigned when her Cardinal uncle had set eyes on her.
"Let her have a year or two there," was his verdict, "and, who knows,
she may blossom into a beauty yet. At any rate she can put on flesh and
not be the scarecrow she is." And thus, while her more favoured sisters
were revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell her
beads and to spend Spartan days among the nuns.
Nearly two years passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his ugly
niece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made her
curtsy to him. Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, the
sallow face, the slow wits. Time and the healthy life of the cloisters
had done their work well. What the Cardinal now saw was a girl of
seventeen, of exquisitely modelled figure, graceful and self-possessed;
a face piquant and full of animation, illuminated by a pair of glorious
dark eyes, and with a dazzling smile which revealed the prettiest teeth
in France. Above all, and what delighted the Cardinal most, she had now
a sprightly wit, and a quite brilliant gift of conversation. It was thus
a smiling and gratified Cardinal who gave greeting to his niece, now as
fair as her sisters and more fascinating than any of them. There was no
doubt that he could find a high-placed husband for her, and thus--for
this was, in fact, his motive for rescuing his pretty nieces from their
obscurity--make his position secure by powerful family alliances.
It was not long before Mazarin fixed on a suitor in the person of
Armande de la Porte, son of the Marquis de la Meilleraye, one of the
most powerful nobles in France. But alas for his scheming! Armande's
heart had already been caught while Marie was reciting her matins and
vespers: He had lost it utterly to her beautiful sister, Hortense; he
vowed that he would marry no other, and that if Hortense could not be
his wife he would prefer to die. Thus Marie was rescued from a union
which brought her sister so much misery in later years, and for a time
she was condemned to spend unhappy months with her mother at the Louvre.
To this period of her life Marie Mancini could never look back without a
shudder. "My mother," she says, "who, I think, had always hated me, was
more unbearable than ever. She treated me, although I was no longer
ugly, with the utmost aversion and cruelty. My sisters went to Court and
were fussed and fêted. I was kept always at home, in our miserable
lodgings, an unhappy Cinderella."
But Fortune did not long hide his face from Cinderella. Her "Prince
Charming" was coming--in the guise of the handsome young King, Louis
XIV. himself. It was one day while visiting Madame Mancini in her
lodgings at the Louvre that Louis first saw the girl who was to play
such havoc with his heart; and at the first sight of those melting dark
eyes and that intoxicating smile he was undone. He came again and
again--always under the pretext of visiting Madame, and happy beyond
expression if he could exchange a few words with her daughter, Marie;
until he soon counted a day worse than lost that did not bring him the
stolen sweetness of a meeting.
When, a few weeks later, Madame Mancini died, and Marie was recalled to
Court by her uncle, her life was completely changed for her. Louis had
now abundant opportunities of seeking her side; and excellent use he
made of them. The two young people were inseparable, much to the alarm
of the Cardinal and Madame Mère, the Queen. The young King was never
happy out of her sight; he danced with her (and none could dance more
divinely than Marie); he listened as she sang to him with a voice whose
sweetness thrilled him; they read the same books together in blissful
solitude; she taught him her native Italian, and entranced him by the
brilliance of her wit; and when, after a slight illness, he heard of her
anxious inquiries and her tears of sympathy, his conquest was complete.
He vowed that she and no other should be his wife and Queen of France.
But these halcyon days were not to last long. It was no part of
Mazarin's scheming that a niece of his should sit on the throne. The
prospect was dazzling, it is true, but it would inevitably mean his own
downfall, so strongly would such an alliance be resented by friends as
well as enemies; and Anne of Austria was as little in the mood to be
deposed by such an obscure person as the "Mancini girl." Thus it was
that Queen and Cardinal joined hands to nip the young romance in the
bud.
A Royal bride must be found for Louis, and that quickly; and
negotiations were soon on foot to secure as his wife Margaret, Princess
of Savoy. In vain did the boy-King storm and protest; equally futile
were Marie's tearful pleadings to her uncle. The fiat had gone forth.
Louis must have a Royal bride; and she was already about to leave Italy
on her bridal progress to France.
It was, we may be sure, with a heavy heart that Marie joined the
cavalcade which, with its gorgeous procession of equipages, its gaily
mounted courtiers, and its brave escort of soldiery, swept out of Paris
on its stately progress to Lyons, to meet the Queen-to-be. But there was
no escape from the humiliation, for she must accompany Anne of Austria,
as one of her retinue of maids-of-honour. Arrived too soon at Lyons,
Louis rides on to give first greeting to his bride, who is now within a
day's journey; and returns with a smiling face to announce to his mother
that he finds the Princess pleasing to his eye, and to describe, with
boyish enthusiasm, her grace and graciousness, her magnificent eyes, her
beautiful hair, and the delicate olive of her complexion, while Marie's
heart sinks at the recital. Could this be the lover who, but a few days
ago, had been at her feet, vowing that she was the only bride in all the
world for him?
When he seeks her side and shamefacedly makes excuses for his seeming
recreancy, she bids him marry his "ugly bride" in accents of scorn, and
then bursts into tears, which she only consents to wipe away when he
declares that his heart will always be hers and that he will never marry
the Italian Princess.
But Margaret of Savoy was not after all to be Queen of France. She was,
as it proved, merely a pawn in the Cardinal's deep game. It was a
Spanish alliance that he sought for his young King; and when, at the
eleventh hour, an ambassador came hurriedly to Lyons to offer the
Infanta's hand, the Savoy Duke and his sister, the Princess, had
perforce to return to Italy "empty-handed."
There was at least a time of respite now for Louis and Marie, and as
they rode back to Paris, side by side, chatting gaily and exchanging
sweet confidences, the sun once more shone on the happiest young people
in all France. Then followed a period of blissful days, of dances and
fêtes, in brilliant succession, in which the lovers were inseparable;
above all, of long rambles together, when, "the world forgetting," they
could live in the happy present, whatever the future might have in store
for them.
Meanwhile the negotiations for the Spanish marriage were ripening fast.
Louis and Marie again appeal, first to the Cardinal, then to the Queen,
to sanction their union, but to no purpose; both are inflexible. Their
foolish romance must come to an end. As a last resource Marie flies to
the King, with tender pleadings and tears, begging him not to desert
her; to which he answers that no power on earth shall make him wed the
Infanta. "You alone," he swears, "shall wear the crown of Queen"; and in
token of his love he buys for her the pearls that were the most
treasured belongings of the exiled Stuart Queen, Henrietta Maria. The
lovers part in tears, and the following day Marie receives orders to
leave Paris and to retire to La Rochelle.
At every stage of her journey she was overtaken by messengers bearing
letters from Louis, full of love and protestations of unflinching
loyalty; and when Louis moved with his Court to Bayonne, the lovers met
once more to mingle their tears. But Louis, ever fickle, was already
wavering again. "If I must marry the Infanta," he said, "I suppose I
must. But I shall never love any but you."
Marie now realised that this was to be the end. In face of a lover so
weak, and a fate so inflexible, what could she do but submit? And it was
with a proud but breaking heart that she wrote a few days later to tell
Louis that she wished him not to write to her again and that she would
not answer his letters. One June day news came to her that her lover was
married and that "he was very much in love with the Infanta"; and even
her pride, crushed as it was, could not restrain her from writing to her
sister, Hortense, "Say everything you can that is horrid about him.
Point out all his faults to me, that I may find relief for my aching
heart." When, a few months later, Marie saw the King again, he received
her almost as a stranger, and had the bad taste to sing the praises of
his Queen.
But Marie Mancini was the last girl in all France to wed herself long to
grief or an outraged vanity. There were other lovers by the score among
whom she could pick and choose. She was more lovely now than when the
recreant Louis first succumbed to her charms--with a ripened witchery of
black eyes, red lips, the flash of pearly teeth revealed by every
dazzling smile, with glorious black hair, the grace of a fawn, and a
"voluptuous fascination" which no man could resist.
Prince Charles of Lorraine was her veriest slave, but Mazarin would have
none of him. Prince Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, was more
fortunate when he in turn came a-wooing. He bore the proudest name in
Italy, and he had wealth, good-looks, and high connections to lend a
glamour to his birth. The Cardinal smiled on his suit, and Marie, since
she had no heart to give, willingly gave her hand.
Louis himself graced the wedding with his presence; and we are told, as
the white-faced bride "said the 'yes' which was to bind her to a
stranger, her eyes, with an indescribable expression, sought those of
the King, who turned pale as he met them."
Over the rest of Marie Mancini's chequered life we must hasten. After a
few years of wedded life with her Italian Prince, "Colonna's early
passion for his beautiful wife was succeeded by a distaste amounting to
hatred. He disgusted her with his amours; and when she ventured to
protest against his infidelity, he tried to poison her." This crowning
outrage determined Marie to fly, and, in company with her sister,
Hortense, who had fled to her from the brutality of her own husband, she
made her escape one dark night to Civita Vecchia, where a boat was
awaiting the runaways.
Hotly pursued on land and sea, narrowly escaping shipwreck, braving
hardships, hunger, and hourly danger of capture, the fugitives at last
reached Marseilles where Marie (Hortense now seeking a refuge in Savoy)
began those years of wandering and adventure, the story of which
outstrips fiction.
Now we find her seeking asylum at convents from Aix to Madrid; now
queening it at the Court of Savoy, with Duke Charles Emmanuel for lover;
now she is dazzling Madrid with the Almirante of Castille and many
another high-placed worshipper dancing attendance on her; and now she is
in Rome, turning the heads of grave cardinals with her witcheries.
Sometimes penniless and friendless, at others lapped in luxury; but
carrying everywhere in her bosom the English pearls, the last gift of
her false and frail Louis.
Thus, through the long, troubled years, until old-age crept on her, the
Cardinal's niece wandered, a fugitive, over the face of Europe,
alternately caressed and buffeted by fortune, until "at long last" the
end came and brought peace with it. As she lay dying in the house of a
good Samaritan at Pisa, with no other hand to minister to her, she
called for pen and paper, and with failing hand wrote her own epitaph,
surely the most tragic ever penned--"Marie Mancini Colonna--Dust and
Ashes."