Enchantress of Paris

by Marci Jefferson

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  With love to my Prince

  and our minions

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  The Italians

  Cardinal Jules Mazarin—chief minister to Louis XIV

  Geronima Mazarin Mancini—sister of Cardinal Mazarin

  Baron Lorenzo Mancini—her husband

  Their children:

  Victoire Laure Mancini—married to Louis de Bourbon, duc de Mercœur

  Paul Mancini

  Olympia Mancini—married to Eugène-Maurice Savoy-Carignano, comte de Soissons

  Marie Mancini

  Philippe Mancini—later duc de Nevers

  Alphonse Mancini

  Hortense Mancini

  Marianne Mancini—later married to the duc de Bouillon

  Laura Mazarin Martinozzi—sister of Cardinal Mazarin, married to Count Girolamo Martinozzi

  Their children:

  Laura Martinozzi—married to Alfonso, Duke of Modena, daughter became queen of England

  Anne Martinozzi—married to Armand, Prince de Conti

  French Royals

  Anne of Austria, Queen of France—sister to Philip IV of Spain, widow of Louis XIII of France

  Their sons:

  Louis XIV, King of France—the Sun King

  Philippe, duc d’Anjou—later duc d’Orléans, known as Monsieur

  Gaston, duc d’Orléans—brother of the late Louis XIII of France

  Mademoiselle de Montpensier—his daughter, known as Mademoiselle

  English Royals

  Henrietta Maria, Queen of England—sister to Louis XIII, widow of Charles I of England

  Their children:

  Charles II, the exiled King of England—later restored to the English throne

  James, Duke of York

  Henry, Duke of Gloucester

  Henriette Anne—later known as Madame, duchesse d’Orléans

  House of Savoy

  Christine of France—sister to Louis XIII, married into the House of Savoy, known as Madame Royale

  Charles Emmanuel, duc de Savoy—her son

  Princess Margherita Yolande—her daughter

  Spanish Royals

  King Philip IV of Spain—brother of Queen Anne

  Maria-Thérèsa—his daughter, later queen of France

  Don Juan of Austria—his illegitimate son

  Courtiers and other characters

  Marquis Angelelli—friend of Constable Colonna

  Charles, comte D’Artagnan—a musketeer

  Anne-Lucie de La Motte d’Argencourt—encouraged by her father to flirt with Louis XIV

  Capita—the jester

  Jean-Baptiste Colbert—Mazarin’s assistant, later minister of finance

  Pierre Beauchamp—ballet master

  Isaac de Benserade—poet, salon attendee

  Don Carlo Colonna, Archbishop of Amasia—Constable Colonna’s uncle

  Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, Prince of Paliano, Constable of Naples—Marie’s suitor

  Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Condé—French prince, enemy of Cardinal Mazarin

  Oliver Cromwell—England’s Lord Protector

  Ninon de l’Enclos—courtesan

  Marie-Madeleine, comtesse de La Fayette—maid of honor to Queen Anne, author

  Hugues de Lionne—French statesman

  Charles, Prince of Lorraine—Marie’s suitor

  Jean-Baptiste Lully—composer

  Armand de la Meilleraye—nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, later duc de Mazarin

  Catherine Monvoisin—the witch known as La Voisin, later burned alive

  Françoise Bertaut, Madame de Motteville—Queen Anne’s lady in waiting, author

  Molière—playwright

  Moréna—Marie’s maid

  Madame d’Oradoux—Meilleraye’s cousin

  Celio Piccolomini—papal nuncio

  Don Antonio de Pimentel—Spanish envoy

  Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet—salon hostess

  Comte de Rebenac—French ambassador

  Armand Jean de Vignerot du Plessis, duc de Richelieu—great-nephew of Cardinal Richelieu

  François, duc de La Rochefoucauld—salon host, author

  Rose—nurse to the Mancini sisters

  Marguerite de la Sablière—salon attendee

  Charles de Saint-Évremond—writer, salon attendee

  Madeleine de Scudéry—salon hostess, author

  Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné—salon hostess, letter writer

  Antoine Baudeau de Somaize—secretary to the Précieuses

  Frances Stuart—later mistress to Charles II of England

  Colbert de Terron—cousin of Jean-Baptiste Colbert

  Christina Vasa—former queen of Sweden

  Madeleine, dame de Venelle—governess to the Mancini sisters

  Henri, vicomte de Turenne—Marshall General of France

  Conscious that freedom is the richest treasure in the world and that a noble and generous spirit must stop at nothing to acquire it, I applied my efforts to obtaining it.

  —FROM MARIE MANCINI’S MEMOIR,

  The Truth in Its Own Light

  PROLOGUE

  Madrid

  1689

  Footmen threw open the front doors of my casa, my sanctum of peaceful exile in Madrid for near a decade, and a whiff of spices and the gleam of moonlight filled my front hall. Olympia brushed in, tall and fashionable as ever in black French silks and familiar diamonds, looking only half of her fifty years. Though she had come to Madrid for her own exile years earlier, I had not seen my older sister since her arrival visit. She took one look at my Spanish garb and frowned her disdainful courtier’s frown. “Really, Marie, have you lost all sense of style?”

  I kissed each of her cheeks. “It is good of you to come. What a beautiful gown.”

  She fluffed out her skirts and glanced about the hall, taking in the oil paintings and the Turkish carpets and, no doubt, appraising the price of each gilded candelabra. It did not worry me. She would recognize nothing to claim from our departed uncle’s vast treasure trove. All of that had long been spent. “Yes,” she said with a grin. “My dressmaker says the secret to making a gown beautiful is putting it on me.”

  I swept my hand toward the seats in my salon. “Then grace my divan and elevate my casa with the favor of your presence.”

  She caught the sarcasm. Her frown returned. “Did you summon me to exchange spite?”

  “No.” I marched into the salon in a manner that required her to follow. “What news from the Alcázar palace?”

  She flopped down on the divan. “The court wears mourning for the Spanish queen.” The Spanish queen had been a member of the French royal family in Paris, where Olympia and I were once the celebrated nieces of Europe’s most powerful cardinal. France was no longer safe for Olympia, but in the Spanish queen’s court, she’d led one intrigue after another. I no longer cared for courts or intrigue. Oly
mpia went on. “In truth, nobody mourns her. The Spanish king had long tired of my old friend’s daughter.”

  “Didn’t you once try to steal that friend’s lover?”

  “The Sun King was my lover first, before you stole him from me,” she snapped.

  I gave her a look that told her she’d gone too far. “I tried to tell you potions wouldn’t make a king love you.”

  She looked away. “Perhaps I should have listened. You merely have to whisper your desires and men obey.”

  On this she was wrong. There was one who had resisted my whispers. “Everyone talked about the extreme measures you took to get him back. I warned you to stay away from that dreadful witch in Paris.”

  She glared. “I never poisoned the king’s mistresses. I just tried to replace them.”

  I hid my flush of jealousy at her use of the word them. “You managed to escape persecution in France, but you might not be so lucky this time. You gave the Spanish queen something to drink right before she died.”

  Olympia seemed stunned. “How do you know this?”

  Some things I just know. “The Spanish king believes you’re a sorceress, that you poisoned his queen. You will be accused before the Spanish Inquisition.”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “She complained of stomach fits and dizziness. I infused her milk with ginger and mint. To help, not to harm!”

  I sighed. “I believe you. Flee Madrid or risk another witchcraft trial.”

  Olympia muttered, “How much time do I have?”

  “Until dawn.”

  Her head jerked up. “This isn’t fair. You were the one born under an evil star.”

  “I’ve borne my suffering, you know I have. Each of our sisters has had to pay the price of our family name.” I walked to the window and gazed over the city. It wasn’t always this way for us Mancinis.

  Once, our uncle’s power eclipsed everyone’s. Once, his nieces were known as the Mazarinettes, and we were courted by kings and princes. And one king, the greatest monarch who ever lived, had loved Olympia. That is when everything changed. Because then his gaze fell on me, and France has never been the same.

  CHAPTER 1

  Palais du Louvre, Paris

  December 1656

  Servants struggled under heavy black mourning velvet, draping it across gilt-framed paintings and tapestries that adorned our uncle’s apartment at the Palais du Louvre in Paris. They worked their way around the chamber until even the windows were covered, though they couldn’t dim the opulence. From candles twinkling in crystal chandeliers to the incense of frankincense and myrrh wafting from a golden brasier to the polished marble floors, everything around us signified my uncle’s power. For such wealth stemmed from power, and my uncle was Cardinal Mazarin, the most powerful man not just in France but in all Europe. In a chair beside me, my sister Hortense eyed the mourning velvet and muttered, “Mamma isn’t dead yet.”

  I gripped my favorite novel tight. Our uncle had brought me into Paris days earlier in case Mamma requested me. He would send me back to my cold convent cell the moment she died. But what would he do with my dear sisters?

  Victoire, the eldest of the Mancini girls at twenty-two years, put a hand on Hortense’s arm. “The mourning cloth shows deference.” Victoire’s marriage to the duc de Mercœur elevated her rank to princess of the blood. Pregnant with her third child and adored by her husband, she brought pride to our family. “But prepare yourself, for the physicians say Mamma will not live.”

  Hortense turned to me with tears in her eyes. I was seventeen years of age, but this little ten-year-old sister was my closest, and perhaps only, friend. She was not only the prettiest Mancini but easily the prettiest creature I’d ever seen. It hurt to see her beautiful face look sad, and I pulled her into my embrace.

  Mamma had been ill, as we had all known she would be, for months. Our uncle had moved her from Palais Mazarin to the Louvre for access to the king’s physicians. Though busy as chief minister to King Louis the Fourteenth, the cardinal spared no expense trying to restore his sister’s health. We came every day to see her, and every day Mamma called in one of my sisters or my brother. But not me.

  Marianne, the youngest sister at six, eyed how I hugged Hortense and promptly started sniffling. Soft-hearted Victoire turned to comfort her. Marianne’s sniffles amplified to sobs.

  I myself was too fearful to cry, which seared me with guilt. When Mamma summons me, I must seize the moment. I must beg her to convince my uncle to keep me at court. God willing, my request wouldn’t kill her. I patted my skirts to ensure the bottle of lung-wort syrup was still tucked safely in my hanging pocket. My astrological judgment of her disease suggested that lung-wort, ruled by Jupiter, might comfort her.

  Hortense pulled away to study me. “Will His Eminence send you back to the Convent of the Visitation, Marie?”

  Too many of my childhood years in Rome were spent in the Benedictine Convent of Santa Maria in the Campo Marzio, while my oldest brothers and sisters were permitted to live in Paris with Uncle Mazarin. When our father died and Mazarin summoned the rest of the family, my mother intended to leave me at the Roman convent. I’d begged her to bring me, pointing out Paris had convents, too. She’d brought me reluctantly, and I’d hoped my uncle would let me live at court. He had taken one look at me and declared I was too scrawny, not pretty enough. He put me in the Convent of the Visitation beyond the city walls, sending Hortense sometimes to keep me company. I’d spent two years there. The thought of returning to the convent, where life offered no color, no light, and where nuns with hairy chins woke me at all hours of the night for matins, filled me with dread. “He will not send you back because of how lovely you’ve become.”

  A blush rose on her cherub-pink cheeks. She had no idea how her loveliness had cost me.

  The doors to my mother’s sickroom opened. Cardinal Mazarin emerged, red watered-silk cassock swishing around him, waxed mustache curved perfectly upward at the ends.

  All four of us scrambled to our feet. “Your Eminence,” we said in unison.

  He glanced over us. “Victoire, Hortense, and Marianne, your mother wants you.”

  She doesn’t want me. Again. My heart grew heavy. My sisters proceeded through the doors.

  But Hortense stopped short. “What about Marie?”

  His Eminence did not look at me. “Your mother has not summoned her yet.”

  Hortense glanced back. “She’ll be lonely.”

  Our uncle’s face softened. “Stay. I will tell your mother of your generous spirit.”

  Hortense didn’t mean to please, it just came naturally. A trait I had never possessed. The cardinal closed the doors, and Hortense returned to my side. But as soon as we opened my novel, the king’s herald sounded in the outer chambers. “His Majesty the King!”

  A row of pages in the king’s tricolor livery rushed to line the walls. In walked King Louis wearing his austere frown. He had visited my mother’s bedside before, but usually this antechamber was crowded. Now courtiers filing in behind the king encountered a mostly deserted room. One of the courtiers was Olympia, the second-oldest Mancini sister, and the king’s favorite. King Louis had dubbed her his fair-lady and showered her with gifts. She wrinkled her long slender nose at me, which made the courtiers snicker.

  King Louis looked at me. Even with his handsome aquiline nose and hooded hazel eyes, the king’s frown always made him seem aloof. It was impolite to stare directly at a king, but as I struggled to overcome my nervousness, I studied him openly. That is when I recognized in that frown an emotion I often saw in my own looking-glass: loneliness. He studied me back, and for the first time, it felt like someone was actually seeing me. I sensed it from the inside out. It swept my nervousness away like mist on the wind. He walked to me. “Mademoiselle Mancini, you hold vigil alone today?”

  Hortense cleared her throat. “I am here!”

  The king glanced. “So you are.” He gestured behind him. “I haven’t seen so many Mazarinettes in o
ne chamber in weeks.”

  He meant us, the nieces of Mazarin. The courtiers chuckled graciously, and my female relatives cast smiles at each other. Besides Hortense, Olympia, and myself, our Martinozzi cousin Anne stood in his throng. The Martinozzis were fair of hair and skin where we Mancinis were dark. Anne had become Princess de Conti by marriage, and our uncle had already sent her sister, Laura, to wed Alfonso d’Este, the Italian Duke of Modena. Like us, they were part of my uncle’s scheme to ally himself with powerful families. He had once tried to arrange a marriage for me. And now, with the king staring so intently at me, I became aware that the man who’d refused to wed me had entered with the courtiers. I wanted to run away. But Armand de la Meilleraye didn’t notice me. He had fixated on Hortense, ogling her. My little sister was so beautiful that the man selected to be my husband had refused me because he loved her.

  King Louis followed my gaze, and his expression changed. He leaned close and whispered, “Meilleraye is a fool. You’re better off without him.”

  He understands. My face burned. Though the courtiers hadn’t heard, they saw my blush and started whispering. I flushed all the more.

  King Louis glanced at my novel, where my knuckles were white from gripping it. “What are we reading?”

  I, the Mazarinette known for having brains instead of beauty, couldn’t remember. I looked at it blankly. “It is Gerusalemme Liberata.” He didn’t seem to recognize it. “Jerusalem Delivered. An Italian poem fraught with magic and romance.”

  He grinned, a subtle crack in that royal frown. “You ladies with your love stories.” His entourage giggled.

  “There are battles.” I held up the book. “The Crusades.”

  He seemed surprised. “Combat! That might be worth reading.”

  I extended it to him. “It may be why you start, but you’ll finish for the romance.”

  The courtiers stared. Were they shocked that I would speak to the king? Or at the daring way I’d spoken? King Louis took my book. My precious book!

  He held it up, glancing at his retinue. “Wait until my tutors hear I’ve taken reading suggestions from a convent-educated girl.” They tittered some more. He thumbed the pages. “The nuns let you read this?”