Free The Kings' Mistresses by Elizabeth Goldsmith Page B

was one of the earliest examples of what would later become a vogue of gambling spots in London and Paris, often hosted by women. Her salon became famous as a gambling site, or “gambling academy,” as it was often termed. Hortense became known for her big wins, and even more notorious for her losses. She began to accumulate debts while showing no inclination to curb her passion for the game of basset, all the rage in London’s racier social circles by the end of the seventeenth century. Looking back on the heady years of Restoration society from a more
sober vantage point in 1714, Theophilius Lucas compiled an encyclopedia of famous gamblers titled Lives of the Gamesters . Hortense Mazarin was the only woman he included.
    Her social circle also continued to be noted for literary and political discussions as well as musical performances in which Hortense participated as performer and singer. In the 1680s Hortense’s home continued to receive a steady flow of visitors from the Continent. Some were simply curious to see this “famous beauty and errant lady”; others were writers, artists, and scientists drawn to the salon over which she and Saint-Evremond presided. Her salon became a focal point for popular discussions of science and art, and for pre-publication readings of French writers newly translated into English, and English into French. Saint-Evremond, ever attentive to his friend’s attraction to danger, wrote verse praising her happy transitions from the gambling table to more elevated interactions. When Bernard de Fontenelle’s dialogues on astronomy, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, first appeared, Hortense was obsessed with it and could talk of nothing else for days. “No one would dare speak of Basset even for a moment,” wrote Saint-Evremond. “All is moon, sun, circle, orb, and firmament.” 25 His French audiences read of her salon with pleasure and came to regard it as an outpost of French culture and sociability: “It is true that people often argue,” he wrote, “but it is more reasoned than heated. It is less to contradict people, and more to shed light on the subject, more to enliven conversation and less to embitter the mind. . . . Madame Mazarin spreads over all a kind of easy air, free and natural; one would say that things just proceed of their own accord, so difficult it is to see their secret hidden order.” 26
    These were good years for Hortense. But in the winter of 1684–1685 two dramatic events occurred to darken her happiness. The first was another casualty of her personal charisma. Among the visitors from France was a young relative, Philippe de Soissons,
the seventeen-year-old son of her sister Olympe. The boy had quickly become infatuated with his aunt, so much so that he developed a strong antipathy for one of her admirers she particularly favored, a visiting Swedish baron. Young Philippe challenged the man to a duel and, to everyone’s astonishment and horror, fatally wounded him. Hortense was furious and inconsolable, draping her rooms in black and refusing to leave her lodgings. Young Soissons was forced to flee on the spot to avoid arrest. The event damaged Hortense’s ever-fragile but mending connections with the French court, as well as with her own family. “Who would have thought that the eyes of a grandmother could still wreak such havoc,” wrote Madame de Sévigné. 27 (At thirty-nine, Hortense already had children who were married.)
    In London she was more easily forgiven, at least among her friends, including the king. Just a few months later she was already back at Whitehall sharing a gaming table with Charles and two of his mistresses. On a night in early February 1685, John Evelyn was received at the royal residence and recorded in his diary the shock and disapproval that the spectacle inspired in him: “I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming, and all