Oh darlings.
Buckle up.
Do I have a #BygoneBadassBroads for you today.

Today we are talking about Hortense Mancini, the bi duchess who took back her life from an abusive husband and lived on her own terms.

EVERYTHING ABOUT HER STORY IS WILD AND WONDERFUL AND I AM SO OBSESSED LET ME TELL YOU EVERYTHING.

Our story begins.
Hortense was born rich in 1646 in Rome. She was one of five fabulously beautiful sisters and her father was a necromancer.

Yep. A Necromancer.
I know, I know, we’re already off to a great start.

Hortense's uncle was Cardinal Mazarin, chief advisor/government puppet-master of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. You remember him.

Hortense’s father died when she was four, and since there was no other necromancer around, he stayed dead.

Don’t worry--Uncle Cardinal Mazarin took the girls in.
Took them into the heart of Sodom itself, that is--the court of the sun king himself.

So Hortense was raised in Versailles, one of the very rich, “famous for being famous” 17th century Kardashian sisters.

They were gorgeous, they were scandalous, they were known as The Mazarinettes and they were the most eligible bachelorettes in Europe.

They had their pick of men. But Hortense set her sights on Charles, a party boy from England who had just arrived in exile in Versailles.

Reader, she slept with him.
With a lot of shared interests and a passion for breaking rules, Hortense and Charles fell in passionate love.

Charles proposed, promising teenage Hortense a fabulous life of fabulous parties and to one day make her queen of England.

To which Uncle Cardinal Mazarin said “Hell to the no.”
Hortense was way more valuable than an English fuqboi in exile.

Instead, he saw her married to the richest man in Europe.
Unfortunately, this rich man was a shitbag religious fanatic twice her age.

His name was Armand-Charles de La Porte, Duc de La Meilleraye, which is a whole tweet itself.
And he was cocoa bananas.

Examples of what an asshat he was: All women in his service had their teeth knocked out so their suggestive smiles wouldnt tempt men to lust

He covered nude paintings of men so his blushing bride wouldn’t be tempted when she saw them.

He was so paranoid she was cheating on him, he would burst in to Hortense's room with no warning, trying to catch her with a lover.

And then he's make her pray all day, punish her for her "sins," and drag her around Europe against her will and basically hold her hostage.

He kept Hortense isolated, controlled where she went, was verbally abusive--literally the dick of all dicks.

Hortense knew it. And she was so not into it.

Since her husband was so determined to keep her from the company of men lest her weak woman heart be unable to resist the sexy man body…

Hortense found a work around: If she could not have the romantic company of men, she sought out the company of women.

Aramand was furious when he found out his wife was trimming the hedgerow with a woman, so he had them both sent to a convent.

Which is such a bad plan if you’re trying stop two women to sleep together.
But Hortense and her girlfriend didn't tell him that.

Not only was it now much easier to sleep together in a secluded convent, they also liked to play pranks like pouring ink in the holy water.

The nuns caught on, unfortunately. Hortense was sent back to Armand.
Foiled again.

By this point, Hortense had been with Armand 7 years.
And she was so fucking done.
She couldn’t get a divorce because the 17th century sucks

So she did something few women of her time had the guts or means to do: she left him.

Hortense left her dipshit husband in the middle of the night, dressed as a man, and fled to Rome to take refuge with her sister Marie.

But things weren’t awesome for Marie either--her husband was trying to murder her--so together the sisters ran back to France.

Where good old King Louis declared them under his protection, so no one could mess with them THIS MEANS YOU ARMAND.

Hortense had a pension. A house. A lover. She was an independent woman! Everything was great. Until….

Armand got his hands on Hortense’s finances and froze all her assets until she agreed to return to him.

But no fucking way was she going back to her abusive husband.
Instead, Hortense ran again, this time to England to seek out an old flame.

Remember that Charles? He was now Charles II, king of England, and Hortense became one of his mistresses.

In England, Hortense enjoyed spending her pension on partying, drinking, sword fighting, and general debauchery.

Charles had other mistresses & Hortense had a bad taste in her mouth from the first time she tied herself to a man so they both slept around

She kept a long list of lovers and Charles was completely cool with it.
....Until Hortense slept with Charles's daughter.

Her affair with his daughter, by the way, went public when the two women dueled at midnight in their nightgowns on the palace lawn.

YOU
CANNOT
MAKE
THIS
SHIT
UP
DEAR
LORD
I
LOVE
HISTORY

Charles separated Hortense and his daughter, but Hortense kept living in London, making her home a den for artists and bohemians.

But then, likely with a swish of a cloak and a mustache twirl, ARMAND WAS BACK LIKE A BAD FLU.

& he wanted Hortense velcroed to his side again, since they were still married & her running out had really embarrassed him. Poor man child.

He took the case to court.
The law ruled on his side and ordered Hortense return to him.
She did not.

She lived for ten more years, until 1699, a runaway bride evading the law and her evil husband. She never returned to him.

BUT.
(This is perhaps the first BBB story to continue after the death of the woman)

Hortense died with lots of debt cause evading a husband isn't cheap. In order to get Armand to pay up, because she was his responsibility….

They held her body hostage until Armand paid up.
Which he did.
BUT THEN.

Crazy Armand continued to be the actual living worst kind of man--the sort who will not rest until he has displayed his power over a woman.

He then took her body ON A TOUR OF FRANCE. Some say in a casket, others propped up in his carriage.
Either way CREEPY AF.

CREEPY and INVASIVE and CLEARLY JUST ABOUT CONTROL that he was parading his dead wife’s body around France.

But I take savage pleasure in knowing the only way her abusive jagweed husband could control Hortense was when she was literally dead.

SO EAT A BAG OF DICKS, ARMAND.

Hortense Mancini, the runaway bride who escaped an abusive husband to live life on her own terms.