True Pleasures Read online

  I’m also ill-prepared. To do anything in Paris one generally requires several letters of introduction, preferably with credentials, stamps and other visual symbols of importance, all supplied well in advance, because spontaneity does not sit well with the French. But I’m an Australian, I’m here for a short time, and I’m hopeful. I just wish I looked more elegant.

  I walk slowly through the courtyard and up the stairs to be stopped by a soft-eyed, soft-bellied official. I inquire, cautiously, if there are to be any guided tours of the Institut. He nods, bored, eyes turned down.

  ‘Yes, on the first Saturday of each month, Madame. We had a tour last Saturday, if Madame would like to register for the next one?’

  I try to remain dignified, and fail. ‘Oh, but I have to be back home by then. And it will be a while before I can get back here.’ Just as I feared, here it comes: the look, the shrug, the indifferent silence.

  ‘Perhaps I could write a letter? To gain entry on another occasion.’ An upward curve of the lips is my answer: sure, it suggests, go right ahead.

  ‘The thing is,’ I say, ‘I am looking for someone.’

  ‘Oui, Madame?’

  ‘Well, um, you see, it’s possible that she is entombed under your cupola.’

  Monsieur may be a mere guard at the Institut de France, but he is also a custodian of French culture. I watch the interest rise like a fast tide in his brown eyes. I can practically hear him upgrade me mentally from tourist (of no interest) to scholar (of potential value to the continuing glory of France).

  Not that we rush into things. Monsieur slowly takes a generous breath and blows his nose. Then he leans into me, resting his belly comfortably against the counter. It’s the cue for me to begin. And I tell him in my halting French the strange tale of Hortense Mancini, the most beautiful and wild of the five nieces of Cardinal Mazarin.

  Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin, was just twenty-three years old in 1668 when she set off to pursue her fortune. She left her husband and four children, her palace and status, her security and honor. She never lived in France again. For the next seven years she roamed around Europe. For several years she settled as the mistress of the Duke of Savoy but when he died his widow, not unreasonably, threw Hortense out. Finally, Hortense rode into London in 1675, where she became one of the mistresses of merry King Charles II. She stayed in England for the rest of her life and died in London in 1699.

  I stop to draw breath, but Monsieur decides to take charge of the conversation.

  ‘Madame, if she died in London, why would you imagine that she is buried here in Paris?’

  ‘Well, her husband remained obsessed with her for twenty years. He even mounted a lawsuit in England to force her to return to him. After she died, he came to England, put the body of Hortense in a coffin and carted it about Europe from one estate to another for many years. Hortense was carried from Vincennes to Brittany, from Bourbon to Alsace.’

  ‘And then?’ Monsieur’s left eyebrow arches.

  ‘What finally happened isn’t clear. But according to the books I have read, it seems that Hortense was eventually buried in the sarcophagus with her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin.’

  Monsieur nods slowly. But he doubles back to the question that no doubt has been troubling this Parisian from the start. ‘Why on earth would she want to leave Paris in the first place?’

  I have a very satisfactory answer to that one.

  ‘Because her husband was mad,’ I reply.

  Monsieur nods with world-weary resignation: ah, yes, madness. He pauses for a beat. Then suddenly he draws back and looks over my shoulder at the clock on the wall behind me. He twists around to a wooden shelf hung with sets of keys. He plucks a handful from the shelf. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘But we must hurry.’ But we don’t hurry. We walk slowly across the courtyard. Monsieur uses his shoulders to coax his stomach to a forward momentum.

  We walk up wide wooden stairs and now Monsieur unlocks a heavy door, ushering me into a high, greenish room. It’s Cardinal Mazarin’s chapel, the home of the Académie Française. The milky light from the cupola pours in. Forty green seats are arranged in a forest-colored semi-circle, like a mini parliament. There’s a statue of Napoleon in one corner. It’s cool here, and quiet, and very empty. Monsieur’s chest swells with pride at this place, and its significance. Of course it does. Here some of the greatest have taken their place: Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand and Jean Cocteau. I feel suitably, sincerely, awed.

  And there, in an alcove, is a tomb. We walk over together, a little self-conscious now, and we stare at it. It consists of a large black sarcophagus on a pedestal. Standing upon it is Cardinal Mazarin himself in huge marble effigy, complete with pointy nose, flowing gowns and attendant cherub. Below the sarcophagus, guarding it perhaps, or advertising its importance, are three large carved ebony figures representing Peace, Prudence and Fidelity. This is a famous sculpture by Coysevox, but neither of us is thinking about this monument as a work of art. We are looking for the body.

  We continue gazing intently at the tomb as if expecting Hortense to leap out from behind it. But even though the sarcophagus is clearly big enough for two, there is no sign whatsoever to indicate that Hortense Mancini has been buried with her uncle. No plaque, no statue, no nothing.

  It occurs to me that, strictly speaking, Hortense was never welcome in this place. The Académie Française is famously a bastion of conservatism, and particularly sexism. Out of a total of seven hundred Académiciens since Cardinal Richelieu created the Académie in 1635, only four have been women. The first woman Académicien was Marguerite Yourcenar and she was elected in 1980, when she was seventy-seven years old. Even she was unsure of the legitimacy of her being there.

  This uncertain, floating me, whose existence I myself dispute, Yourcenar said in her inaugural address to the assembly, here it is, surrounded, accompanied by an invisible troupe of women who perhaps should have received this honour long before, so that I am tempted to stand aside to let their shadows pass … Among the invisible troupe she mentioned were Germaine de Staël, George Sand and Colette, not one of whom was ever invited to take their place in this room.

  Yourcenar went on: One cannot say that in French society, so impregnated with feminine influences, the Academy has been a notable misogynist; it simply conformed to the custom that willingly placed a woman on a pedestal but did not permit itself to officially offer her a chair.

  That, I think, was Hortense’s situation. She was offered no formal ‘chair’; indeed, she never produced a single work of art. But she did find herself upon a pedestal. Within a year of her arrival in London, Hortense was hosting an important salon, bringing the spirit of France into London society. As a contemporary noted, All manner of subjects were discoursed upon there, as philosophy, history, pieces of wit and gallantry, plays, authors ancient and modern, the niceties of the French tongue and so on. One of her courtiers was Ninon de Lanclos’s pen friend, St Evremond, who faithfully attended her until she died. Hortense soon became one of Louis XIV’s great exports, part of the marketing of French culture that occurred through the seventeenth century. Her political importance was such that the French Ambassador used to report to Louis XIV on Hortense’s activities.

  But now Monsieur is looking at me with narrowed eyes. ‘She is not here,’ he says, shaking his head at his own credulousness. He lifts his arm pointedly and looks at his watch.

  Oh, yes, I’m not meant to be here either.

  As I turn I think: of course, this is a place of male ritual. And even though this room is officially a center of French culture, of Frenchness, the absence of women makes it, in truth, un-French, even anti-French. This empty room is wonderful, but it’s not where the heart of French culture beats. If it exists, it’s surely somewhere else – it’s where the women are. And if she were ever here, the presence of Hortense Mancini has now been completely erased.

  We leave and the great key turns again in the lock. I sense that my guide wants to get rid of
me quickly now that our quest has failed.

  On the way downstairs, I thank Monsieur profusely, I apologize for disturbing him, and then, suddenly, regretfully, I am expelled from the cool fish tank of the Institut into the hot bright day. Instantly the sweat breaks out again on my legs. I need a surge of cold air and a drink.

  Paris is one of the few cities in the world where a woman can be comfortable on her own. Solitary women are everywhere: in little teashops or brasseries, in bistros or restaurants. Sometimes women bring a docile husband with them (whom they tend to ignore) or a little and ugly dog (which they lavishly pet). Now I notice a new accessory has taken off – the mobile phone.

  But there are still plenty of women like me, cheerfully alone, cooling down in a modest teashop behind the Louvre. During earlier visits to Paris I liked to pose in café windows looking moody and intellectual, scribbling into a notebook what I fondly told myself were haunting haiku. Now I don’t bother. I don’t bother to look purposeful and get out a mobile phone or a diary and write. I do what Parisians do – I sit and stare.

  Have you ever wondered at the numbers of mirrors in Paris? I used to think it was because Parisians were vain and liked to look at themselves. But it’s not that, or not only that. It’s because the French enjoy looking at people, and don’t mind being looked at in return. It’s why the most famous reception room in France is the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. It’s why all the café chairs are side by side and face the streets. Inside many cafés a mirrored strip around the wall ensures that each face is seen from three angles. The French are comfortable with the provocative idea that other people make interesting viewing. (The writer Colette’s very last words were Regarde! Regarde!) This is a profoundly disturbing notion to Anglo-Celtic societies, which is one reason I like it so much. I also like it because of its next logical conclusion: if people are objects of aesthetic pleasure, then everyone has their role to play in contributing to the beauty of their surroundings.

  That’s one reason why visiting the Hall of Mirrors is always a faintly disappointing experience – the mirrors should reflect exquisite men and women twirling in ice-cream-colored silks and snowy wigs under the warm twinkle of thousands of candles. Instead, they reflect Midwestern Americans in primary colored microfibers.

  As I sip my drink, my head is framed in triplicate for anyone who cares to look at me. I am reminded of that famous Brassai photograph of the thirties’ lovers caught multiply in corner mirrors, she with her head arched playfully back and her cigarette raised; he leaning in to her, captivated; and we, Brassai’s curious audience, peering at both.

  Which gets me thinking about Hortense again. She was one of those women people looked at – and talked about – all her life. There’s a portrait of Hortense with one delicate breast exposed in a white chemise. She gazes serenely at the viewer – she might, you imagine, be surprised if she looked down and caught sight of her vagrant nipple. Or perhaps not, for Hortense took to the life of a courtesan with remarkable gusto.

  Hortense Mancini grew up in the spotlight, a European celebrity from birth. She was the second youngest of Cardinal Mazarin’s five Mancini nieces – Parisians called them Les Mazarinettes – each of them brought over from Italy as children. Courtesan Ninon de Lanclos wrote to St Evremond that she thought charm ran through their blood. But even among this bevy of beauties, Hortense was special. Not only was she the most beautiful of the Cardinal’s nieces, she was one of the most perfect beauties of Louis XIV’s young court. She had pale olive skin, large blue-grey eyes, soft black curls and a statuesque figure. One contemporary admirer said she wasn’t like one of those insipid French dolls, but more of a ‘lofty Roman Beauty’. Even when she was getting older, Hortense retained her powerful appeal: at the age of thirty-nine, men were still fighting duels over her. As Madame de Sévigné exclaimed, Who would have believed that the eyes of a grandmother could work such havoc?

  Hortense’s beauty alone doesn’t explain why she fascinated so many people. She was famous because she broke the rules. People in court circles felt that vicarious shiver of excitement as they followed the next instalment of the Hortense Mancini story: what would she do next? It wasn’t that Hortense set out to destroy society or undermine its values. She wasn’t a romantic rebel or social revolutionary; far from it. She simply wanted to redefine her own place within society, to re-establish the social order under different circumstances. But that alone, of course, was daring enough.

  When her protector, the Duke of Savoy, died in 1675 and Hortense was forced to seek shelter in England, she couldn’t travel from northern Italy across France because her obsessive husband still had spies looking out for her. Hortense had to ride across French enemy territory in Switzerland, Alsace and Germany to Amsterdam to embark on the boat for England. She dressed as a man in the wig, plumed hat and silk culottes of a cavalier. She had abandoned her past and faced an uncertain future, but you wouldn’t have guessed it. On the way she bumped into a girlfriend who, far from delighting in her friend’s good spirits, was outraged that Hortense refused to be humbled by life’s disasters. What is most strange, railed Sidonie de Courcelles, is that this woman triumphs over all her misfortunes by an excess of folly which has no parallel and that after receiving this setback she thinks only of enjoying herself. When passing through here she was on horseback, befeathered and bewigged, escorted by twenty men. She talked of nothing but violins and of hunting parties and everything else that gives pleasure.

  This story, of course, made the rounds of the Paris salons. Depending on their temperament, Parisians were either captivated or appalled by a woman who seemed so happy in the midst of her life’s shambles.

  While Hortense was King Charles II’s mistress, one of his daughters, by his long-standing mistress Barbara Cleveland, fell passionately in love with her. Instead of carefully discouraging this inappropriate relationship, Hortense ignored the King’s explicit instructions and therefore her own clear social and financial interests. She and the Countess of Sussex struck up a scandalous friendship: they even took up fencing together, according to one outraged observer, dashing boisterously into St James Park for early-morning jousts with drawn swords beneath their nightgowns. It was typical of Hortense to follow her instincts rather than her interests. As a result, the King downgraded his relationship with her immediately. Hortense became less important to ambassadors; her income less secure; her social status only guaranteed by her own charms, not her royal associations. Yet in London her salon continued to shine.

  For Hortense, life was irrepressibly about everything that gives pleasure. The puritans and the naysayers couldn’t bear it that Hortense broke the rules and got away with it. They used words like folly and dissoluteness about her actions. The English puritan John Evelyn called her that famous and errant Lady, the Dutchesse of Mazarine, adding darkly, all the world knows her storie. But Hortense’s pursuit of pleasure wasn’t dissolute: it was so arrow-like, so direct and unalloyed, it attained almost to innocence.

  I decide to ignore my tiredness and walk the short distance to see where her adventures began – and to contemplate all that she left behind.

  The Bibliothèque Richelieu on rue de Richelieu was formerly the national library of France, but now houses some of the nation’s specialist manuscript and coin collections. I pause on the street outside to read the plaque. At the center of this complex of palaces and grand houses is the Palais Mazarin, formerly the Hôtel Tubeuf, owned by Cardinal Mazarin and bequeathed to his sixteen-year-old niece Hortense on the occasion of her marriage. I feel a pleased tingle. Here was Hortense Mancini’s home for seven years.

  I walk through the courtyard and then wind my way around the library foyer, poking my head down corridors and into various reading rooms. I’m looking for one particular room but don’t really expect to find it – numerous renovations will surely have submerged it or altered it beyond recognition. But this is Paris, and of course I should know better. For, unexpectedly, here I am. I recognize it instantly
from the descriptions I have read. The gallery is long and wide. The high ceiling is elaborately painted. Grand alcoves form natural display cases, backlit by arched windows. And here’s the bust of the Cardinal himself, sitting high over the portal. It’s as if I have dropped into Hortense’s life at that decisive moment, when the event took place that would trigger her vagabond wanderings. I look around expectantly, but it’s clear that these scholarly and preoccupied French people do not share my excitement.

  When Cardinal Mazarin bequeathed his home to his niece and her husband, he also left them his priceless collection of classical sculptures, carefully selected and installed in a long gallery built for the purpose. This room. The collection of Greek and Roman antiquities was famous – it was certainly the most important of its kind in France, and one of the greatest in Europe. These were peerless objects of beauty, representing a pinnacle of aesthetic achievement and a monument to the enlightenment of the ancient world.

  But, as I explained to Monsieur at the Institut, Hortense Mancini’s husband, the duc de Mazarin, was mad. His insanity had a prudish, religious edge to it. He wanted his little daughters to have their front teeth extracted so they wouldn’t be dangerously beautiful like their mother. He wouldn’t let the women of his household staff look at cows being milked as he was sure it provoked lewd thoughts. No one liked him: even the King, Louis XIV himself, couldn’t stand him. No wonder. The duc used to lecture the King on his infidelities, saying he was instructed to do so by the Archangel Gabriel.

  One warm night in June 1668, the duc walked into this room. He looked around at the four hundred classical statues, the vast majority of which were, of course, nude. He was offended; more than this, he was appalled. He called for a hammer and began slowly, methodically, madly smashing the statues. It took a long time. The King learned of the desecration and sent emissaries to try and stop the tragedy, but it was too late. A priceless collection of antiquities had been destroyed.