had four sisters known for their extraordinary beauty, and she surpassed them all in it. In her fifteenth year she married a duke who later inherited from her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, his name and his fortune. Her husband was exceedingly jealous; for that reason he would take her with him on his rounds and his travels, for fear that King Charles or the men of his court might carry her off in his absence. Until she fled, and was caught, together with her sister, dressed in men's clothing. Then she escaped once more, to England, where Charles tried to tempt her to become his mistress; but she refused and chose a man of the common people to live with!

Hortense was the friend of philosophers and men of thought, and the literature of her age spoke of her with much admiration and esteem.

She was described as having the longest hair in the world, the thickest, and the most beautiful.

• The country: France; the century: the seventeenth.

A painting by an unknown artist of the beauty Hortense Mancini, Duchess of Mazarin.

• The same country and century.

A drawing (of the year 1687) by the artist Nicolas Arnoult, depicting the family of the heir to the throne.