The Kings' Mistresses Read Online Free PDF Page B

motherhood were influenced, too, by the readings and storytelling of her youth that remained popular among female readers long into adulthood, fairy tales and legends that relentlessly focused on fertility, pregnancy, and the power and danger that came to women through their capacity to bear children. Like the husbands in these tales, Lorenzo had indulged his pregnant wife, sometimes to his regret (as when he allowed her to go riding), other times to his satisfaction (as when he rushed to be with her for the birth of a son). Marie understood the importance of fertility in a noble marriage and the control this could give her over her husband. She also was apprehensive about the loss of power that their separazione di letto would generate for her. But in this era when one out of ten women could expect to die in childbirth, she also believed strongly in her own right to a long life after becoming a mother. Her older sister Laure-Victoire, who had been so welcoming to her younger siblings when they first arrived in France, had died at twenty-two after the birth of her third child. Marie was determined not to let this be her own fate.
    Later, in her memoirs, Marie lucidly acknowledged the consequences she faced as a result of this decision. She wrote that others
were quick to profit from her new “political sterility” with respect to Lorenzo and his family. While she was pregnant with her own third child, she had learned of Lorenzo’s illegitimate daughter. And so, jealousy reared its ugly head in this marriage that had enjoyed a period of conjugal peace and collaboration. Lorenzo would quickly prove himself to be even more prone to that passion than his wife was.
    Still, the public face of the Colonna couple continued to be a fairly harmonious one, particularly in the cultural sphere where they had enjoyed their most spectacular mutual successes. From 1663 to 1667 Marie and Lorenzo spent every carnival season, running from the day after Christmas to the beginning of Lent, in Venice, where they were deeply involved in promoting theater and spectacle. Beginning in 1667 they turned their attention to producing theatrical performances in the palazzo, which became the centerpiece of the dramatic arts in Rome. During the reign of the severe Pope Alexander, theater was banned in the holy city, but when Clement IX succeeded him in 1667, a new era of public art and spectacle was initiated. Not only did Clement permit plays to be produced, but he also wrote them himself and was often in the audience. The exiled Queen Christina of Sweden, who had made her principal residence in Rome since dramatically renouncing the throne and converting to Catholicism, presided over a second theater and hosted intellectual discussions among (mostly male) scientists and philosophers at her residence close to the Vatican. Queen Christina’s gatherings provided lively competition for Marie’s salon-style conversations grouping men and women, artists, writers, and travelers.
    Their long seasons in Venice had established both Marie and Lorenzo as important patrons of theater, with six operas over three seasons dedicated to them. The couple personally supported the most famous opera singers of the day, one of whom, Antonia Coresi,
was close to Marie personally, serving as her maid for ten years. The young singer was brought with her husband, the musician Nicolo Coresi, to live in the Colonna household and remained there until Marie herself left. Marie referred to her proudly in describing the operas in which she sang, singling out Cesti’s opera Titus, which was dedicated to Marie. The theme of the opera, which tells the story of the Emperor Titus, who must give up his true love to make a royal marriage, had a special resonance for Marie. In France, Jean Racine would write the play Berenice on the subject in which Marie’s famous words addressed to Louis XIV would be echoed by the rejected title character: “Sire, you are emperor,