After his death in 1650, her mother, Girolama Mazzarini, brought her daughters from Rome to Paris in the hope of using the influence of her brother, Cardinal Mazarin, to gain them advantageous marriages.

Charles II of England, the first cousin of Louis XIV, proposed to Hortense in 1659, but his offer was rejected by Cardinal Mazarin who believed the exiled king to have little in the way of prospects.

Hortense's hand was also requested by Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, another first cousin of Louis XIV, but arrangements fell through when Cardinal Mazarin refused to include the stronghold-castle of Pignerol in her dowry.

He forbade his wife to keep company with other men, made midnight searches for hidden lovers, insisted she spend a quarter of her day at prayer, and forced her to leave Paris and move with him to the country.

[6] Despite their differences, Hortense and her husband had four children: Leaving her small children behind, Hortense finally made a bid to escape from her hellish marriage on the night of 13 June 1668, with help from her brother, Philippe, Duc de Nevers, who procured horses and an escort to help her travel to Rome, where she counted on being able to take refuge with her sister Marie Mancini, now the Princess Colonna.

[citation needed] With the exception of Marguerite de Valois, Hortense and her sister, Marie Mancini, were the first women in France to put their memoirs into print.

The English ambassador to France, Ralph Montagu, aware of Hortense's desperate situation, enlisted her help in increasing his own standing with Charles II.

In 1675, she travelled to London under the pretext of a visit to her young niece, Mary of Modena, the new wife of Charles II's younger brother, James, Duke of York.

[11] This culminated in a very public, friendly fencing match in St James's Park, with the women clad in nightgowns, after which Anne's husband ordered his wife to the country.

And how few Objects are there, that can render it so entire a Pleasure, as at once to hear you speak, and to look upon your Beauty?Attending Mancini's salon, with its discussion of science as well as literary works, certainly had a noticeable effect on Behn's creativity.

On the Sunday before his death, the diarist John Evelyn wrote of: the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarin [Hortense Mancini being the Duchesse Mazarin]... Six days after, all was in dust.Following the death of Charles II, Hortense was well-provided for by James II, possibly because of her kinship with James's wife, the new queen, Mary of Modena.

She had been the richest lady in Europe; she was niece to Cardinal Mazarin, and was married to the richest subject in Europe, as was said; she was born at Rome, educated in France, and was an extraordinary beauty and wit, but dissolute, and impatient of matrimonial restraint, so as to be abandoned by her husband, and banished: when she came to England for shelter, lived on a pension given her here, and is reported to have hastened her death by intemperate drinking strong spirits.

[17] Her husband managed to continue the drama after her death; he carted her body around with him on his travels in France, before finally allowing it to be interred by the tomb of her uncle, Cardinal Mazarin.

Louise Julie was the first sister to attract the king, followed by Pauline Félicité, but it was Marie Anne, the youngest and prettiest one, who was the most successful in manipulating him and becoming politically powerful.

Their great-granddaughter, Louise Félicité Victoire d'Aumont, duchesse Mazarin et de La Meilleraye (1759–1826), married Honoré IV, Prince of Monaco in 1777.