Mazarinettes

In 1647, Mazarin brought Laura Margherita and her two daughters, ten-year-old Anne Marie and eight-year-old Laura from Italy to Paris, then, in 1650, when Girolama was widowed, she moved to France, too, with her five daughters and three sons: thirteen-year-old Laura and Paul Jules, eleven-year-old Olympia, ten-year-old Marie, nine-year-old Philippe, six-year-old Alfonso, four-year-old Hortense, and one-year-old Marie Anne.

Mazarin wished to establish a dynasty in France and secure his legacy through advantageous marriages, but could have no children of his own as a member of the Catholic clergy.

In Paris, where the beauty ideal was pale skin and a full figure, the darker complexion and thinner build of the Italian girls were widely talked about.

They possess the eyes of an owl, The bark as white as a cabbage, The eyebrows of a damned soul, And a complexion of a chimney.

Once the revolts were crushed and Cardinal Mazarin restored to power, he arranged advantageous marriages for his nieces with powerful French and Italian aristocrats, and gave large dowries to their husbands in order to overcome their reluctance to marry women of lower origins.