The Kings' Mistresses (24 page)

Lorenzo had agreed to his wife's travel to Spain with the stipulation that she be escorted by his half-brother Don Ferdinando, who was under strict instructions to report on her every move. From the moment of his arrival in Brussels, Don Ferdinando had already managed to provide Marie and her household with more comfortable living conditions. So, as Marie and her entourage set sail from the harbor of Ostend in Spanish Flanders on a warm June day in 1674, there was general goodwill and optimism that they were headed toward a brighter future. They were passengers on an English merchant vessel headed to the Atlantic coast of Spain. The winds and weather favored them, and after only nine days of smooth sailing they landed in San Sebastián. Marie was able to set out immediately by carriage for Madrid. She received a welcoming message from Spain's queen regent, Mariana of Austria, and not long after that a message from the Don Juan de Cabrera, Admiral of Castile, the second-highest dignitary in the kingdom, who announced his intention to receive her personally and to provide her with her own residence. It appeared that Marie finally would realize her most fervent wish, “to live at peace in a house of my own.” She was escorted first to the Casa de Huerta, the splendid country residence of the admiral just east of the capital city and surrounded by expansive gardens, where she happily settled in.

The landscape of Spain that Marie crossed as she rode in carriages relayed from San Sebastián to Burgos, Alcobendas, and finally to Madrid was stranger than she had anticipated. In the 1670s, although Spain was still arguably the most powerful realm in Europe,
it was a poor country, with roads that were much rougher than those of northern Europe. Mule-drawn carriages bumped along at a slow and deliberate pace. When Marie entered the carriage that was sent for her, she had to push aside several layers of heavy curtains. Women who traveled were not supposed to be seen, nor were they expected to try to see the sights outside their carriage window. In the hot June sun, the voyage was stifling.

But the admiral's gardens soon helped her forget the uneasiness of her voyage. She noted that her luxurious surroundings at the Casa de Huerta were, as she put it, “decorated with a very great number of the richest and most beautiful paintings there are in all of Europe.”
¹
This was reminiscent of her Roman days. She was not in a hurry to leave, though she quickly was becoming aware of some of the more dramatic differences in what was considered acceptable behavior for Spanish women compared with that of French or Italian ladies. Though she had chafed at the restrictions on her freedom in Rome, in Spain they were far more severe. In the admiral's gardens she could wander as she pleased, but outside the enclosed walls of their residences, noblewomen were not permitted to walk about alone. The most familiar structures in the city were convents and monasteries—Madrid had more than fifty in 1674, at a time when the population was under 150,000. Marie's friend the writer Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy would record her impressions of Spain in a travelogue reflecting on her own voyage to Spain a few years later:

Marie regarded this new world with trepidation. She had been in Paris when Louis XIV's Spanish queen had been introduced to the French court, and she had heard the stories of the rigidity of the queen's manners and the stiffness of her clothes. Royalty in Spain cultivated a frozen, godlike demeanor that stood in odd contrast to the impoverished, almost rustic atmosphere that prevailed just outside the palace walls in the capital city. Madame d'Aulnoy remarked in her travelogue that Madrid seemed to be inhabited only by the very rich or the very poor: “There are only seven or eight streets filled with merchants. You will find no boutiques in this city, except for those that sell sweets, liqueurs, jams, ice water and pastries.”
³
Spanish courtiers always seemed hungry and ill-mannered at table; they “ate like wolves” and were permitted to take away food from the lavish banquets held at court. The ladies, constrained by their heavy clothing, “after stuffing themselves with candied fruits, filled five or six kerchiefs that they had brought expressly for that purpose.”
⁴

It was a foreign culture, but Marie was determined to find a secure place in it. She focused her attention on being received at court and wrote letters to the queen regent requesting an audience. She studied the Spanish fashions and had new veils and dresses made for herself, complete with the uncomfortable whale-bone girdles and hoops that served as undergarments and gave the dresses their awkward geometric shapes. Spanish women's dresses of the day were constructed on a kind of frame made up of several hoops that supported multiple layers of fabric. She insisted that her servants also observe the Spanish fashions, which they found trying. Nanette wrote a letter to Lorenzo complaining that she had been punished for not wearing her uncomfortable new dress all day:

Marie was determined, and perhaps more irritable than usual with some in her household, as she reflected on her next move. She pressed the admiral to help her find a suitable independent lodging, a house, she proposed, on the grounds of a convent, of course. She remained at Casa de Huerta but was eager to move on with her plans. The admiral was a relaxed and gracious host, even a bit too leisurely for the impatient Marie. She noted a “certain slowness” in his character and worried that it might be easier for him to keep her there rather than to press the queen to grant her request.

As she waited for her opportunity to be received at court, Marie decided one evening to take a little outing accompanied only by Morena, to explore the surrounding area. Even the easygoing admiral, when he found out about it, considered this an overly bold move. The papal envoy to Madrid, who along with Lorenzo's relatives was keeping a close watch on Marie's movements, was quick to report the misbehavior to Cardinal Altieri: “Yesterday, unbeknownst to Don Ferdinand or the admiral, Madame Colonna, who is residing in his home, went off alone in a carriage with her Turkish maid on a promenade by the river. Everyone was astonished. . . . This action if it becomes known will scandalize the court, where one never sees a lady in public.”
⁶
After this incident, though, the admiral was not quite so slow in helping Marie to receive her audience with the queen. When in August 1674 her request finally was granted, Marie caused a stir by appearing in a heavily ornamented dress in the Spanish style, complete with a huge rectangular hoop (the French called it a “princess guard”) supporting yards of heavy fabric. She could not have looked more Spanish. On the last day of August she received her authorization to take
up residence in a small house adjoining the convent of Santo Domingo el Real in Madrid.

The Constabless Colonna was well aware that in her new living arrangement she was still being closely observed by agents of her husband—in fact, one-half of her modest house was prepared as a residence for Don Ferdinando—but she was still optimistic that this move would mark the beginning of her new independence. She had not been writing to Lorenzo in her first months in Madrid and had concentrated instead on developing her own network of contacts. Her memoirs later would record her own effort to be hopeful despite the very clear signs that this new residence was not a place from which she could freely come and go: “I was given the house that adjoins the convent; half of it was made into my apartment, to which a hatch and metal bars were added, and the other half was left for the abbé Don Ferdinand Colonna and for the rest of my servants.”
⁷
But, she added, “I made new acquaintances in the convent and felt fairly happy there.” In a letter to the Countess Stella, who had remained at the Colonna palazzo as a dependent, she also tried to underline her satisfaction:

For these first few months, things seemed to be going well. When Lorenzo had authorized her move to Spain, Marie had hoped that he would allow her to play some role in looking after the family's interests there. She had already been able to obtain from the Spanish queen honors for her sons, including, for the ten-year old Marcantonio, the title of commander of two companies of cavalry. Lorenzo had not discouraged her efforts, seeming to recognize that Marie could be useful. She also had asked that the papal envoy procure special permission for her to leave the convent lodgings once a week. No one seemed to have any objection to this and the formal request had been sent to Cardinal Altieri in Rome. But Lorenzo was toying with her. Although he allowed himself to be persuaded that she could serve as a kind of family representative in Madrid, he was determined to allow her that function only on very restricted terms. Unknown to Marie, he had decided to oppose granting his estranged wife even the small freedom of weekly promenades. He had written to the Spanish court and made his wishes clear to both his family in Madrid and to papal advisers in Rome. Altieri was forced to tell the papal envoy that there was nothing he could do to moderate Lorenzo's stance: “Monsieur the Constable refuses the requests of Madame his wife, and I will write to her without saying precisely that, but in such a way that she will understand.”
⁹

By March, it was clear to Marie that her hoped-for liberty would not be realized. Her other fervent request, to be permitted to finally see at least one of her sons again, was also denied. In her memoirs written two years later, the memory was recent and still painful:

In 1675 she resumed her letters to Lorenzo, this time taking a different tone. Now she made no attempt to disguise her anger and hostility:

Three years had now passed since Marie had left. In Rome, Lorenzo was finally resuming the lifestyle at the palazzo Colonna that he had cultivated during Marie's presence. For the 1675 carnival he hosted his first theatrical production since his wife's departure. The Roman newsletters announced that “the house of signor Constable is freely open for staging plays.” Reports of the festivities reached Marie's household, and Nanette wrote to the Countess Stella that in Madrid, Mardi Gras was not quite so much fun, “as you told us that you had a grand carnival I will tell you that we had a good and nice holy week, and while I like Madrid well enough, for
your love, my dear Madam and that of everyone, I would have better liked to see your carnival.”
¹²
Meanwhile, Lorenzo continued his close contact with informants in Madrid, continuing to provide Marie with some funds but conceding nothing regarding her disputed
libertà.

In June 1675, news arrived of the unexpected death of Charles-Emmanuel, the Duke of Savoy, another blow to Marie. She had maintained a close correspondence with him and he had continued to sympathize with her while remaining baffled and fascinated by this woman he termed the “bizarre Colonna.” He had sent her gifts in Madrid and taken delight in the reports of her pleasure at receiving them. He had continued to politely urge her to return to Rome, while at the same time trying to persuade Lorenzo to grant her principal condition for returning, that she be permitted to live apart from him. Charles-Emmanuel's sudden death meant that Marie, like her sister Hortense, had lost a powerful ally.