∎ PDF The Kings' Mistresses The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense Duchess Mazarin Elizabeth C Goldsmith Books

The Kings' Mistresses The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense Duchess Mazarin Elizabeth C Goldsmith Books

Download As PDF : The Kings' Mistresses The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense Duchess Mazarin Elizabeth C Goldsmith Books

The Kings' Mistresses The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense Duchess Mazarin Elizabeth C Goldsmith Books

Wow. I’m adding this to my list of ‘books to re-read’. I really liked this book. It covers the lives of two women at a point in time where the concepts of feminism are starting to get traction. The author covers feminists, both male and female, in the book, and it’s fascinating to read about the different options to open to women of the time. I recommend this very highly.


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The Kings' Mistresses The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini Princess Colonna and Her Sister Hortense Duchess Mazarin Elizabeth C Goldsmith Books Reviews

Two sisters, friends of King George XIV, made their contributions to the modern day woman. They left their husbands and children in order to "live, make their own decisions, own art, have their own money. Intriguing.
Genuinely modern women. On a historical note, I was surprised to read just how Italian Cardinal Mazarin was.
Ms. Goldsmith does true justice in bringing to life the stories of two women who had the courage to pursue their own independence and freedom at a time when wives were considered property of their husbands. She helps the reader to understand the historical, political and social context of the day so that the reader gains full appreciation for the sacrifices and obstacles these women overcame. We come to admire their sheer guts and willingness to go against social norms of the day, and they do so with vitality, cunning and no shame. These two were true pioneers of the feminist movement - kudos to Ms. Goldsmith for not letting these incredible women become minor footnotes in history!

It is important to note that this is not a historical novel, but rather a well-organized dissertation of Marie and Hortense Mancini as might be expected of a university professor author.
I liked that it gave the reader a different view of how women managed in days past.
This is an intriguing book and the result of some excellent research. As the other reviewers have well explained, these two sisters defied all the rules of the day to fight for their independence, particularly from their obnoxious and cruel husbands. In the process they somehow managed to become mistresses of the two great kings of the period The Sun King, Louis XIV of France and the famous/infamous but always delightful Charles II of England. They fled across Europe to evade control of their possessing husbands. You will be both amazed by their stories (they were always brave but not always wise) and learn a great deal about those interesting times. If you have any interest in English/French/Italian/Spanish history of the period, don't miss this book.
The book reads almost like a soap opera script, for one can't believe the ups and downs of these two women, sisters, and their lives. Although born into the aristocracy, neither woman had it easy, for women had so few rights back then. They are bartered by family members for power, and their marriages aren't for love but for social--political connections. You couldn't pay me enough money to want to live as a woman of the aristocracy in the 18th century. Their lives were not their own as this books shows quite well. I felt sorry for Marie and Hortense, yet I also got tired of them too for they seemed to make the same mistakes throughout their lives.

I was drawn in by their story, so good writing here.
Elizabeth Goldsmith's The King's Mistresses is a fast-paced yet serious, empathetic yet solidly researched, close look at the lives of the Mancini sisters, nieces of the famous Cardinal Mazarin who more or less ruled France for a generation during the minority of King Louis XIV. Both were richly but unhappily married and fled their husbands in a time when society simply did not recognize the right of wives to leave even the most bizarre of male-owned households.
Their story is told with grace and erudition in an enthralling tale of two arranged marriages gone bad, narrow escapes from domineering and brutal, borderline crazy husbands, a Europe-wide cry for understanding their plight, and the life-long bond of sisterhood in both wealth and misery. Readers will be frustrated at the extent to which a husband's authority over his wife was protected even by those who, like Louis XIV himself, had every sympathy for the unhappy sisters trapped in unholy matrimony. Kings appear (including Louis XIV of France, Charles II of England, and Carlos II of Spain) not to mention queens, regents, cardinals, dukes and counts galore, yet by analyzing and quoting the hard-to-find letters of the sisters themselves and their friends in depth, Goldsmith brings us so directly and so closely into the personal lives of these three-centuries-dead noblewomen that it seems at times as if she were writing the biography of two infamous women who just died in this last decade. Indeed, the Mancini sisters seem to speak at times directly to us.
A triumph of the marriage of good story-telling biography and judicious scholarship (a marriage far happier than that of the poor Mancini ladies!), Goldsmith's The King's Mistresses will bring to life, with a modern feminist awareness, a rich and true tale of two sad lives of two noble sisters from long ago. The Mancinis will enter your mind easily, but they will linger there long after the book's last pages have been turned...
Wow. I’m adding this to my list of ‘books to re-read’. I really liked this book. It covers the lives of two women at a point in time where the concepts of feminism are starting to get traction. The author covers feminists, both male and female, in the book, and it’s fascinating to read about the different options to open to women of the time. I recommend this very highly.