The Countess of Soissons, explained Abbot Melani, was none other than Maria's elder sister. She was called Olimpia Mancini and, according to some, she had been among the young King's initiators in the arts of love.
In the spring of 1654, when she was seventeen and Louis fifteen, they would often dance together on festive occasions; and she nursed the kind of hopes that might be expected in the circumstances…
However, her uncle, the Cardinal, promised her early on to the Count of Soissons, a member of the House of Savoy related to the royal family. They married in 1657.
"Olimpia was rather envious by nature," croaked Atto, bringing up what was plainly a disagreeable memory. "She had a long, pointed face with no beauty about it other than dimples on her cheeks and two vivacious eyes, which were unfortunately too small. The court wondered: 'Was she ever the King's mistress?'"
"Well, was she?" I interrupted, in the hope that Melani would let drop some detail of interest for my research.
"That is not the right question. One cannot speak of mistresses in connection with a fifteen-year-old boy. The most that might be asked is whether they may have given in to their urges. And the answer is: what does it matter?"
According to Atto, one thing was certain: whether platonic or not, the time passed with Olimpia left absolutely no mark on the young King: nothing that touched his soul. And when Maria and Louis's hearts first beat for one another, Olimpia was already expecting her first son.
"Alas, pregnancy did nothing to curb her terrible jealousy for her sister, who had succeeded in the most natural way in the world in obtaining what she had vainly but deliberately set out to win: the heart of the young King."
Spite thus spurred Olimpia once more to flirt with the Sovereign, between her first and second pregnancies; but this time, in vain. She then gained the secret support of the Queen Mother, who feared the love between Louis and Maria, and took pleasure in troubling her sister by showing her letters in which the King's mother expressed her opposition.
"So it was she who calumnied Maria in the King's ear, as soon as she returned to Paris after the Spanish wedding!" I realised in surprise.
Given my condition as a foundling who had never had brothers and sisters, I had always dreamed of and liked to imagine myself with many, many siblings. And in my dreams, I always saw them as the truest and most trustworthy of friends.
"Are you surprised? Since the times of Cain and Abel, things have gone thus," replied Atto with a complacent air, whereupon he recited:
Blood brothers often will ingest
Dame Envy's fatal venom best:
First Cain, then Esau, and Thyestes,
And Jacob's sons and Eteocles,
For they were fired much more than others
As if their victims weren't their brothers,
And consanguinity incited
Will burn up stronger when ignited.
"As you heard, it is no accident that Sebastian Brant, who is so dear to that Albicastro, should have dedicated verses in his Ship of Fools to fraternal hatred. Fortunately, however, there is no infallible rule. Maria always kept up the closest of ties with another of her sisters, Ortensia."
Ah, yes, I thought. Was not Atto himself a living example of fraternal love? He had all his life been tied to his brothers by an unbreakable mutual aid pact. I had heard of this many years before, at the Locanda del Donzello, when a lodger hissed disapprovingly that the brothers Melani always moved "in a pack, like wolves".
"So Olimpia, as I was telling you, whispered malevolently in the King's ear that, while he was away at the Spanish border getting married, Maria had allowed herself to be courted by the young Charles of Lorraine and was even prepared to marry him."
"And what was she supposed to do, poor thing?" I commented. "By now, the King had taken a wife."
"Precisely, Maria was looking for a French match. She had no desire to return to Italy where women of high rank are compelled to rot at home as mere ornaments."
With malign joy, Olimpia saw her calumnies bear fruit. It happened when Maria was presented to Louis' new bride. This was the first time she had seen the King after a long absence: that time had seen their separation, Mazarin's violence and Louis's tears at the fortress of Brouage. Love, and with it jealousy, had not come to an end; it had simply been cast in chains.
Well, when Maria again came before him, Louis, eaten up by jealousy, looked at her with such coldness and scorn that she was barely able to complete the three ritual reverences. Olimpia's wickedness had triumphed.
Mazarin, on his deathbed, richly rewarded Olimpia's zeal in separating Louis and Maria: he appointed her superintendent of the Queen's household, to the great displeasure of Maria Teresa herself, who was anything but pleased to have her still hopefully hanging around her husband.
"Poor Maria Teresa. Olimpia took advantage of her closeness to the Queen to be the first to reveal the King's adulterous affairs to her."
It happened with Louis XIV's first official mistress, Louise de la Valliere. Olimpia, who stuck her nose in everywhere, offered her to the King as a screen, to cover his nocturnal promenades with his sister-in-law Henriette, secretly delighted that the man she could not have was now deceiving his own consort.
But the fence that separates the power of sovereigns from their desires is easily swept aside, and thus in the end it was Louise who became the King's real mistress. Then Olimpia became her bitterest enemy, putting another of the Queen's maids of honour, Anne-Lucie de la Motte, into the fiery Sovereign's bed and then informing the naive Louise by means of an anonymous letter. Unable to separate the two lovers, Olimpia obtained an audience with the Queen and told her everything: from the King's escapades to the steady relationship with Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Then she sat back and enjoyed the spectacle: torrents of tears, a memorable scene between the King and his mother, and finally a palace scandal involving all the maids of honour.
The King himself remedied all this. In his exasperation, he took advantage of the opportunity to break away from his mother's influence and impose Mademoiselle de la Valliere on her, on his wife and on the whole court as his first official mistress.
"Olimpia was now hoist of her own petard," laughed the Abbot, "and that was the beginning of her ruin which, after all she had got up to, was not long in coming."
"Look!" I exclaimed, interrupting the narration.
We had passed the San Pancrazio Gate and had almost reached the Vessel. Before the entrance of the villa stood three magnificent carriages.
"One of them is Cardinal Spada's," I noticed.
Suddenly, the three carriages moved off and turned to the right. As they drew away, we could clearly see that they were empty. Their passengers (Spada, Spinola and Albani) had descended at the Vessel, where, presumably, their lackeys would later be returning to collect them.
"Take courage, my boy, perhaps this time we're in luck: the trio are 'on board'," commented Melani.
So the three cardinals had returned to meet at Benedetti's villa. The time before, we had attempted to trace them, but in vain. Now we had found them by chance: perhaps it would go better this time.
Seeing that we had almost arrived at our destination, Atto rapidly completed his tale.
"Olimpia was ruined by her own jealous fury. She ended up by commissioning anathemas and poisons for the lovers of the Most Christian King and love potions for Louis himself. All these intrigues came to light with the Affair of the Poisons, which cost her an arrest warrant and compelled her to flee in all haste to Brussels. To this day, she still hops from place to place throughout Europe, a prey to an irreducible hatred for France, striving by all the means in her power to harm the reign of the Most Christian King. She is suspected, among other things, of having poisoned her husband, and even Madame Henriette and her daughter.