Olympia Mancini

Olympia Mancini was courted by the young Louis XIV, was driven out of France as a suspected poisoner, and was the mother of Prince Eugene of Savoy. She was one of the Mazarinettes, the nieces Cardinal Mazarin brought from Rome to marry into the French aristocracy; she arrived in 1647 and was a favourite of the king in his teens, before he turned to her sister Marie, whom Mazarin removed from court to prevent a marriage. Olympia was married in 1657 to Eugene Maurice of Savoy-Carignan, Count of Soissons, and made superintendent of the queen's household. She was a persistent intriguer, was involved in the campaign against Louise de La Valliere, and was twice sent from court for it. In 1679 the Affair of the Poisons - the investigation begun after the arrest of the fortune teller La Voisin - produced accusations that she had bought poison and that she had killed her husband, who had died suddenly in 1673. The king warned her privately and she left France overnight for Brussels rather than face the tribunal, which was generally read as an admission. She was never tried. She spent the rest of her life moving between Brussels, Spain and Germany under recurrent suspicion. Her son Eugene, refused a commission by Louis XIV, went to the emperor instead and spent forty years beating French armies, which contemporaries treated as her revenge whether she intended it or not. She died in Brussels. Her sister Hortense and her sister Marie both wrote memoirs and both left their husbands, which contemporaries treated as a family trait. She was suspected again in Spain in 1689 when the young queen Marie Louise died suddenly, and left the country afterwards. Nothing was proved on either occasion, and both charges rest on the same reputation.

• Lived: 1638 CE – 1708 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: other