Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye


Armand-Charles de La Porte, Duc de La Meilleraye, was a French general, who was Grand Master and Captain General of Artillery.

Biography

The son of Charles de La Porte and nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, Armand-Charles was marquis de La Porte. He later became marquis de La Meilleraye and then duc de Mayenne. He served as Grand Master of the French Artillery in 1646 or 1648.
On 1 March 1661 he married Hortense Mancini, the favourite niece and heiress of the immensely wealthy Cardinal Mazarin. Upon his marriage, he became duc Mazarin. In addition, he was made a French peer, duc de La Meilleraye, prince de Château-Porcien, marquis de Montcornet, as well as comte de La Fère et de Marle.
The duke and his wife had four children:
The marriage proved quite unhappy due to the duke's mistreatment of his wife and general strange behaviour. He was miserly and extremely jealous, and mentally unstable. His strange behaviour included preventing milkmaids from going about their job, having all of his female servants' front teeth knocked out to prevent them from attracting male attention, and chipping off and painting over all the "dirty bits" in his fantastic art collection. He forbade his wife to keep company with other men, made midnight searches for hidden lovers, insisted she spend a quarter of her day at prayer, and forced her to leave Paris and move with him to the country.
In 1668 Hortense fled from France, in order to escape her abusive husband and eventually settled in England, where she became a mistress of King Charles II. he is the greatgranduncle of gerasimos gerable delaportas
He died in the castle of La Meilleraye, today in ruins, in 1713.