public, friendly fencing match in St. James's Park, with the women clad in nightgowns, after which Anne's husband ordered his wife to the country. There she refused to do anything but lie in bed, repeatedly kissing a miniature of Hortense. Secondly, she began an affair with Louis I de Grimaldi, Prince de Monaco. Charles remonstrated with her and cut off her pension, although within a couple of days he repented and restarted the payments. However, this signified the end of Hortense's position as the king's favourite. Though she and Charles remained friends, the Duchess of Portsmouth returned to her role as ’maitresse en titre’. The introduction to Aphra Behn's The History of the Nun has been taken as a suggestion that Behn too had romantic relations with Hortense during this same time. It reads: to the Most Illustrious Princess, The Dutchess of Mazarine...how infinitely one of Your own Sex ador'd You, and that, among all the numerous Conquest, Your Grace has made over the Hearts of Men, Your Grace had not subdu'd a more intire Slave; I assure you, Madam, there is neither Compliment, nor Poetry, in this humble Declaration, but a Truth, which has cost me a great deal of Inquietude, for that Fortune has not set me in such a Station, as might justifie my Pretence to the honour and satisfaction of being ever near Your Grace, to view eternally that lovely Person, and here that surprising Wit; what can be more grateful to a Heart, than so great, and so agreeable, an Entertainment? And how few Objects are there, that can render it so entire a Pleasure, as at once to hear you speak, and to look upon your Beauty? Attending Mancini's salon, with its discussion of science as well as literary works, certainly had a noticeable effect on Behn's creativity. Public reading of a scientific text by Fontanelle at the salon increased interest in it and she soon translated it. Hortense, however, maintained good relations with the king until his death. On the Sunday before his death, the diarist John Evelyn wrote of: the King sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarin [Hortense Mancini being the Duchesse Mazarin]... Six days after, all was in dust. After Charles II's death Following the death of Charles II, Hortense was well-provided for by James II, possibly because of her kinship with James's wife, the new queen,