relations between Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm and Warsaw known as the "Crown of the North Alliance". She worked with the French ambassador Robert Le Roux d'Esenval and his successor Melchior de Polignac to settle unsettled affairs within the Crown of the North Alliance as well as the Peace treaty with Turkey. In 1695 she successfully solved the conflict between the King's backer, the Bishop of Vilnius, Konstanty Brzostowski, and Kazimiers Jan Sapieha, as she wished to win the Sapieha party to support her son's candidacy as king. Queen Marie Casimire herself commented concerning the great political influence she had during the reign of her spouse in a letter in retrospect: "I bear the burden of all the matters at hand, as my late husband loved me more than I deserved. Therefore, he did anything that pleased me and that I allowed for, as he considered me smarter than I am". Later life Marie Casimire was described as hard, arrogant, and self-centered. She was widowed in 1696. She remained in Poland for three years. In 1699, she departed for a distinguished exile in Rome. She was expected to be accepted with the same respect and prestige as Christina, Queen of Sweden, a well-known art patron and founder of the Academy of Arcadia. But Marie Casimire was not considered to possess Queen Christina's virtues, neither her nobility, nor her intellect. She believed that her devoted support of Catholicism vis-a-vis the Turks would receive an enthusiastic reception from the church in Rome, but that the Swedish queen, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, had also elevated her status in the eyes of the Vatican. Nevertheless, Marie Casimire was well received and became a music patron who was mainly patronized by Domenico Scarlatti. In his role as maestro di Capella, he composed and produced seven operas with her, as a continuation of the operas written by his father, Alessandro. Marysieńka spent the last one and a half years of her life in her native France, where in January 1716 she died after a rinsing of the stomach administered by a doctor. The coffin was moved to the chapel of St. Eustace in the church of St. Savior in Blois. On the other hand, the heart was put in a casket in the local Jesuit church (it was later lost during the French Revolution). Then in 1717, the coffin with Marysieńka's body was buried in