Mazarinettes

thumb|300x300px|Three of the Mazarinettes portrayed as goddesses, Venus (mythology)|Venus, Juno and Diana: Olympia (left), Hortense (center) and [[Marie Mancini (right)]]

The Mazarinettes were the seven nieces of Cardinal Jules Mazarin, (1639–1661), chief minister to the Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France from 1642 until his death.thumb|200px|Cardinal MazarinThey were the daughters of the cardinal's two sisters, Laura Margherita (died 1685), the wife of Girolamo Martinozzi, and Girolama, (1614–1656), the wife of Michele Lorenzo Mancini. In 1647, Mazarin brought Laura Margherita and her two daughters, ten-year-old Anne Marie and eight-year-old Laura from Italy to Paris, then, in 1650, when Girolama was widowed, she moved to France, too, with her five daughters and three sons: thirteen-year-old Laura and Paul Jules, eleven-year-old Olympia, ten-year-old Marie, nine-year-old Philippe, six-year-old Alfonso, four-year-old Hortense, and one-year-old Marie Anne.