Mazarin, Jules (Giulio Mazarini; 1602–1661)

MAZARIN, JULES (Giulio Mazarini; 1602–1661)

MAZARIN, JULES (Giulio Mazarini; 1602–1661), diplomat, cardinal, and first minister during the regency of King Louis XIV of France. Born near Pascina outside Rome on 14 July 1602, Mazarin was the eldest son of six children. He received an early Jesuit education in Rome and then pursued further studies in Spain. With the patronage and support of the Colonna family, who had ties to the court of Pope Urban VIII (reigned 1623–1644), he initially entered into the papal army in 1624, but by the late 1620s instead took the initial vows of a cleric and became a papal diplomat.

In 1630, while serving as an envoy for the papal court in the negotiations that sought an end to the war between Spain and France over the disputed succession of the crown of Mantua, Mazarin traveled to France to meet with Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII's first minister. Mazarin's deft negotiating skills endeared him to the powerful French royal minister and helped to secure temporary peace between Spain and France.

Thanks to his success in the Mantua affair, the pope sent Mazarin to Paris in 1634 as his ambassador (nuncio) to the French court with the goal of realizing a lasting peace settlement between Spain and France. While in Paris, Richelieu and Mazarin began a mutually beneficial political relationship. In 1635, however, Richelieu adopted a policy of continued war with Spain in the context of the Thirty Years' War; Mazarin had failed in his mission to bring peace, and the pope recalled him. Once back at the papal court, Mazarin maintained his political ties to France and actively represented French interests there.

In 1638, in gratitude for his work on behalf of France in Rome, Louis XIII pressed the pope to promote Mazarin to cardinal; he received the cardinal's hat 16 December 1641. As his nomination for cardinal was in the making, Louis XIII and Richelieu invited Mazarin to France to enter into the service of the French king. Mazarin left Rome, never to return, and arrived in Paris in January 1640.

In the service of the French crown, Mazarin's diplomatic goals remained the same: to secure peace between Spain and France. His initial years in France, however, proved to be ones of domestic political instability and crisis with the death of Richelieu in December 1642 closely followed by that of Louis XIII in May 1643. The succession of the five-year-old Louis XIV to the throne in 1643 ushered in a regency government with the acting regent, the Spanish Queen Anne of Austria, holding the political authority of the king in trusteeship until he reached the age of majority when he could assume the full powers of the crown. As Richelieu's protégé and Louis XIV's godfather, Mazarin became the first minister; together, he and the queen worked as close political partners trying to stabilize the weak and vulnerable regency government. Although contemporaries and scholars alike have speculated that an even more intimate bond developed between the first minister and queen, there is no conclusive evidence as to the exact nature of their relationship.

With Mazarin and Anne of Austia at the helm of the government, a complex series of domestic revolts, collectively called the Fronde, developed in France, beginning in 1648 and lasting until 1653. The revolts began with the judges of the parlement or law court in Paris, spread to gain backing among some key nobles and princes, and then found popular support in Paris as well as the provinces. Although the causes of the revolts were rooted in varied and complex issues involving royal authority, including the levying of new taxes, the perceived abuse of royal authority in dealings with the parlement, and the crown's reliance on royal commissioned officers (intendants) in the outlying provinces, the revolts of the Fronde did specifically target Mazarin and Anne of Austria, seeking to remove these "foreigners" from power. During the crisis, pamphlets called "Mazarinades" circulated throughout France. These often-satirical pamphlets fueled the revolts as they contained scathing criticisms of Mazarin, Anne of Austria, and the regency government. The revolts of the Fronde forced Anne of Austria and Louis XIV, along with Mazarin, to flee Paris in 1649. Mazarin remained in exile from France during much of the Fronde, but continued to work with Anne of Austria and other noble factions loyal to their cause to bring an end to the revolts in 1653. The coronation of sixteen-year-old Louis XIV at Rheims Cathedral in June 1654 and Mazarin's return to Paris marked the end of the crisis and the full restoration of the first minister.

Even in the midst of the Fronde, Mazarin continued to direct France's foreign policy. He played an important part in the negotiations for the Peace of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1648. Despite this treaty, which brought peace to much of warring Europe, the war between France and Spain continued. Mazarin pursued a policy of allying with German princes and England against the Habsburgs in an effort to force peace with Spain. Under the terms of the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659, Mazarin finally secured his long-term goal of peace between France and Spain. The marriage of Louis XIV to the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse in 1660 sealed the peace.

As both a father figure and political mentor, Mazarin prepared Louis XIV to govern France by tutoring him in the craft of kingship and by providing the king with loyal advisors and able ministers, such as Michel Le Tellier and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who would serve the crown after Mazarin's death. Mazarin died 9 March 1661 in the palace of Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris, leaving a legacy of a stronger, more stable France in domestic and international politics. Upon the death of his beloved first minister, godfather, and tutor, Louis XIV announced that he would name no other first minister, marking the clear advent of his personal rule as king.

See also Anne of Austria ; Colbert, Jean-Baptiste ; France ; Fronde ; Louis XIII (France) ; Louis XIV (France) ; Mantuan Succession, War of the (1627–1631) ; Pyrenees, Peace of the (1659) ; Richelieu, Armand-Jean Du Plessis, cardinal ; Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) ; Westphalia, Peace of (1648) .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bergin, Joseph. "Cardinal Mazarin and his Benefices." French History 1 (1987): 3–26.

Bonney, Richard. "Cardinal Mazarin and the Great Nobility during the Fronde." English Historical Review 96 (1981): 818–833.

——. Political Change in France under Richelieu and Mazarin 1624–1661. Oxford and New York, 1978.

Bonney, Richard, ed. Society and Government under Richelieu and Mazarin. Basingstoke, U.K., 1988.

Dethan, Georges. The Young Mazarin. London, 1977. Translation of Mazarin et ses amis (Paris, 1981).

Goubert, Pierre. Mazarin. Paris, 1990.

Treasure, Geoffrey. Mazarin: The Crisis of Absolutism in France. London and New York, 1995.

Sara E. Chapman