Cardinal Mazarin

Cardinal Jules Mazarin (, also , , ; 14 July 1602 – 9 March 1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino () or Mazarini, was an Italian cardinal, diplomat and politician who served as the chief minister to the Kings of France Louis XIII and Louis XIV from 1642 to his death. In 1654, he acquired the title Duke of Mayenne and in 1659 that of 1st Duke of Rethel and Nevers.

After serving as a papal diplomat for Pope Urban VIII, Mazarin offered his diplomatic services to Cardinal Richelieu and moved to Paris in 1640. After the death of Richelieu in 1642, Mazarin took his place as first minister and then of Louis XIII in 1643. Mazarin acted as the head of the government for Anne of Austria, the regent for the young Louis XIV. Mazarin was also made responsible for the king's education until he came of age.

The first years of Mazarin in office were marked by military victories in the Thirty Years' War, which he used to make France the main European power and establish the Peace of Westphalia (1646–1648). A major uprising against Anne of Austria and Mazarin, called the Fronde and led by the nobles of the Parliament of Paris, broke out in Paris in 1648, followed by a second Fronde, led by Louis, Grand Condé, who had turned from his chief ally to his chief enemy. Mazarin took Anne of Austria and Louis XIV out of Paris and then shifted his base to Germany for a time. Turenne, a general loyal to Louis XIV and Mazarin, defeated Condé, and Mazarin made a triumphal return to Paris in 1653.

The last years of Mazarin's life, between 1657 and his death in 1661, were marked by a series of major diplomatic victories. In 1657 he made a military alliance with England. In 1658 he unveiled the League of the Rhine, a new group of 50 small German principalities, which were now linked by a treaty with France. The same year, Marshal Turenne decisively defeated the army of Condé at the Battle of the Dunes in Flanders. Between February and June 1659, Mazarin conducted intensive negotiations with the Spanish. On 7 November 1659, Spain signed the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which added Artois, the Cerdagne and Roussillon as new provinces of France. That was followed in June 1660 by an even more important diplomatic event that had been carefully arranged by Mazarin, the marriage of Louis XIV with Maria Theresa of Spain. The marriage took place in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. The couple made a triumphant entry into Paris on 26 August 1660. The marriage and accompanying agreements ended, at least for a time, the long and costly wars between the Habsburgs and France.
Exhausted by his diplomatic efforts, Mazarin died in 1661.

Mazarin, as the ''de facto'' ruler of France for nearly two decades, played a crucial role in establishing the Westphalian principles that would guide European states' foreign policy and the prevailing world order. Some of the principles, such as the nation state's sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs and the legal equality among states, have remained the basis of international law to this day.

In addition to his diplomacy, Mazarin was an important patron of the arts. He introduced Italian opera on a grand scale to Paris and assembled a remarkable art collection, much of which today can be seen in the Louvre. He also founded the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the first true public library in France, which is now found in the Institut de France, across the Seine from the Louvre.

Early life

Giulio Mazzarino was born on 14 July 1602 in Pescina in the Abruzzo province of Italy, about one hundred twenty kilometers from Rome. His parents were residents of Rome, spending the summer in Pescina to escape the summer heat. His father, Pietro Mazzarino (1576-1654), had moved to Rome from Sicily in 1590 to become a chamberlain in the family of Filippo I Colonna, the Grand Constable of Naples. His father became a citizen of Rome in 1608. His mother Ortensia Bufalini (1575-1644) was a native of Rome, from the Bufalini family of nobility whose origins were in Città di Castello in Umbria. The family had moved to Rome in the Middle Ages. She was the goddaughter of Filippo I Colonna, her husband's employer. Giulio was the eldest of six children, two boys and four girls.

Through the influence of the Colonnas, Giulio was admitted at the age of seven to the Jesuit College in Rome, the most respected school in the city. Though he declined to join their order, he excelled in his studies. In 1618, at the age of sixteen, he gave a public lecture on theories explaining Halley's comet, which appeared in that year. He also excelled in theatrics; he was chosen to play the part of the newly sainted Ignatius of Loyola in a religious pageant. He also acquired the habit of gambling at cards, and frequently was in debt. A particular favourite game of his was a variant of Hoc named after him: Hoc Mazarin.

When he was twenty his father decided to send him away from the bad influences of Rome. Giulio accompanied Girolamo Colonna, one of the sons of Filippo I Colonna, who was eighteen, to the Complutense University of Madrid (then located in Alcalá de Henares) in Spain. He studied law with Girolamo during the daytime and in the evenings continued to gamble and again was in debt. A notary who had advanced some cash to cover gaming debts urged the charming and personable young Mazarino to take his daughter as bride, with a substantial dowry, and Giulio accepted. Girolamo Colonna wrote urgently to his father in Rome, and Giulio was ordered to return immediately to Rome, without his fiancée.

Papal envoy

Upon his return to Rome, he resumed his studies, this time in law. In 1628 he received the title of doctor ''in utroque jure'', meaning he could practice both civil and canonical law. In the same year Ferdinand II, the Habsburg emperor, laid claim to a papal territory, the Valtellina, in the Italian alps. Pope Urban VIII raised an army to defend his territory. The Prince of Palestrina, who was also a member of the Colonna family, commanded a new regiment of the Papal army, and invited Giulio to become a lieutenant in the regiment. Since neither the regiment nor Giulio had any military experience, they were assigned to a town far from the front line. Giulio knew little of military discipline. He received a message from Rome informing that his mother was seriously ill. Without asking permission from his commander, he immediately rode to Rome, and stayed there until his mother had recovered. He was summoned before the Pope, Urban VIII, to explain why he had deserted his post. He threw himself at the feet of the Pope, and pleaded to be pardoned for his excess of loyalty to his family. The Pope was impressed by Giulio's spontaneity and eloquence, forgave his desertion, and invited him to become a Papal emissary.

In 1628 Mazarin was named the secretary to Jean-François Sacchetti, a senior papal diplomat, who was trying to prevent the impending War of the Mantuan Succession between the armies of France and Spain for dominance of that region of northern Italy. Throughout 1629 and 1630 he shuttled between Milan, Mantua, Turin, Casale and France, trying to find a solution to the crisis before the fighting began. This became, throughout his career, his standard method of diplomacy; traveling continually, getting to know and win the trust of as many decision-makers as possible. During this time he came to know Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the head of diplomacy for the papacy, and, more important, Cardinal Richelieu of France, his future mentor, whom he first met in Lyon on 29 January 1630. Richelieu was aloof and confrontational; he wrote afterwards: "This Mazarini is here more to spy than to negotiate....He is so Spanish and so Savoyard that what he says shouldn't be taken as gospel truth."

Richelieu at first decided to ignore Mazarin's diplomacy and to send the French army across the Alps into Italy. On 26 October 1630 the French and Spanish armies met outside the walls of the French-held town of Casale, ready to fight. Suddenly, a man on horseback with a flag appeared, galloping toward them, crying "Pace! Pace!" ("Peace! Peace!") It was Mazarin, carrying an agreement from the Spanish commander to evacuate their soldiers from the town if the French would leave Montferrat to Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Mazarin brought together the Spanish and French commanders and explained the terms of the agreement, which were readily accepted by both sides. Mazarin had achieved his first diplomatic success.

The result of Mazarin's first diplomatic efforts was the Treaty of Cherasco, 6 April 1631, in which the Emperor and the Duke of Savoy recognized the possession of Mantua and part of Monferrat by Charles Gonzaga and the French occupation of the strategic stronghold of Pinerolo, the gate to the valley of the Po, to the great satisfaction of Richelieu and King Louis XIII of France.

The Pope sent Mazarin to Paris at the beginning of 1631 to work out the final details of the agreement. He returned to France again from April to July 1632. He had his first interview with Lous XIII and with the Queen, Anne of Austria, in May 1632. He tried to persuade Louis XIII to send a military expedition to capture Geneva, the fortress of the Protestant movement, but the King, who had good relations with the Swiss cantons, rejected the idea. Mazarin returned to Rome in November 1632, and made a new friend and ally, Antonio Barberini, the nephew of the Pope and one of his chief diplomats, and his older brother, Francesco Barberini, the Cardinal Secretary of State. With their assistance, he established himself as a guardian of French interests in Rome, and then of papal interests in France. In 1632, he was named papal vice-legate at Avignon, appointed a prelate, and began to wear ecclesiastical dress, though he was not and never became a priest.

While in Rome, Mazarin sent regular gifts of flowers, perfumes and delicacies to the women of the French court, and more valuable gifts, including statues and Renaissance paintings, to Richelieu. In 1634 he was named nuncio extraordinary to Paris by Urban VIII, and entrusted with the mission of persuading Louis XIII to undertake a grand naval crusade against the Turks. The goal was to create a combined fleet of the ships of Christian nations to seize the Turkish ports around the Mediterranean. Mazarin, a realist, knew that, given the rivalries between European powers, this project would never take place.

A new crisis arrived on 19 May 1635; France declared war on the Habsburg rulers of Austria and Spain. Mazarin wrote later that he had done his best to persuade Richelieu to avoid a war. He wrote that in March 1635 he gave Richelieu all his reasons to maintain the peace. "His Eminence told me, as he stood up," Mazarin wrote, "that I courted Peace as if she were the woman of my dreams. Then he shook my hand, and concluded, 'You are no longer on the side of France.'" Mazarin returned to Avignon on 7 April 1636.

During all of his negotiations, Mazarin was very careful not to be too critical of the French court and Richelieu, and they remained in contact. In November 1636 he left Avignon to return to Rome, carrying instructions from Richelieu that made him a discreet ambassador for the king of France.

The atmosphere within the papal curia was hostile to France and to Richelieu; Spanish priests occupied many positions in the hierarchy and they considered him, with reason, an agent of France. When the Pope refused to send him back to France, or to represent the papacy at a peace conference, he wrote: "I am not a subject of the King of France, but I believe I can truly say that the declarations of the Spanish have declared me to be French, so that with justice one can say that France is my country."

His position in Rome was increasingly difficult. He had the affection of Pope Urban VIII, but he was disliked by Cardinal Barberini, the chief of Papal diplomacy, and by the large contingent of Spaniards in the papal household. He spent his time collecting sculpture and other works of art which he sent to Richelieu for the Cardinal's new palace in Paris. He considered serving the rulers of Savoy, Poland, or Queen Henriette of England, but in the end he decided to enter the service of Richelieu and France. However, Richelieu was in no hurry to bring him to Paris; he valued the diplomatic contributions Mazarin was making in Rome, as well as the art treasures he was acquiring. He kept Mazarin in Rome for two more years. Richelieu did one important favor for Mazarin; in October 1638 he put forward Mazarin's name as a candidate for Cardinal when the next vacancy opened up. In December 1638, when a sitting Cardinal died, Mazarin was nominated as a Cardinal. He had to wait the entire year of 1639 before his new position was confirmed. Then on 14 December 1639, he departed Rome for the port of Civitavecchia, boarded an armed French ship to Marseille, and then traveled from Lyon to Paris, where he arrived on 5 January 1640.

Cardinal and deputy of Richelieu

When he arrived in Paris, Mazarin was welcomed warmly by the King, by Richelieu, and by the Queen, Anne of Austria, to whom Mazarin had regularly sent perfumes, fans, gloves and other gifts. The Queen was at this time pregnant with her second child, and it was already anticipated that she would be the regent when King Louis XIII died. Mazarin advised Richelieu on both political and cultural matters. He recommended artists to bring from Rome to Paris, and in 1640 he commissioned a bust of Richelieu from the sculptor Bernini in Rome, sending Bernini pictures of Richelieu. The bust of Richelieu arrived in August 1641. Mazarin declared that it was perfect, so lifelike that, as he wrote, "it seemed about to speak", but French tastes did not approve of the Baroque style. The other members of the Court condemned the work, and Mazarin wrote back to Bernini, sending him more pictures of Richelieu and asking him to try again.

Richelieu sent Mazarin on several delicate diplomatic missions, including a long trip to Savoy to straighten out the tangled political affairs there: the regency of Christine, the Duchess of Savoy, and sister of Louis XIII, was challenged by her brothers-in-law, the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy. (See Piedmontese Civil War) Mazarin successfully secured Christine's position, and established a solid alliance between Savoy and France. This task kept him away from Paris for nine months, until June 1641. On 16 December 1641, though he had not reached his fortieth birthday, he received what he most desired, he was formally made a Cardinal.

He had established a cordial relationship with Richelieu; Richelieu jokingly referred to him as ''Rinzama'' (an anagram of his name), or ''Nunzinicardo'' ("dear little envoy"), or, most frequently, ''Colmarduccio'', or ''Colmardo''. When was asked what it meant. he translated into French as ''Frére Coupechou'', the term for a junior candidate monk who was assigned to chop cabbage in the kitchen of the abbey. However, he did not send Mazarin on the mission that he most wanted, as delegate of France to a Europe-wide peace conference. Richelieu's attention was devoted to making war; Richelieu, who was elderly and in poor health, took the King, who was also in poor health, the court and Mazarin on a series of long military expeditions, to suppress a rebellion in Catalonia, to capture Roussillon, and, in January 1642, to lay siege to Narbonne.

On 11 June 1642, while in Tarascon on one of the long military expeditions, Mazarin was presented with evidence that Gaston, Duke of Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII, and the Marquis of Cinq-Mars, one of the King's closest advisors, had made a secret agreement with the King of Spain, without the knowledge of Richelieu or the King. It appeared probable that the Queen, Anne of Austria, was also aware of this secret betrayal of Richelieu, but did not tell him or the King. Cinq-Mars was arrested, Gaston was disgraced, and another conspirator, the Duke of Bouillon, was granted a pardon on the condition of revealing all the details of the plot to Mazarin, and surrendering the important fortress of Sedan to the King. Mazarin did not reveal the participation of the Queen in the conspiracy, but his knowledge gave him even greater leverage at the court. The destruction of the conspiracy against the King was one of the last acts of Cardinal Richelieu. He fell ill and died on 4 December 1642.

Chief minister of France – Diplomacy

The succession of Mazarin to the position of chief minister of Louis XIII was not automatic or immediate. Despite the accounts of some later historians, Richelieu did not name Mazarin as his successor. Richelieu did, according to Mazarin himself, advise the King to employ Mazarin, who until that time had no official position at Court.

After the death of Richelieu, Louis XIII named three prominent figures to advise him; François Sublet de Noyers, Léon Bouthillier, comte de Chavigny and Mazarin. Mazarin and de Chavigny immediately joined together to get rid of de Noyers. They hinted to the King that de Noyers had secretly made an agreement with Anne of Austria to make her the regent of France after the King's death. The King, who had little love for the Queen and in his will had refused to make her his Regent, was furious; de Noyers was forced to resign on 10 April 1643.

Louis XIII died 14 May 1643, just five months after Richelieu. His successor, Louis XIV, was just four years old. The King had specifically instructed that his wife, Anne of Austria, not rule in his place as regent. However, as soon as he was dead, she applied to the body of nobles known as the Parliament of Paris, and had his will annulled. She was declared Regent on 18 May. The Queen had a particular dislike of de Chavigny, the other chief advisor chosen by Louis XIII. He had been close to Richelieu and was the only real rival in experience to Mazarin. The evening that she became regent, she declared that Mazarin would be her chief minister and head of her government.

The management style of Mazarin was entirely different from that of Richelieu. The contrast was described by Cardinal Retz, the future enemy of Mazarin, in his Memoires: "One saw on the steps of the throne, where the sharp and fearsome Richelieu had thundered rather than governed the people, a leader who is gentle, benevolent, and demands nothing...He has the spirit, the insinuation, the playfulness, the manners, but also a certain laziness...."

Cardinal Retz and other rivals in the court underestimated Mazarin's skills, energy and determination. Mazarin continued Richelieu's costly war against the chief rivals of France in Europe, the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. The victories of Condé and Turenne finally brought Austria to the bargaining table and ended the Thirty Years' War with the Peace of Westphalia (1646–48)

Mazarin's policies also added Alsace (though not Strasbourg) to France. He settled Protestant princes in secularized bishoprics and abbacies in reward for their political opposition to the Habsburgs, building a network of French influence as a buffer in the western part of the Empire. In 1657, he made an attempt to get Louis XIV elected as Holy Roman Emperor. In 1658 he formed the League of the Rhine, which was designed to check the House of Austria in central Germany. In 1659 he made peace with Habsburg Spain in the Peace of the Pyrenees, which added to French territory Roussillon and northern Cerdanya—as French Cerdagne—in the far south as well as part of the Low Countries.

Towards Protestantism at home, Mazarin pursued a policy of promises and calculated delay to defuse the armed insurrection of the Ardèche

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