Giulio Mazarini, who became Cardinal Mazarin, was a man who made his mark both on his contemporaries and on the collective memory of posterity. An obscure and wily Italian who assumed the role of prime minister of France just prior to the death of Louis XIII, Mazarin even gained the confidence of the king’s widow and guided the monarchy through the tumultuous minority of the young Louis XIV. Inheriting a costly and controversial war against the greatest Catholic powers of Europe, Mazarin pursued it with tenacity and eventually brought a portion of it to an end with considerable gains for...

When Louis XIII died on May 14, 1643, leaving as his successor the four-year-old Louis XIV, it looked to many observers as if the government of France was about to change dramatically. During the preceding nineteen years the late king, with the aid of Cardinal Richelieu and most recently of Cardinal Mazarin, had been carrying out a policy which was, to say the least, controversial. It was not even that Richelieu had ruled France with an iron hand, for after the civil wars of the sixteenth century and after the clamorous minority of Louis XIII any minister who could restore...

The death of Louis XIII threw the entire policy of the previous nineteen years into question and sent everyone at the French court scrambling for position. The central person in this upheaval was Anne of Austria. Here was a pious princess, forty-one years old, sister of the King of Spain, ignored by her husband and isolated by Richelieu, with every opportunity to pay them back in full measure. The previous regency of Marie de Medici came immediately to mind. She had enriched her favorites, reversed her husband’s policies, and run afoul of the aristocracy, but, after Cardinal Richelieu, this did...

Having apparently come so close in the campaign of 1643, Mazarin was intent on making the campaign of 1644 the one that would win the war. His plan was for Monsieur to lead the main French army toward the Channel, besiege the Spanish strongholds of Bourbourg and perhaps also Gravelines on the coast with Dutch naval support, while the Prince of Orange would besiege Dunkirk. If Frederick Henry did not want to besiege Dunkirk, the French would, while he kept the Spanish occupied near Ghent. It did cross Mazarin’s mind that the Dutch might have “considerable jealousy” at seeing the...

At the beginning of 1646, Cardinal Mazarin was faced with the delightful prospect of reaping the benefits of the separation of the Emperor from the Spanish, while threatening a new campaign which would consummate the French conquest of the Spanish Low Countries and the Franco-Swedish conquest of the Holy Roman Empire. He had a few minor problems. In his own council, and in public, the ever-troublesome Prince de Condé was speaking too enthusiastically about truces. And then there was the ironic law of early modern statecraft. The more successful France was in the Low Countries, the more this threw the...

Mazarin considered the letter from Frederick Henry, which accused the French of having lied to him, as “most civil.” When, moreover, Mazarin succeeded in signing a treaty with the Dutch for the upcoming campaign, he was even more elated. The Dutch were once more back in their place, and he felt up to one more effort to pound his thesis of the war into the head of the impenetrable D’Avaux. Mazarin insisted,

You must accept it as an article of faith, that since the Spanish naturally hate us, and since this hatred has just been augmented by the losses and...

On September 11, 1646, Count Magnus de La Gardie, the extraordinary Swedish ambassador, arrived in Paris to a splendid welcome by the entire court. Mazarin assured him enthusiastically of French support for the Swedish demands—which was the consummation of all hypocrisy—but also warned him of “the risk we could run if we lose such a wonderful opportunity,” adding that “the least setback in the war is capable of cooling the desire of the enemies for peace.” Never had any prophet been more prophetic, nor less persuaded of his own prophesies, for only a few days after sobering his...

Cardinal Mazarin was an expert at consoling himself. In the early days of January 1647, looking out at the world from the perspective of the Palais Royal, he considered that there were still ample grounds for optimism, and, it being time to write another letter, he decided to share them with Longueville and D’Avaux. The Spanish, he had heard, were conspiring against Trauttmansdorff. Thus Mazarin thought of having Longueville and D’Avaux approach Trauttmansdorff with offers of Mazarin’s friendship and for the “maintenance of the peace which is about to be concluded.” He had heard that the ministers of Spain in...

The reproaches of the Duke de Longueville struck Mazarin to the core, and they produced his best, his most complete, and his most eloquent self-justification to date. How could he be accused of not wanting the peace? The council had always backed him to the hilt. “There wasn’t a singlemémoiresent to you gentlemen,” he remonstrated on June 22, 1647, “that wasn’t read in the council in the presence of Her Majesty, His Highness, and the Prince, when they have been at court.” Ignoring the three months which preceded the signing of the articles between the Spanish and the...

Mazarin was in a corner. He was desperate to achieve a peace for which he needed one more exertion, yet he felt the ground in France slipping out from under him. And in the midst of his insecurity, on January 8, 1648, arrived themémoirefrom his plenipotentiaries supporting the impertinent Dutch suggestion that France should restore the old Duchy of Lorraine. What was he to do? An acquisition which he had considered to be at his disposal was now being put into question. It was a measure of his debility that he did not fly into a rage. Instead...