Jules Cardinal Mazarin

Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino (July 14 1602 – March 9 1661) was an Italian politician who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death. Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu.

Biography

Giulio Mazzarino was born in Pescina (current Abruzzo region of Italy), then part of the Kingdom of Naples.

Of humble origin, he however gained the favour of the powerful baronal family of Colonna. He studied at the Jesuit College in Rome, and later in the University of Rome La Sapienza, gaining the title of Doctor in jurisprudence.

Mazarin had military duties during the war in Monferrato of 1627, and was tasked by Pope Urban VIII to defend the Papal interests in that conflict.

His early military and diplomatic experience marked him as a friend of France in the contests between French and Spanish factions in papal politics, recommended him to Richelieu. As papal vice-legate at Avignon (1632), and nuncio extraordinary in France (1634), Mazarin was perceived as an extension of Richelieu's policy, and under Habsburg pressure, Mazarin was dismissed by Urban VIII on January 17, 1636. Mazarin immediately went to Paris, offered his services to Richelieu and was naturalized as a French citizen by April. The apex of his diplomatic services was the secret treaty between France and Tommaso of Savoy signed late in 1640. The following year, at Richelieu's insistence, Mazarin was made cardinal. He therefore returned to Rome, where he bought the Villa Borghese.

His residence in Rome did not last long, as he returned to Paris in the December of 1642, after the death of Richelieu, succeeding him as Prime Minister of France.

King Louis XIII died in 1643. His successor, Louis XIV, was only a child and Mazarin functioned essentially as the ruler of France. During the regency of queen mother Anne of Austria, and until his death in 1661 at Vincennes, Mazarin effectively directed French policy. His modest manner contrasted with the imperious Richelieu, and Anne was so fond of him and so intimate in her manner with him, that there were long-standing rumors that they had been secretly married and that the Dauphin was their offspring.

Mazarin's policies for France

Mazarin continued Richelieu's anti-Habsburg policy and laid the foundation for Louis XIV's expansionism. The victories of Condé and Turenne brought the French party to the bargaining table at the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War with the Treaty of Munster and Treaty of Osnabrück (Treaty of Westphalia), in which Mazarin's policies were French rather than Catholic and brought Alsace (though not Strasbourg) to France; he settled Protestant princes in secularized bishoprics and abbacies in reward for their political opposition to Austria. 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 (1653) for example, and keep the Huguenots disarmed: for six years they believed themselves to be on the eve of recovering the protections of the Edict of Nantes: in the end they obtained nothing.

Towards the pontificate of the successful Spanish candidate, Cardinal Pamphili, elected pope (15 September, 1644) as Innocent X, there was constant friction. Mazarin protected the Barberini cardinals, nephews of the late pope, and the Bull against them was voted by the Parliament of Paris "null and abusive"; France made a show of preparing to take Avignon by force, and Innocent backed down. Mazarin was more consistently an enemy of Jansenism, more for its political implications than out of theology, and on his deathbed warned young Louis "not to tolerate the Jansenist sect, not even their name."

Controversy over the Cardinal's policies, and the weakness of the regency, resulted in two revolts, known as la Fronde (1648-52). Twice, in 1651 and 1652, he was driven out of the country, by the Parliamentary Fronde and the Fronde of the Nobles. The countless abusive and satirical pamphlets called Mazarinades published against him often invoked his Italian birth. In addition, the increasing authoritarian royal power of France (a process begun under Richelieu), as well as rising taxes such as the Taille were attacked by defenders of ancient aristocratic liberties against the growing absolutism that Louis XIV was able to exploit.

Family connections

Cardinal Mazarin's wealth (he collected benefices and amassed a huge fortune and a greater collection of art than the king's) and his nieces' beauty, made for notable family connections, marital and extramarital.

His three nieces Ortensia, Maria and Olimpia, were lovers of Louis XIV. Olimpia was the mother of the famous Prince Eugene of Savoy. Ortensia was also a mistress of Charles II of England.

Trivia

A fictionalized Mazarin is a major character in Alexandre Dumas' novel, Twenty Years After. In it, Mazarin is portrayed as power-hungry, paranoid, and greedy.
Mazarin is a character of some importance in The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis.
A "Mazarin diamond" is searched for in a November, 1999, "Sherlock Holmes Myster^*", "Mazarin Stone".

External links

Catholic Encyclopedia: Jules Mazarin

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Jules Cardinal Mazarin

Biography

Mazarin's policies for France

Family connections

Trivia

External links