Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino (July 14 1602 – March 9 1661) was an accomplished 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 then part of the Kingdom of Naples, where his parents were travelling, but was raised in Rome. He bore the name of his grandfather, an artisan of Castel-Mazarino in Sicily, hence the surname Mazarin. His father Pietro was a notary with connections to the Colonna, who became chamberlain to the Constable Filippo I Colonna and gained an easy situation for his family; Mazarin never forgot that the basis of his fortune in life was the patronage of the Colonna, who had provided his father with a wife, Ortensia Buffalini, of a noble family of Città di Castello in Umbria with an ample dowry.

He studied at the Jesuit College in Rome, though he declined to join their order. At seventeen he accompanied Girolamo Colonna, one of the sons of Filippo I Colonna, to the university of Alcala in Spain, to serve as his chamberlain. His stay was brief; 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. Later Mazarin frequented the University of Rome La Sapienza, gaining the title of Doctor in jurisprudence but gaining loose habits of serious gambling in the meantime.

In Papal service

Mazarin followed Filippo I Colonna as captain of infantry in his regiment during the war in Monferrato of 1628, over the succession to Mantua. During this war he gave proofs of much diplomatic ability, and Pope Urban VIII entrusted him, in 1629, with the difficult task of putting an end to the war of the Mantuan succession.

The Emperor Ferdinand II, the duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel I and Ferdinand II of Guastalla, the papal candidate for the duchy, were ranged against Louis XIII in aid of Charles Gonzaga, duc de Nevers, the opposing candidate. Urban VIII sent troops into the Valtelina. At the time, Anna Colonna, daughter of Filippo I Colonna, was married to Urban's nephew, and the Pope now made her brother, Girolamo Colonna, archbishop of Albano and a new cardinal. The Cardinal was sent to Monferrat as papal legate, to treat of peace between France and Spain in the matter of Mantua, and insisted that Mazarin be attached to his legation as secretary.

In passing between the armed camps to achieve an accommodation, Mazarin detected the weakness of the Spanish general, the marqués de Santa-Cruz, and perceived that he desired to come to terms without exposing his army to combat. By emphasizing French strengths in the Spanish camp, Mazarin effected 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 the King of France. Richelieu was in particular impressed by the young man's resourceful ruses, and asked him to come to Paris, where he received him with great demonstrations of affection, promised him great things and gave him a gold chain with the portrait of the King, some jewels and a valuable ceremonial sword. As papal vice-legate at Avignon (1632), and nuncio extraordinary in France (1634), Mazarin was perceived as an extension of Richelieu's policy. Under Habsburg pressure, Mazarin was sent back to Avignon, where he was dismissed by Urban VIII on January 17, 1636.

In Richelieu's service

Mazarin immediately went to Paris, where he offered his services to Richelieu and was naturalized as a French citizen by April. Richelieu, who felt the weight of his years, though he was as assiduous in the King's service as ever, detected in Mazarin a likely aide in carrying on government. He confided to the young man several sensitive missions, in which Mazarin acquitted himself well, then presented him to the King, who was well pleased with Mazarin, who was now lodged in the palace.

Ever as deft at the gaming table as with diplomacy, one evening his winnings were so great that a crowd gathered to see the stacks of gold écus, attracting the attention of the Queen; in her presence, Mazarin risked all, and won. He attributed his winnings to the Queen's presence, and in thanks, offered her fifty thousand écus. The Queen demurred, Mazarin pressed, and she accepted. Several days later, Mazarin quietly received a great deal more than he had given. Thus he was affirmed in the favour of the King, the court and above all of Anne of Austria, who would soon be regent.

Mazarin sent to his father in Rome a great sum of money and a casket of jewels, for which he always had a great fondness, as dowry for his three sisters. Service to the King of France seemed to him the easiest route to a cardinal's hat, his constant ambition. Richelieu, in spite of his fondness and admiration for Mazarin, was loath to crown his career so early; he offered a bishopric worth 30,000 écus a year. Mazarin, who aspired to more, for his part, turned it aside amiably. In 1636 he returned to Rome, with the thought of attaching himself to Cardinal Antonio, nephew of the pope, with an eye to preferment by that route.

The apex of his diplomatic services to France 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.

In Service to the King and to the Queen Regent

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 Chief Minister of France.

King Louis XIII died in 1643. His successor, Louis XIV, was only a child and his mother, Anne of Austria, ruled in his place until he came of age. Mazarin helped Anne expand her power from the more limited power her husband had left her. Mazarin functioned essentially as the co-ruler of France along side the queen during the regency of Anne, and until his death in 1661 at Vincennes, Mazarin effectively directed French policy along side the monarch. 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, in particular during the formulary controversy, more for its political implications than out of theology. On his deathbed he 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 (1648-53). 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.

Death

Death found him seated in his chair, dressed in his full cardinal's robes, and his beard carefully trimmed, as if for a levée; he continued to sign dispatches while his hand could grasp a pen; power passed away only with life. To the last he was consistent with his old hypocrisy; a few hours before his decease he sent a message to the Parliament, in which he declared that its very humble servant died. The event took place on the 9th of March 1661.

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 famous for their wit, their beauty and their freedom. Olimpia was the mother of the famous Prince Eugene of Savoy. Ortensia was also a mistress of Charles II of England. Another niece Laura married Alfonso IV d'Este, Duke of Modena and was the mother of Mary of Modena, Queen of England.

Mazarin in fiction

• A fictionalized Mazarin is a major character in Alexandre Dumas' novels Twenty Years After and Le Vicomte de Bragelonne. In them, Mazarin is portrayed as power-hungry, paranoid, and greedy.
• Mazarin is a character of some importance in 1634:The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis.
• The "Mazarin diamond" is searched for in a November, 1999, Sherlock Holmes Mystery, "The Mazarin Stone".
• Mazarin is a major character in the 2005 series Young Blades, portrayed by Michael Ironside.
• Mazarin serves as the mastermind antagonist in the Hallmark movie La Femme Musketeer. Personality- and ambition-wise, he is nearly identical to Cardinal Richelieu.

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