Cardinal Mazarin

Cardinal Jules Mazarin, born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino (1602-1661) was a French cardinal and statesman who controlled the French government while Louis XIV was young. Mazarin was a conservative who followed the aims of Cardinal Richelieu, his main sponsor. Their goals were to support the Catholic Church, to secure and maintain royal absolutism in France, and to make France the leading power of Europe. Mazarin's main achievements were the ending of the Thirty Years War through the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 and his defeat of the Fronde in 1653. Using an elaborate network of personal relations, he restored royal authority to the point at which the king could rule alone. Mazarin attained his aims by both scrupulous and unscrupulous means, inspired love in some and hatred in others, and was controversial in his own time and ever since.

Career
Mazarin was born in Pescina, Italy on July 14, 1602, to an aristocratic family that had lost its wealth. He was educated by Jesuits at Rome and was named papal envoy of France in 1634. There he met Cardinal Richelieu and secretly aided him in the Thirty Years' War against Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs. Mazarin was made a cardinal by the pope as a reward for his service to France of King Louis XIII.

Prime minister
After the death of Richelieu in 1642, Mazarin succeeded him as the Prime Minister of France. In 1643, the cardinal became chief minister and tutor to the young Louis XIV after the death of Louis XIII. Having kept Richelieu's policies of centralization, Mazarin was blamed for the civil disturbances of the Fronde, and was forced to leave Paris twice. He returned to the kingdom in 1653 when the nobles' revolts had ended. The nobles hated Mazarin for usurping their historic place in the crown's service.

Foreign policy
In terms of foreign policy and diplomatic relations, Mazarin was instrumental in settling the final conditions of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which brought the Thirty Years' War to a conclusion. This peace treaty brought France much prestige in Europe. Mazarin signed the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), which ended the Franco-Spanish conflict.

The ending of the Thirty Years' War was an event closely linked to that year's significant domestic unrest. The outbreak of the Fronde (1648-53) in August was only one manifestation of rising dissatisfaction with the royal government over such issues as taxation and a perceived unwillingness to conclude peace. Much of this dissatisfaction was focused on Cardinal Mazarin. There was a close linkage in France at this time between international and domestic events, and Mazarin was highly conscious of this and sought to use it to his advantage. Whatever the value of his policies, in 1648 Mazarin was relatively unsuccessful in internal French politics. He was often faulted for what went wrong and denied credit for what went right.

The Fronde (1848-53) was most serious challenge to the French crown's authority between the 16th-century religious wars and the French revolution of 1789. After the Frondeurs had been defeated Mazarin devoted himself to the training of the young king, Louis XIV. Louis showed respect for his mentor by postponing his personal rule until Mazarin died on March 9th, 1661.

Arts
Mazarin was a leading promoter of the arts. He was an avid art collector, founded the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), introduced Italian opera at court, and established the first public library (Bibliothèque Mazarine) in Paris.

The Palais de l'Institut de France, on quai Conti in Paris, home of five French academies and the Bibliothèque Mazarine, owes its existence to Mazarin. In his will the cardinal left an important sum of money to build a college. The college, called the Collège des Quatre Nations, but also known as Collège Mazarin, was meant for the education of sixty young noblemen born in the four provinces&mdash;Artois, Alsace, Pinerolo and Catalonia (Roussillon and Cerdanya)&mdash;that were obtained by France at the treaties of Westphalia (1648) and the Pyrenees (1659). The architect of the college was Louis Le Vau (1612-1670) and the new college was situated on the left bank of the river Seine, opposite the Louvre, where its building still exists.

See also Louis XIV