Jules Mazarin (in Italian:Giulio Mazarino), (1602-1661), better known as Cardinal Mazarin was a skilled diplomat and politician, first in the service of the Papacy, then of the kings of France. He succeeded Richelieu.
Its origins
Cardinal Mazarin, Giulio Mazarino, was born on July 14, 1602 in Pescina (then under Spanish rule), in Abruzzo, southeastern Italy. In fact, his parents lived in Rome where he spent his childhood. His father, Pierre, used to go from time to time to visit his brother-in-law, Father Buffalini. During this trip in 1602, his wife being pregnant, the oppressive heat rendered the pregnancy so painful that his mother was unable to return to Rome. The historians of the time tell us that his mother Hortensia gave birth to his first born, aptly named Jules, who was born with his hair done and with two teeth (it was thought then that this presaged a high fortune). Later, the cardinal often took advantage of it.
The cardinal's father, Pierre, son of Jules, was born in Sicily at Castel-Mazarino, from where he got the nickname Mazarin. The cardinal's grandfather was a well-to-do craftsman (some historians say he went bankrupt), which enabled him to send his son Pierre to school. The latter made such progress there that he became learned enough to practice the profession of notary and plead a few small cases. After his father's death, he sold his furniture and left for Rome, armed with letters of recommendation for the Constable Colonna. On the strength of these recommendations, he applied for a job. Pierre pleased the constable, who made him chamberlain, then entrusted him with the management of some of his estates. By his skilful and prudent conduct, always more loved by his master, Pierre was able to put his family in a great ease. He was also always grateful to the Colonna family, despite the brilliant fortune of his son, Cardinal Mazarin, always repeating that his fortune had come to him from the favor of this house.
The constable wanted his servants to be married. He gave to Pierre, who had decided to take a wife, Hortensia Buffalini, his goddaughter, belonging to a noble family from Città di Castello in Umbria. The girl was beautiful and very virtuous. She was amply endowed. They had two sons and four daughters. The eldest, Jules, future cardinal, bore the first name of his grandfather.
At the service of the Pope
In 1627, on the sidelines of the Thirty Years' War, the conflict called the Mantua War of Succession broke out in northern Italy, opposing on the one hand the Emperor Ferdinand II, the Duke of Savoy Charles-Emmanuel I and Ferdinand II of Guastalla, Ghibelline candidate for the duchy and, on the other hand, the King of France Louis XIII came to help Charles Gonzague, Duke of Nevers, the Guelph candidate. Pope Urban VIII also sent troops to Valtellina. Jules threw away his books and took the opportunity to take a commission as captain of infantry. He made, with his company, some stays in Loreto and Ancona. He only knew the art of war from what is said in books; yet he showed in the exercise of his duties the superiority of his mind and a great talent for disciplining the soldiers.
At that time, Anna Colonna, daughter of the Constable, married Tadeo Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII. On this occasion, his brother, Girolamo, former master of Mazarin, received the archbishopric of Bologna with the purple. When he was sent to Montferrat (Italy), as papal legate, to discuss peace between France and Spain, he obtained that Jules be attached to the legation as secretary.
Both sides were ready for battle. The apostolic legate, however, negotiated peace with great zeal. Mazarin, as secretary, went from one camp to another to hasten the conclusion of a treaty. He did not take long to perceive that the Marquis de Santa-Cruz, who represented the crown of Spain, had a violent fear of losing his army, and an ardent desire to arrive at an accommodation. Realizing all the advantage he could derive from this weakness, he pressed the Spanish general, representing to him with exaggeration the strength of the French.
Mazarin's negotiations resulted on April 6, 1631 in the Treaty of Cherasco by which the Emperor and the Duke of Savoy recognized the possession of Mantua and part of Montferrat to Charles Gonzague and especially the French occupation of the stronghold of Pignerol , gateway to the Po Valley. They brought Louis XIII and Cardinal de Richelieu such satisfaction that the latter regarded the author as a man inexhaustible in resources, fertile in tricks and military stratagems, and that he felt a strong desire to know him personally. He summoned him to Paris, where Jules went with inexpressible pleasure. Richelieu welcomed him with great demonstrations of affection, engaged him with the most beautiful promises, and gave him a gold chain with the portrait of Louis XIII, jewels and a sword of considerable value.
His first contacts with France
He was first vice-legate of Avignon (1634), then nuncio in Paris (1634-36), he displeased by his French sympathies with Spain, which had him sent back to Avignon (1636) and which prevented him , despite Richelieu's efforts, to become a cardinal.
Richelieu, feeling overwhelmed by age, although he was tireless at work, thought that Mazarin might be the man he was looking for to help him carry the government. As soon as he returned to France, after a brief trip to Rome, he kept him close to him and entrusted him with several missions, which Mazarin fulfilled very honourably, then presented him to the king who loved him very much. He then settled in the royal palace.
Always very skilful at the game, one day when he was winning a lot, people rushed to see the mass of gold he had amassed in front of him. The queen herself was not long in appearing. Mazarin risked everything and won. He attributed his success to the presence of the queen and, to thank her, offered her fifty thousand gold crowns and gave the rest to the ladies of the court. The queen refused, then finally accepted, but a few days later, Mazarin received much more than he had given. From that day on, he grew in favor with the king, with the entire court of France, but above all with the queen who, a few years later, would become the regent.
Mazarin sent his father, in Rome, a large sum of money and a box of jewels to endow his three sisters and became firm in the idea of serving the Crown, whose favor he thought was the surest means of obtain the purple, constant object of his ambition since his youth. But Richelieu, who was very fond of him and considered him worthy of the cardinal's hat, was in no hurry to fulfill it. One day he offered him a bishopric with an income of thirty thousand crowns. Mazarin, who aspired to more, did not want to run the risk of stopping his fortune there and kindly refused. He waited a long time and then, tired of waiting, returned to Italy in 1636, thinking that in Rome, in the service of Cardinal Antonio, nephew of the pope, he would be better able to have the purple.
At the service of the Kings of France
In April 1639, he was naturalized French and left for Paris. He entered the service of France and made himself available to Richelieu. In December 1640, he made a happy start by winning over the princes of Savoy to the French cause; a year later, the pope granted him the cardinal's hat. During the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars and the Duc de Bouillon, the latter obtained his pardon only by surrendering Sedan; Mazarin signed the convention and came to occupy the city.
On December 5, 1642, the day after Richelieu's death, Mazarin was appointed Principal Minister of State, as recommended by Richelieu who saw in him his worthy successor.
Between the death of Richelieu and that of Louis XIII, Mazarin carried out what would today be called a lobbying campaign. Indeed, he contacted the entire religious entourage of the queen and presented himself as a worthy successor to Richelieu. So that, when the pious Anne of Austria will seek advice from those around her when choosing her prime minister, she will have the same answer from all her advisers:Cardinal Mazarin!
Thus, from 1643, on the death of Louis XIII and as Louis XIV was still only a child, the regent Anne of Austria appointed Mazarin Prime Minister, of whom she was secretly the lover. In March 1646, he also became "superintendent of the government and the conduct of the person of the king and that of the Duke of Anjou".
Barely in power, he had to face the hostility of the "Great" in the affair of the Cabal of the Important (1643) where a plot to assassinate him was foiled.
Despite the military and diplomatic successes finally ending the Thirty Years' War (Treaty of Westphalia-1648), financial difficulties worsened, making Mazarin's heavy tax measures increasingly unpopular. It was one of them that triggered the first Fronde, the Fronde Parlementaire (1648). Paris is besieged by the royal army, which ravages the villages of the Paris region by looting, fires, rapes... Not obtaining the submission of the capital, the parties conclude the peace of Saint-Germain (April 1, 1649) . It was only a respite.
The Fronde des princes (1650-1652), triggered by the arrest of Condé eager for rewards for him and his clientele, and thus opposing the appetites of the Cardinal, succeeded him. Mazarin was forced into exile twice (1651 and 1652), while continuing to govern through Anne of Austria and loyal collaborators such as Hugues de Lionne (1611-1671) and Michel Le Tellier (1603 -1685). The Paris region was again ravaged, by the armies and by a typhoid epidemic spread by the soldiers, in a torrid summer, which caused at least 20% of losses in the population. His weariness and exhaustion facilitated the return of the king, acclaimed in a Paris thus subjugated, then later, that of Mazarin.
The criticisms against Mazarin partly concerned his Italian and obscure origin, but above all the completion of the absolute monarchy which was reflected in particular by the formidable increase in taxes such as the Size to wage wars in Europe (Flanders, Catalonia, Italy). Having crushed all opposition, he remained Prime Minister until his death at the Château de Vincennes on March 9, 1661 following a long illness.
Two days before his death, he called the three ministers of the Council, Michel Le Tellier, Nicolas Fouquet and Hugues de Lionne, and warmly recommended them to the king. But the next day, the day before his death, on the advice of Colbert, he reconsiders his remarks concerning Fouquet, considered too ambitious, and advises the king to be wary of him and to choose Colbert as Intendant of Finances.
Personal enrichment
From the beginning of his government, Mazarin enriched himself enormously by confusing the coffers of the State with his personal coffers. He received numerous "bribes" in exchange for charges and took advantage of the bankruptcy of banker friends to cheaply rebuild his library which had been dispersed during the Fronde and enrich his collection of works by Titian, Caravaggio and Raphael, statues, medals, jewelry.
His fortune is such that he hires Jean-Baptiste Colbert to manage it as well as possible.
From this personal enrichment were born the "mazarinades", songs created by Parisian workers as a sign of protest at the various bribes they could receive.
His end
Mazarin died in 1661. The sling was then over for more than 8 years (53).
Inheritance
In addition to the political legacy, Cardinal Mazarin left a fortune of 35 million pounds, including 8 million in cash (equivalent to the cash of the Bank of Amsterdam, the largest bank in the world at the time ). He had lost everything during the Fronde, so he had accumulated this wealth between 1652 and his death, i.e. in less than nine years, by being awarded civil and ecclesiastical offices by the Queen-Regent (see the impressive list p 50-51 "La Fronde" by Hubert Méthivier, PUF, 1984), speculating on state funds, playing on the value of currencies and their withdrawal (which caused, for example, in 1659 the revolt of the "Sabotiers" of Sologne, miserable peasants raised against the withdrawal of liards, which constituted their meager monetary reserves), by enriching themselves through straw men on supplies to the armies &c read the countless testimonies of memoirists of the time, including Mrs. de Motteville, friend of Queen Anne. See also volume 1 of "Lettres &c" by Colbert published by Pierre Clement in 1861, in 10 t. . Under the Ancien Régime, no inheritance reached this level, the highest being those of Cardinal Richelieu (16 million net) and Charles Gonzague (5.5 million in 1637). To avoid an inventory of his assets, and therefore of his actions, being made, he bequeathed all his assets to the king, who hesitated three days before accepting them, then having done so, left them to his heirs, a classic maneuver in these times to avoid the search for justice. See ch. XIX of "Mazarin" by P. Goubert quoted below, and the works of D. Dessert, including "Colbert, the poisonous snake", 2000, pp 63-65 . His rapacity was such that he even thought, he who was never ordained a priest, of becoming archbishop of one of the newly conquered rich territories, but the pope opposed such selfish zeal.
By will, Mazarin had the Collège des Quatre-Nations (now the Institut de France) built.
Family Connections
The wealth of Cardinal Mazarin and the cardinal's desire to bind himself to the high aristocracy through the advantageous marriages of his nieces (means for the Great to benefit from royal graces) created a dynasty.
The sisters Olympe, Marie, Hortense and Marianne Mancini were famous for their beauty, their spirit and their liberated loves.
* Marie Mancini was the great (and platonic) love of youth of Louis XIV, who renounced her to marry his cousin Marie-Thérèse of Austria.
* Hortense married on March 1, 1661 Armand- Charles de la Porte, Duke of Mayenne and La Meilleraye. He is one of the great characters in the history of Mayenne. He bought the duchy in May 1654. Then, by successive alliances, the duchy passed to other families until it fell to Louise d'Aumont, wife of Honoré IV de Grimaldi, prince of Monaco, ancestor of the current sovereign of the principality Albert II of Monaco.
* Olympe Mancini, Countess of Soissons, was the mother of the famous Prince Eugene, who served in the service of the Habsburgs, and so many times winner of the armies of Louis XIV .
Their brother Philippe married Diane de Thianges, niece of Madame de Montespan; they were the grandparents of the academician Louis-Jules Mancini-Mazarini and also ancestors of the current Grimaldi.
It was while recounting the love affairs of the nieces with Louis XIV that Abraham de Wicquefort found himself in the Bastille.
Whether Mazarin himself secretly married Anne of Austria is controversial. But their correspondence is sufficiently explicit, even coded, on the nature of their links.