Mazarin-Arthur Hassall

Richelieu died on the 5th of December 1642.

On the following day, Louis XIII announced that he had chosen Mazarin to be first minister.

Giulio Mazzarini, or Jules Mazarin, as the French call him, was born on July 14th, 1602, at Piscina, a small village in the Abruzzi.

His father was a certain Sicilian by name Pietro Mazzarini.

His mother was Ortensia Bufalini, who was renowned for her beauty.

To the latter, the young Giulio owed much of his future success, for it was due to her efforts that he first studied under the Jesuits at the Roman College and later at the University of Alcalá in Spain.

He had early shown signs of uncommon talents, and he was at the age of 16 remarkable for his handsome face and natural brightness.

On his return to Rome about the year 1622, he entered the Pontifical Army, only to find that his real métier was diplomacy.

He had studied civil law and had taken his degree of doctor in utroque jure, and under Cardinals Barberini and Sacchetti he plunged into the tangled maze of Italian politics.

Service under the Pope gave him an unrivaled opportunity of making himself acquainted with the political state of Europe and of practicing that adroitness and persuasiveness which proved so valuable when he became first minister in France.

Idleness was never one of his faults, and during these years in the service of his master at the Vatican, Mazarin showed himself indefatigable, subtle, and successful.

By his patience and industry he soon acquired an insight into diplomatic mysteries until the end of his life was preeminently a diplomatist of the first order.

His ability was fully recognized by the Cardinals Barberini and Sacchetti, and the War of the Mantuan Succession brought him into contact with Richelieu.

On March 30, 1630, the French had captured Pinerolo, the fortress commanding the exit of the chief pass from Dauphiné into Italy.

The Spaniards and Imperialists offered to negotiate, and Mazarin, who was employed as papal legate, attracted the notice of the French cardinal.

The negotiations came to nothing, as Richelieu refused to yield Pinerolo.

When later in the year Casale, besieged by Spinola, was hard pressed, Mazarin, in the absence of Richelieu, who had returned to France, arranged a truce at Rivalta on September 4, very much to the advantage of the beleaguered garrison.

It is not to be wondered at that Richelieu should have decided to secure the services of the young Mazarin, for whom he procured a cardinal's hat.

Richelieu's confidence in his protégé was not misplaced, and on his deathbed he recommended Mazarin to Louis as his successor.

Before, however, Mazarin could establish himself firmly in power and continue and complete his predecessor's policy, Louis XIII died, and an opportunity was given for an outbreak of all the discontent which had been seeding in France during Richelieu's later years.

Louis died on May 14, 1643.

On May 18, the Parlement of Paris, anticipating the action of its successor in 1715 on the death of Louis XIV, abolished the council which by the will of the late king had been set up placing the supreme power in the hands of the queen mother, Anne of Austria, an easy-natured but at the same time a proud and capable woman, and appointed Gaston, Duke of Orléans, a mere puppet in the hands of any strong man, lieutenant-general of the kingdom.

This conduct of the Parlement and the attitude which it adopted was due to the belief of its members that their political influence would be restored, that Mazarin would retire to Italy, and that the whole policy of Richelieu would be reversed.

The Parlement had thus modified the will of the late king and had organized the regency.

It had, in a word, returned again to political life from which in 1641 it had been most carefully excluded by Richelieu, and during the greater portion of Louis XIV's minority it played a prominent part in the politics of the time.