Cardinal Mazarin
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,[1] where his parents were travelling, but was raised in Rome. He bore the name of his grandfather, an artisan of of Castel-Mazarino in Sicily, whence the surname Mazarin. His father Pierre was a notary with connections to the Colonna, who became chamberlain to the Constable 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, Hortensia 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, and later in the University of Rome La Sapienza, gaining the title of Doctor in jurisprudence but gaining loose habits of serious gambling in the meantime. His patron the Constable Colonna sent him as chaberlain to his son Girolamo to the court of Spain. 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. Returning to Rome for permission, he was denied the opportunity to return to Spain by Colonna, who insisted he finish his studies and reform his life. The young man lay in his chamber for eight days, before accepting. Pursuing his studies with fra Cosmo Fideli, a celebrated Florentine, he gained his degree at law.
In Papal service
Mazarin had military duties during the war in Monferrato of 1627, over the succession to Mantua, and was tasked by Pope Urban VIII to defend the Papal interests in that conflict.
The Emperor Ferdinand II, the duke of Savoy, Carlo Emanuele I, and Ferdinand II de Guastalla, the papal candidate for the duchy, were ranged against Louis XIII in aid of Carlo Gonzaga, duc de Nevers, the opposing candidate. Urban VIII sent troops into the Valtelino. Jules set aside his studies and took a commission as a captain of infantry, though he had no training or experience in the military, but demonstrated great spirit and a capacity for organization. At the time, Anna Colonna, daughter of the Constable, was married to Urban's nephew, and Girolamo, Mazarin's former master, was now made archbishop of Bologna and a cardinal. Sent to Monferrat as papal legate, to treat of peace between France and Spain in the matter of Mantua, he insisted that Jules be attached to his legation as secretary.
In passsing between the armed camps to achieve an accomodation, 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 Carlo Gonzaga and the French occupation of the strategic stronghold of Pignerol, the gate to the valley of the Po, to the great satisfaction of Richelieu and the King of France, Richelieu in particular impressed by the young man's resourceful ruses, sent for him to come to Paris, where he received him with great demonstrations of affection, promised him greatb things and gave him a gold chain with the portrait of the King, some jewels and a valuable ceremonial sword.
His early military and diplomatic experience having thus marked him as a useful friend of France in the contests between French and Spanish factions in papal politics, further actions 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 sent back to Avignon, where he was dismissed by Urban VIII on January 17, 1636.
In Richelieu's service
Mazarin immediately went to Paris, 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 at at 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 loathe 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 aimiably. 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, where he bought the Villa Borghese.
In Service to the King and to the 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 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.
- The "Mazarin diamond" is searched for in a November, 1999, Sherlock Holmes Mystery, "Mazarin Stone".
Notes
External links
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Jules Mazarin