Jules Mazarin

Mazarin, Jules 

Born July 14, 1602, in Pescina; died Mar. 9, 1661, in Vincennes. French statesman. Son of a member of the Sicilian gentry.

Mazarin served in the papal troops, and from 1630 he was in the pope’s diplomatic service. At the conclusion of the Treaty of Cherasco in 1631 and in his daily work as papal nuncio in Paris (1634-36), Mazarin distinguished himself by his extraordinary diplomatic abilities; he attracted the attention of Cardinal Richelieu and became his trusted agent. In 1640, Mazarin transferred to the French diplomatic service and became a cardinal in 1641. Before Cardinal Richelieu’s death he proposed that Mazarin be given the position of prime minister as his successor. Appointed to the post in 1643 by Anne of Austria (with whom he later entered into a secret marriage), Mazarin continued the policy of strengthening French absolutism under difficult circumstances.

In 1643 he crushed a conspiracy of the French aristocracy (the “cabale des Importants”); he harshly suppressed numberless popular uprisings, which were caused by increasing tax oppression. Beginning in 1648, Mazarin led the struggle against the Fronde. One of the demands of the latter was the removal of Mazarin from office, and there were numerous “Mazarinades” (publicistic works and pamphlets) directed against him; the Paris Parliament proclaimed Mazarin to be an enemy of the state. On two occasions (in 1651 and 1652) Mazarin left France; he returned in 1653 after the Fronde had been crushed, and he remained in power until the end of his life. In his foreign policy, thanks to his artful diplomacy, Mazarin achieved great successes (the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, peace and commercial treaties with England in 1655, a military alliance with England in 1657, and the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659), all of which consolidated France’s political hegemony in Europe.

WORKS

Lettres…, vols. 1-9. Paris, 1872-1906.

REFERENCES

Chéruel, A. Histoire de France sous le ministére de Mazarin, vols. 1-3. Paris, 1882.
Bailly, A. Mazarin. Paris, 1935.
Mazarin. Edited by G. Mongrédien. Paris, 1959.

A. A. LOZINSKII