Mazarin

maz-a-reen' or maz'a-rin, (1602-1661), a prime minister of France. He was the adherent and successor of the famous Richelieu. He was a native of Rome and was educated at a Jesuit college. He entered the pope's service. In 1624 he accompanied the papal legate to Paris and was hit upon by Richelieu as a person of talent and discretion to look after French affairs at Rome. In 1639 he openly entered the service of Richelieu. He was naturalized as a Frenchman, and in 1641 Richelieu secured him a cardinal's hat. At death Richelieu recommended Mazarin as the one person in France who had the knowledge and the talent to carry out the plans already under way. Mazarin found himself in difficulty. He took office in 1642. Louis XIII died the next year. Louis XIV was but five years old. The queen mother, Anne of Austria, hated him. He was a handsome, pleasing man. Like Crook-back Richard in Shakespeare's tragedy of King Richard III, he won Anne over, and is said to have married her in private. The nobility hated him and drove him twice from court; yet he regained the ascendency. His administration was marked by subtlety and intrigue. In foreign affairs, he gained the alliance of Cromwell, humiliated Spain, and acquired territory in Flanders and on the Rhine. He brought the Thirty Years' War to a close in 1648 by the treaty of Westphalia. At home he suppressed the uprising of the Fronde and withstood all efforts of the nobility to oust him from control. Under his administration taxation became more and more grinding. He managed, doubtless by corrupt means, to amass an immense fortune. Fearing discovery, he feigned generosity and offered the whole to the king, Louis XIV, but, as he had no doubt hoped, the sacrifice was declined. At his death his fortune was estimated at $40,000,000. He retired from office before Louis entered upon his great wars. He died at Vincennes and was succeeded by Colbert, a supporter of his policy as he had been a supporter of Richelieu. The famous Mazarin Library of Paris bears the cardinal's name. It contains, among other treasures, a copy of the first printed Bible. The popular estimate of Mazarin is summed up in the phrase relative to his succeeding Richelieu, "After the lion comes the fox." See Richelieu