Mazarin
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Mazarin. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
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
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
JULES (mä-zä-rang'), an Italian ecclesiastic; born bor in Pescina, Italy, July 14, 1602. He studied at Alcala, in Spain, after which he went to JULES MAZARIN Rome, and became attached to the service of Cardinal Sachetti, whom he accompanied on a mission into Lombardy. Mazarin rendered important assistance in the negotiations which effected a peace between the French and Spaniards. This procured him the esteem of Cardinals Richelieu and Barberini, by the latter of whom he was recommended to the Pope, who sent him, in 1634, as nuncioextraordinary to the court of France. Recalled two years later, he entered the service of the French king in 1639, and was sent ambassador to Turin. In 1641 he was made a cardinal, and on the death of Richelieu, at the end of the following year, succeeded him as prime minister. Under Mazarin the influence of France among the nations was increased, and in the internal government of the country those principles of despotism were established on which Louis XIV. afterward acted. It is admitted that as a financial administrator he was far inferior to Richelieu. Mazarin was said to have privately married Anne of Austria. He died in Vincennes, France, March 9, 1661.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical outline in Aiton's 1910 and Collier's 1921 entries still stands, but the judgement has softened: where Aiton passed on the jibe "after the lion comes the fox" and dwelt on subtlety, intrigue and a fortune amassed "doubtless by corrupt means," modern historians credit Mazarin with holding the monarchy together through the Fronde and with the diplomacy behind the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), which neither entry names. Two details in Aiton have not survived: Mazarin did not retire before Louis XIV's wars but served until his death in March 1661, and he was not "succeeded by Colbert" — Louis XIV announced he would rule without a first minister, making Colbert his finance man rather than his replacement. The reported secret marriage to Anne of Austria, which both accounts repeat as hearsay, remains exactly that: no document has ever been found. His library survives as the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris, France's oldest public library, and the Gutenberg Bible it holds is still known as the Mazarin Bible.
Written for this edition, 2026.