Disingenuously claiming the Spanish Netherlands roughly corresponding to present-day Belgium as the inheritance of his wife, Louis XIV launched the War of Devolution in This invasion, along with the Dutch War and the War of the Reunions , netted him a number of new territories that remain part of France to this day. With countless lives lost, disease and famine rampant, the economy in shambles and taxes high, Louis XIV had an apparent change of heart late in life.
Do not imitate me, but be a peaceful prince. As one might expect from the creator of the room Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV knew a thing or two about luxury.
One of his prized possessions was an immense diamond, then called the French Blue, which purportedly produced the dazzling illusion of a sun at its center when positioned against a gold background.
Now known as the Hope Diamond, this Not until , when a lead replica of the French Blue turned up, did experts confirm definitively that the French Blue and the Hope Diamond are one and the same. In the last few years of his life, Louis XIV suffered through a series of family tragedies.
Unfortunately, Treasure's gifts as both a storyteller and a scholar never quite seem to mesh, and the cohesiveness of his narrative and the force of his argument tends to suffer as a result. This is not to say, however, that Mazarin is a poorly-written book. On the contrary, the prose, while dense, rarely lags thanks to Treasure's vigorous and engaging style. The author clearly has a flair for character and drama, and uses them effectively in crafting his biography.
He also uses his vast knowledge of the period to buttress his portrait of the Cardinal--one that ultimately seems far more plausible than the villain depicted by other historians.
By situating Mazarin's life and career in the chaos of the period from roughly to , Treasure demonstrates that the second Cardinal-Minister inherited a nearly impossible task from his eminent predecessor, yet managed to see it through, albeit with considerable difficulty. The problem with this approach, however, is that Treasure's interest in the "crisis of absolutism" often tends to overwhelm the other focus of his book--Mazarin, the individual. More than once, Mazarin disappears entirely for long stretches of the book as Treasure turns to matters that seem only tangentially related to the Cardinal's life and career.
Once again, this is most evident in the section on the Fronde, where Mazarin at times appears as little more than a bit player in a drama where he is rightly billed as having a starring role.
Unlike A. Lloyd Moote's remarkable Louis XIII, the Just , a work which clearly influenced Treasure's study of the other great 'mis-understood figure' of the century, Mazarin never really succeeds in establishing an effective balance between the largely unknown historical figure and his well-known historical context. Treasure's account of the formidable obstacles Mazarin overcame will likely leave the reader wondering how any modern historian could take seriously the proposition that Mazarin was simply an opportunistic liar, swindler, and profiteer.
At the same time, however, it will also probably leave the reader with many unresolved questions about the enigmatic Italian. Treasure has succeeded in sketching a thoughtful and plausible outline of Mazarin, the individual, but others will need to fill it in. Mazarin might have also benefitted from having a more clearly-defined audience. In the short bibliographic essay which follows the text, Treasure says that he has several types of reader in mind.
If we take these to mean specialists, students, and a more general audience, it is clear that only the third group is likely to find this book totally satisfying. Specialists familiar with the work of Dethan and Bonney, for example, will find little new here in the way of research or interpretation. Bonney's articles, in particular, provide a much more concise and incisive analysis of the Fronde and Mazarin's role than the one offered in this book.
Treasure also seems reluctant to confront the debate over the nature or even the existence of "absolutism" that has occupied so much scholarly attention in recent years. He does not hesitate, for example, to describe Mazarin as holding, "to the absolutist course" p. Finally, the book's curious use of endnotes also tends to diminish its scholarly value. The notes serve primarily to lead the reader to additional information about a particular individual or event, while references to primary and secondary texts of which there are many are generally left not cited, greatly limiting Mazarin's usefulness for those lacking an intimate knowledge of the scholarship and sources.
This is easily the most frustrating feature of this book. On the other hand, students will probably be overwhelmed by the book's dizzying amount of detail and material, as well as its tendency to stray at times from the topic.
Furthermore, in spite of the help provided by the endnotes, Mazarin still assumes a familiarity with the Old Regime that may well be beyond most undergraduates.
A more general audience, however, may find this book both enjoyable and enlightening. Such readers will like Treasure's flowing, learned, and engaging style. They will enjoy the author's attention to drama, intrigue, and characterization, and will find this book to be a useful introduction to both Mazarin and this period, without being alienated by a great deal of academic jargon or a relentless focus on scholarly debates.
It has been nearly a full century, Treasure observes in his preface, since the publication of the last biography of Mazarin in English p. In recent years, however, specialists working towards a new understanding of the monarchy's spectacular growth have increasingly directed their attention to this crucial transitional era and the century's final episode of large-scale resistance to expanding royal authority. Treasure is correct to remind us, however, that Mazarin "belongs to a very small group of statesmen who have succeeded in their main objectives and affected the course of history" p.
Rather, it was essentially a struggle for power, pitting Mazarin and his new bureaucracy against the two privileged groups of nobles, each of which distrusted the other. Skip to main content Skip to primary sidebar The deaths of Richelieu in and Louis XIII in , the accession of another child king, and the regency of the hated queen mother, Anne of Austria actually a Habsburg from Spain, where the dynasty was called the house of Austria , all seemed to threaten a repetition of the crisis that had followed the death of Henry IV.
Today he remains the symbol of absolute monarchy of the classical age. At Versailles, the aristocracy were removed from their provincial power centers and came under the surveillance and control of the royal government. Richelieu took two steps to increase the power of the Bourbon monarchy. First, he moved against Huguenots. Richelieu ordered nobles to take down their fortified castles. He increased the power of government agents who came from the middle class.
Six results of the peace of Westphalia were the weakening of Austria and Spain, the strengthening of France, the independency of German princes from the Holy Roman Emperor, the end to religious wars in Europe, the introduction of the peace summit, and the abandonment of Catholic rule over Europe. Many people in France, particularly the nobles, hated Mazarin because he increased taxes and strengthened the central government.
Nobles rebelled and failed. Cardinal Jules Mazarin was an Italian cardinal, diplomat, and politician who served as the Chief Minister to the King of France from until his death in Cardinal Richelieu helped strengthen the French monarchy largely by weakening those who might opposed the king and strengthening those who could support him. He believed that God had given the king the right to rule.
He thought the king would be able to get rid of religion in the country. He was planning to assassinate the king and rule himself.
He believed that the king only had the right to rule if he was militarily strong. He engineered a number of French victories near the end of the Thirty Years War and also played a leading role in the negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the war. The Fronde of Parliament took place between and
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