Mazarin, l’art de gouvernerMazarin: Rome et Italie. I: Histoire

Abstract

Cardinal Mazarin has attracted comparatively modest numbers of biographers over the last century. Initiative in the political transformation of France has been conceded to Richelieu, and Mazarin’s ministry can seem like a weak sequel whose main actions had been prefigured by his illustrious predecessor. This is compounded by the ambiguities of Mazarin’s rule: the disastrous collapse into the civil war of the Frondes; the stark contrast between Mazarin as servant of the absolute monarchy and the grotesquely self-enriching parvenu. It has proved difficult to cast the Italian adventurer as an adamantine, visionary stateman, and historians have preferred to focus on other personalities of the grand siècle. Yet if historians have placed Mazarin in Richelieu’s shadow, Mazarin himself had no doubt by 1647–48 that his services to the French monarchy considerably outweighed those of his predecessor and patron. Were the Frondes, which certainly dampened this mood of self-congratulation, a temporary glitch in the triumphalist emergence of absolute monarchy? Or did the compromises and concessions required to maintain Mazarin’s party during the years of civil war continue to determine policy, constrain political choices, and shape political culture down to 1661?