Prelude to Disaster; The Precipitation of the War of the Mantuan Succession, 1627–29

Abstract

Cardinal Richelieu's spectacular military intervention in Italy in 1629 plunged his ministry into a desperate crisis from which it only narrowly emerged intact. It marked the definitive departure of France upon the difficult road of outright opposition to the Habsburg hegemony in Europe. This policy – as the cardinal well knew – was in many ways potentially counter-productive, with a risk factor so high that failure might well entail the end, not only of his personal career, but with it the adolescent Bourbon state. Indeed, his initiative had the almost immediate consequence of a rebellious challenge from a prince of the blood and his domestic allies, amounting to a prototype fronde des princes. For decades to come, French society was to be impoverished by the manifold negative impact of war, while political stability was persistently affected by the unrelenting material and ideological pressures of continuous hostilities.