Mazarin in Government and the Conduct of War, 1643–8

Abstract

The deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII created a sense of new beginning in French royal and governmental circles, or at least of a reassessment of the direction in which the French government should take the kingdom. This sentiment of expectation was all the stronger in that, in the few months before his death, the king had issued amnesties to prominent prisoners and allowed exiles to return to France. Gaston d’Orléans was readmitted to the royal court, Bassompierre and Vitry were released from the Bastille, and Vendôme and the Duchesse de Chevreuse returned from abroad. Louis’s purpose was not only an act of reconciliation between les Brands and himself; he was preparing the way for the next Regency. If Anne of Austria were to govern with the minimum of obstruction, she would need the compliance of great aristocrats; thus, the council of regency with which Louis XIII intended surrounding his wife included Gaston d’Orléans and the Prince de Condé. Given the traditional assumption by aristocrats that they should hold offices of leadership in the royal household and in central and provincial government, a ‘counter-revolution’, reversing the system favoured by Richelieu, looked a distinct possibility. It remained to be seen whether the returning ‘exiles’ could be reincorporated into the political system bequeathed by the cardinal, or whether they would confront it and pose to the Regent the kinds of problems they had presented to Richelieu.