that it was not unnatural that the nobility should hate him, while the queen found herself surrounded by his creatures alone. Events followed each other quickly; the day of the barricades was followed by the peace of Ruel, the peace of Ruel by the arrest of the princes, by the battle of Rethel, and Mazarin’s exile to Brühl before the union of the two Frondes. It was while in exile at Brühl that Mazarin saw the mistake he had made in isolating himself and the queen, and that his policy of balancing every party in the state against each other had made every party distrust him. So by his counsel the queen, while nominally in league with De Retz and the parliamentary Fronde, laboured to form a purely royal party, wearied by civil dissensions, who should act for her and her son’s interest alone, under the leadership of Mathieu Molé, the famous premier president of the parlement of Paris. The new party grew in strength, and in January 1652, after exactly a year’s absence, Mazarin returned to the court. Turenne had now become the royal general, and out-manœuvred Condé, while the royal party at last grew to such strength in Paris that Condé had to leave the capital and France. In order to promote a reconciliation with the parlement of Paris Mazarin had again retired from court, this time to Sedan, in August 1652, but he returned finally in February 1653. Long had been the trial, and greatly had Mazarin been to blame in allowing the Frondes to come into existence, but he had retrieved his position by founding that great royal party which steadily grew until Louis XIV. could fairly have said “L’État, c’est moi.” As the war had progressed, Mazarin had steadily followed Richelieu’s policy of weakening the nobles on their country estates. Whenever he had an opportunity he destroyed a feudal castle, and by destroying the towers which commanded nearly every town in France, he freed such towns as Bourges, for instance, from their long practical subjection to the neighbouring great lord.
The Fronde over, Mazarin had to build up afresh the power of France at home and abroad. It is to his shame that he did so little at home. Beyond destroying the brick-and-mortar remains of feudalism, he did nothing for the people. But abroad his policy was everywhere successful, and opened the way for the policy of Louis XIV. He at first, by means of an alliance with Cromwell, recovered the north-western cities of France, though at the price of yielding Dunkirk to the Protector. On the Baltic, France guaranteed the Treaty of Oliva between her old allies Sweden, Poland and Brandenburg, which preserved her influence in that quarter. In Germany he, through Hugues de Lionne, formed the league of the Rhine, by which the states along the Rhine bound themselves under the headship of France to be on their guard against the house of Austria. By such measures Spain was induced to sue for peace, which was finally signed in the Isle of Pheasants on the Bidassoa, and is known as the Treaty of the Pyrenees. By it Spain recovered Franche Comté, but ceded to France Roussillon, and much of French Flanders; and, what was of greater ultimate importance to Europe, Louis XIV. was to marry a Spanish princess, who was to renounce her claims to the Spanish succession if her dowry was paid, which Mazarin knew could not happen at present from the emptiness of the Spanish exchequer. He returned to Paris in declining health, and did not long survive the unhealthy sojourn on the Bidassoa; after some political instruction to his young master he passed away at Vincennes on the 9th of March 1661, leaving a fortune estimated at from 18 to 40 million livres behind him, and his nieces married into the greatest families of France and Italy.
The man who could have had such success, who could have made the Treaties of Westphalia and the Pyrenees, who could have weathered the storm of the Fronde, and left France at peace with itself and with Europe to Louis XIV., must have been a great man; and historians, relying too much on the brilliant memoirs of his adversaries, like De Retz, are apt to rank him too low. That he had many a petty fault there can be no doubt; that he was avaricious and double-dealing was also undoubted; and his carnets show to what unworthy means he had recourse to maintain his influence over the queen. What that influence was will be always debated, but both his carnets and the Brühl letters show that a real personal affection, amounting to passion on the queen’s part, existed. Whether they were ever married may be doubted; but that hypothesis is made more possible by M. Chéruel’s having been able to prove from Mazarin’s letters that the cardinal himself had never taken more than the minor orders, which could always be thrown off. With regard to France he played a more patriotic part than Condé or Turenne, for he never treated with the Spaniards, and his letters show that in the midst of his difficulties he followed with intense eagerness every movement on the frontiers. It is that immense mass of letters that prove the real greatness of the statesman, and disprove De Retz’s portrait, which is carefully arranged to show off his enemy against the might of Richelieu. To concede that the master was the greater man and the greater statesman does not imply that Mazarin was but a foil to his predecessor. It is true that we find none of those deep plans for the internal prosperity of France which shine through Richelieu’s policy. Mazarin was not a Frenchman, but a citizen of the world, and always paid most attention to foreign affairs; in his letters all that could teach a diplomatist is to be found, broad general views of policy, minute details carefully elaborated, keen insight into men’s characters, cunning directions when to dissimulate or when to be frank. Italian though he was by birth, education and nature, France owed him a great debt for his skilful management during the early years of Louis XIV., and the king owed him yet more, for he had not only transmitted to him a nation at peace, but had educated for him his great servants Le Tellier, Lionne and Colbert. Literary men owed him also much; not only did he throw his famous library open to them, but he pensioned all their leaders, including Descartes, Vincent Voiture (1598–1648), Jean Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) and Pierre Corneille. The last-named applied, with an adroit allusion to his birthplace, in the dedication of his Pompée, the line of Virgil:—
“Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento.”
(H. M. S.)
Authorities.—All the earlier works on Mazarin, and early accounts of his administration, of which the best were Bazin’s Histoire de France sous Louis XIII. et sous le Cardinal Mazarin, 4 vols. (1846), and Saint-Aulaire’s Histoire de la Fronde, have been superseded by P. A. Chéruel’s admirable Histoire de France pendant la minorité de Louis XIV., 4 vols. (1879–1880), which covers from 1643–1651, and its sequel Histoire de France sous le ministère de Cardinal Mazarin, 2 vols. (1881–1882), which is the first account of the period written by one able to sift the statements of De Retz and the memoir writers, and rest upon such documents as Mazarin’s letters and carnets. Mazarin’s Lettres, which must be carefully studied by any student of the history of France, have appeared in the Collection des documents inédits, 9 vols. For his carnets reference must be made to V. Cousin’s articles in the Journal des Savants, and Chéruel in Revue historique (1877), see also Chéruel’s Histoire de France pendant la minorité, &c., app. to vol. iii.; for his early life to Cousin’s Jeunesse de Mazarin (1865), and for the careers of his nieces to Renée’s Les Nièces de Mazarin (1856). For the Mazarinades or squibs written against him in Paris during the Fronde, see C. Moreau’s Bibliographie des mazarinades (1850), containing an account of 4082 Mazarinades. See also A. Hassall, Mazarin (1903).
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, a town of Afghanistan, the capital of the province of Afghan Turkestan. Owing to the importance of the military cantonment of Takhtapul, and its religious sanctity, it has long ago supplanted the more ancient capital of Balkh. It is situated in a malarious, almost desert plain, 9 m. E. of Balkh, and 30 m. S. of the Pata Kesar ferry on the Oxus river. In this neighbourhood is concentrated most of the Afghan army north of the Hindu Kush mountains, the fortified cantonment of Dehdadi having been completed by Sirdar Ghulam Ali Khan and incorporated with Mazar. Mazar-i-Sharif also contains a celebrated mosque, from which the town takes its name. It is a huge ornate building with minarets and a lofty cupola faced with shining blue tiles. It was built by Sultan Ali Mirza about A.D. 1420, and is held in great veneration by all Mussulmans, and especially by Shiites, because it is supposed to be the tomb of Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet.
MAZARRÓN, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, 19 m. W. of Cartagena. Pop. (1900), 23,284. There are soap and flour mills and metallurgic factories in the town, and iron, copper and lead mines in the neighbouring Sierra de Almenara. A railway 5 m. long unites Mazarrón to its port on the Mediterranean, where there is a suburb with 2500 inhabitants (mostly engaged in fisheries and coasting trade), containing barracks, a custom-house, and important leadworks. Outside of the suburb there are saltpans, most of the proceeds of which are exported to Galicia.
MAZATLÁN, a city and port of the state of Sinaloa, Mexico, 120 m. (direct) W.S.W. of the city of Durango, in lat. 23° 12′ N., long 106° 24′ W. Pop. (1895), 15,852; (1900), 17,852. It is
