Audiobook: Mazarin

Guilio Raimondo (Cardinal Mazarin, 1602-1661), Richelieu's designated successor as chief minister of France, was a master of diplomacy. Though a cardinal, he was not a priest and was probably secretly married to the Queen-Mother, Anne of Austria. Together they ruled France, facing the great rebellion known as the Fronde, and with the help of the military genius of Turenne, prevailed over the armies of Spain, Austria, and the traitorous Grand Condé. Arthur Hassall writes of Mazarin that by the time of his death in 1661 he had, through "patience, perseverance, and sagacity," fulfilled Richelieu's foreign policy and made the twenty-one year-old Louis XIV the absolute monarch of Europe's greatest power. (Pamela Nagami)