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In this trim volume the British historian, Osmund Airy writes of the period between 1648 and 1679 when Cardinal Mazarin, having concluded the masterly Peace of Westphalia for France, confronts the rebellions of the nobility known as the Fronde. By the time of his death in 1661, Mazarin has completed the work of Richelieu and made Louis XIV an absolute monarch, ready to extend his borders by conquest. But in Holland, the young Stadtholder, William III of Orange, resolutely opposes Louis's military ambitions, while in England, the restored Charles II is struggling with Parliament, juggling religious factions, suppressing conspiracies real and imagined, and cheerfully spending Louis's secret subsidies, while giving the French king as little value for his money as possible. (Pamela Nagami)