whole kingdom. Cinq Mars, the last favourite he had given the king,
plotted his overthrow, with the help of the Spaniards, but was detected
and executed, when the great minister was already at death's door.
Richelieu recommended an Italian priest, Julius Mazarin, whom he had
trained to work under him, to carry on the government, and died in the
December of 1642. The king only survived him five months, dying on the
14th of May, 1643. The war was continued on the lines Richelieu had laid
down, and four days after the death of Louis XIII. the army in the Low
Countries gained a splendid victory at Rocroy, under the Duke of
Enghien, entirely destroying the old Spanish infantry. The battles of
Freiburg, Nordlingen, and Lens raised the fame of the French generals to
the highest pitch, and in 1649 reduced the Emperor to make peace in the
treaty of Münster. France obtained as her spoil the three bishoprics,
Metz, Toul, and Verdun, ten cities in Elsass, Brisach, and the Sundgau,
with the Savoyard town of Pignerol; but the war with Spain continued
till 1659, when Louis XIV. engaged to marry Maria Theresa, a daughter of
the King of Spain.


3. The Fronde.--When an heir had long been despaired of, Anne of
Austria, the wife of Louis XIII., had become the mother of two sons, the
eldest of whom, _Louis XIV._, was only five years old at the time of his
father's death. The queen-mother became regent, and trusted entirely to
Mazarin, who had become a cardinal, and pursued the policy of Richelieu.
But what had been endured from a man by birth a French noble, was
intolerable from a low-born Italian. "After the lion comes the fox," was
the saying, and the Parliament of Paris made a last stand by refusing to
register the royal edict for fresh taxes, being supported both by the
burghers of Paris, and by a great number of the nobility, who were
personally jealous of Mazarin. This party was called the Fronde, because