Before taking holy orders, Cardinal Mazarin had served as an officer in
the Spanish army, where he had even won distinction.

Coming to France in the train of a Roman cardinal, he took service with
Richelieu, who, remarking in him all the qualities of a supple,
insinuating, artificial nature,--that is to say, the nature of a good
politician,--appointed him his private secretary, and entrusted him with
all his secrets, as if he had singled him out as his successor.

Upon the death of Richelieu, Mazarin did not scruple to avow that the
great Armand's sceptre had been a tyrant's sceptre and of bronze. By
such an admission he crept into the good graces of Louis XIII., who,
himself almost moribund, had shown how pleased he was to see his chief
minister go before him to the grave.

Louis XIII. being dead, his widow, Anne of Austria, in open Parliament
cancelled the monarch's testamentary depositions and constituted herself
Regent with absolute authority. Mazarin was her Richelieu.

In France, where men affect to be so gallant and so courteous, how is it
that when women rule their reign is always stormy and troublous? Anne of
Austria--comely, amiable, and gracious as she was--met with the same
brutal discourtesy which her sister-in-law, Marie de Medici, had been
obliged to bear. But gifted with greater force of intellect than that
queen, she never yielded aught of her just rights; and it was her strong
will which more than once astounded her enemies and saved the crown for
the young King.

They lampooned her, hissed her, and burlesqued her publicly at the
theatres, cruelly defaming her intentions and her private life. Strong