[400] Ep. 1440. p. 653.
[401] Ep. 1442. p. 654.
[402] Ep. 1472. p. 666.
[X.] Cardinal Richelieu died the year after the renewal of the treaty of alliance between France and Sweden, on the 4th of December, 1642. This famous Minister was not much regretted by the Swedish Ambassador: independent of the grounds of complaint which Grotius thought he had against the Cardinal, it is not surprising that he should have no great veneration for him; they were of too different sentiments to esteem, or perhaps to do one another justice.
Lewis XIII. did not long survive his Prime Minister; the fourteenth of May, 1643, was his last. Anne of Austria, his widow, was Regent of the Kingdom during the minority of her son Lewis XIV. She told the Swedish Ambassador by Chavigny, and repeated it herself, that the King's death would make no change in the alliance between France and Sweden; that she would follow the intentions of the late King in every thing, and observe with the greatest fidelity the treaties made with the allies.
The Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Condé were of the same sentiments[403]. Cardinal Mazarin soon gained all the Queen's confidence, and the principal part in the Ministry: he pretended to support the dignity of Cardinal with the same grandeur as his predecessor: which made Grotius resolve[404] to wait for orders from Sweden before he saw his Eminence. September 26, 1643, he writes to Salvius[405], "I received with great pleasure your Excellency's letters. I caused them to be delivered to Cardinal Mazarin, whom I have not seen, nor will see, unless the Queen order it. He takes the precedence of the Ambassadors of Kings; and though the title of Eminence be given him, he refuses that of Excellence to Ambassadors." Sweden having declared war against the King of Denmark[406], who had taken several Swedish ships trading in the Sound, Grotius communicated the Queen of Sweden's motives to the French Queen[407], without having orders for it, in an audience which he had of her Majesty about the middle of April, 1644; acquainting her that justice and necessity obliged Sweden to have recourse to arms against the Danes; he also shewed her the declaration of war, which he translated into Latin, and printed at Paris. Some time after, Christina sent him orders to inform the Queen of France of the reasons which obliged the Swedes to enter into a war with Denmark; which Grotius did accordingly at an audience in the beginning of June, 1644.
FOOTNOTES:
[403] Ep. 1594. p. 743.
[404] Ep. 632. p. 946.
[405] Ep. 1611. p. 717.