On the death of Louis XIII., his queen, Anne of Austria, owed her acquisition of the regency to the Parlement of Paris. Anne was obliged to continue the war with Spain, in which the brilliant victories of the young Duc d'Enghein, known to fame as the Great Condé, brought him sudden glory and unprecedented prestige to the arms of France.
But internally the national finances were in a terribly unsatisfactory state. The measures for raising funds adopted by the minister Mazarin were the more unpopular because he was himself an Italian. The Paris Parlement set itself in opposition to the minister; the populace supported it; the resistance was organised by Paul de Gondi, afterwards known as the Cardinal de Retz. The court had to flee from Paris to St. Germain. Condé was won over by the queen regent; but the nobles, hoping to recover the power which Richelieu had wrenched from them, took the popular side. And their wives and daughters surpassed them in energy. A very striking contrast to the irresponsible frivolity with which the whole affair was conducted is presented by the grim orderliness with which England had at that very moment carried through the last act in the tragedy of Charles I. In France the factions of the Fronde were controlled by love intrigues.
Condé was victorious. But he was at feud with Mazarin, made himself personally unpopular, and found himself arrested when he might have made himself master of the government. A year later the tables were turned; Mazarin had to fly, and the Fronde released Condé. The civil war was renewed; a war in which no principles were at stake, in which the popular party of yesterday was the unpopular party of to-day; in which there were remarkable military achievements, much bloodshed, and much suffering, and which finally wore itself out in 1653, when Mazarin returned to undisputed power. Louis XIV. was then a boy of fifteen.
Mazarin had achieved a great diplomatic triumph by the peace of Westphalia in 1648; but Spain had remained outside that group of treaties; and, owing to the civil war of the Fronde, Condé's successes against her had been to a great extent made nugatory--and now Condé was a rebel and in command of Spanish troops. But Condé, with a Spanish army, met his match in Turenne with a French army.
At this moment, Christina of Sweden was the only European sovereign who had any personal prestige. But Cromwell's achievements in England now made each of the European statesmen anxious for the English alliance; and Cromwell chose France. The combined arms of France and England were triumphant in Flanders, when Cromwell died; and his death changed the position of England. France was financially exhausted, and Mazarin now desired a satisfactory peace with Spain. The result, was the Treaty of the Pyrenees, by which the young King Louis took a Spanish princess in marriage, an alliance which ultimately led to the succession of a grandson of Louis to the Spanish throne. Immediately afterwards, Louis' cousin, Charles II., was recalled to the throne of England. This closing achievement of Mazarin had a triumphant aspect; his position in France remained undisputed till his death in the next year (1661). He was a successful minister; whether he was a great statesman is another question. His one real legacy to France was the acquisition of Alsace.
II.---The French Supremacy in Europe
On Mazarin's death Louis at once assumed personal rule. Since the death of Henry the Great, France had been governed by ministers; now she was to be governed by the king--the power exercised by ministers was precisely circumscribed. Order and vigour were introduced on all sides; the finances were regulated by Colbert, discipline was restored in the army, the creation of a fleet, was begun. In all foreign courts Louis asserted the dignity of France; it was very soon evident that there was no foreign power of whom he need stand in fear. New connections were established with Holland and Portugal. England under Charles II. was of little account.
To the king on the watch for an opportunity, an opportunity soon presents itself. Louis found his when Philip IV. of Spain was succeeded by the feeble Charles II. He at once announced that Flanders reverted to his own wife, the new king's elder sister. He had already made his bargain with the Emperor Leopold, who had married the other infanta.
Louis' armies were overrunning Flanders in 1667, and Franche-Comté next year. Holland, a republic with John de Witt at its head, took alarm; and Sir William Temple succeeded in effecting the Triple Alliance between Holland, England, and Sweden. Louis found it advisable to make peace, even at the price of surrendering Franche-Comté for the present.
Determined now, however, on the conquest of Holland, Louis had no difficulty in secretly detaching the voluptuary Charles II. from the Dutch alliance. Holland itself was torn between the faction of the De Witts and the partisans of the young William of Orange. Overwhelming preparations were made for the utterly unwarrantable enterprise.