- Sire... never take a Prime Minister.—Cardinal Mazarin's deathbed advice to Louis XIV, The Vicomte de Bragelonne
Cardinal Jules Raymond Mazarin (Italian: Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino; July 14, 1602 - March 9, 1661) was an Italian-born prelate, diplomat and statesman who served the Papacy and the French crown. He was chief minister of the Kingdom of France, mostly during the regency of Anne of Austria following the death of King Louis XIII, and effectively became the most powerful man in the kingdom between 1643 and Louis XIV's full assumption of power in 1661 upon his death.
Coming from a humble family originating in the Abruzzo mountains, he studied among the Jesuits. His proximity to the powerful Colonna family helped him get closer to his times' elites. His father sent him off to Spain out of fear of his gambling habits, but then he came back to Italy to study law. He then came to serve the Papacy as an infantry captain during the Thirty Years' War. When he was sent to France for diplomatic work in 1630, Louis XIII and his chief minister the Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu noticed him. Richelieu saw great potential in him and mentored him, offering him financial support and helping him to become a cardinal without him having become a priest first (which was a rare but tolerated occurence within the Church).
Upon Richelieu's death in 1642, Mazarin succeeded him as chief minister to Louis XIII, and he assumed the regency along with dowager Queen Anne of Austria upon Louis' death in 1643 when Louis XIV was 5 years old. He was frequently attacked for his foreign origins and wealth, and faced and successfully crushed revolting factions in the period of the Fronde
, one of the worst eras of Civil War France went through prior to the Revolution. He was also a patron for the arts and literature, authors such as Jean de La Fontaine and Molière started flourishing partly thanks to him. When Louis XIV eventually assumed power upon Mazarin's death in 1661 and made Jean-Baptiste Colbert his chief minister (thereby ending the streak of clergymen running the show), he inherited a pacified kingdom and solidified royal authority, allowing him to consolidate his absolute monarchical powers.
Since he held the same position in real life and played a similarly crucial role in shaping the Kingdom of France, Mazarin is often portrayed as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Richelieu in fiction taking place after the latter's death, with Historical Villain Upgrade, a veneer of Foreign Ruling Class and elements of Sinister Minister included in some cases. Again, it helps that Richelieu mentored him.
Works in which Mazarin appears:
- Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne, the two sequels to The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, since those take place after the end of Richelieu's life. The Vicomte of Bragelonne makes him a lover to dowager Queen Anne of Austria, although there's no real life evidence of such a relationship. The musketeers repeatedly mention that Mazarin is an Inadequate Inheritor to Richelieu (case in point: after being arrested by him, they not only break free, they hold him hostage as well).
- Works based on or inspired by the aforementioned sequels to The Three Musketeers. He shows up in some plots involving the Man in the Iron Mask. A number of other adaptations tend to take place after his death, under Jean-Baptiste Colbert.
- The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film), played by Howard Brooks.
- The Vicomte of Bragelonne (1954 film), played by Nico Pepe.
- The Iron Mask (1962 film), played by Enrico Maria Salerno.
- D'Artagnan Amoureux (1977 mini-series), played by Sergio Nicolai.
- The Return of the Musketeers (1989 film), played by Philippe Noiret.
- Sequels to d'Artagnan And Three Musketeers (1992-2009), played by Anatoly Ravikovich.
- Revenge of the Musketeers (1994 film), played by Luigi Proietti.
- La Femme Musketeer (2004 TV film), played by Gérard Depardieu.
- The Musketeers (2014-6 British series): In this series, which played very fast and loose with history, the Grand Finale has the show's version of Aramis, played by Santiago Cabrera, effectively taking on the role that Mazarin had in real-world history.
- Si Versailles m'était conté... (1954 film by Sacha Guitry), played by Samson Fainsilber.
- The Taking of Power by Louis XIV (1966 TV film), played by Giulio Cesare Silvagni.
- Mazarin (1978 French miniseries), played by François Périer.
- Molierissimo (1989 animated series), voiced by Albert Augier in French.
- Louis, the Child King (1991), played by Paolo Graziosi.
- The Japanese light novel series The Familiar of Zero features a fantasy counterpart of Cardinal Mazarin, who serves as Chancellor of Tristain.
- Blanche (2002 French film), played by Jean Rochefort. Perhaps the biggest instance of Historical Villain Upgrade, even moreso than the Dumas writings.
- The Queen and the Cardinal (2009 French miniseries), played by Philippe Torreton.
- The King, the Squirrel and the Grass Snake (2010 French miniseries), played by Jean-Pol Dubois.
