ABSTRACT
Richelieu’s tremendous image looms over the early Mazarin years. Mazarin’s fellow ministers, like Colbert in a later generation, would refer to him as a final authority: ‘what would the great Cardinal have done?’ Frondeurs were to make it an objection and a taunt that Mazarin did not understand what was legitimate in the way that Richelieu had done. The past came to seem more attractive, of course, in the glow of present resentments. In the same way Henry IV was already acquiring his almost legendary status as the good king, presiding over a land of plenty. Richelieu’s ministry was however fresh in men’s minds. Some had been injured and looked for recompense. Respect for the man did not mean that all accepted the measures he had taken. The immediate question does not however have to do with particular measures but with the trend towards a centralised royal authority, enlarged inevitably at the expense of the rights of individuals and corporations. To what extent did educated Frenchmen accept the absolutist trend? Had Richelieu and his subsidised school of writers 1 won the political argument? Upon answers to those questions, among other factors, would depend the outcome of the Fronde.
