ABSTRACT
Interwoven throughout Mazarin’s diplomatic career are two contrasting lines: the visionary and the realistic. With the ability to identify and to seek the grand objectives, a larger, more secure French kingdom in a peaceful Europe, went the politician’s devices, the engagements, bribes and threats that were the currency of public affairs. Between the elevated and the downright sordid was the mass of ordinary dealings in which his skills and those of his agents were stretched to exploit advantage or probe weakness. Success depended most on the military weapon, but somewhat too on the gentler arts of persuasion: both required regular funding. Urgent calls for money ring insistently through Mazarin’s letters. Typical was one of July 1649, to Le Tellier:
I await as a matter of life and death … to know if and when we shall have the money necessary to start the siege of Cambrai … I am sure you will not forget to speak to the businessmen concerned to see if we cannot persuade them to come to our rescue…. I beg you to see that everything possible is done to ensure that on Monday or Tuesday we can have 100,000 crowns.
