ABSTRACT
Since the flow of money was all-important, the finance minister was bound to be prominent, increasingly so as events moved towards the confrontation of 1648. Mazarin was seemingly content to leave him a free hand to propose and carry out his policies. To an even greater extent than Richelieu’s, his interest in fiscal measures was limited to simple considerations: the amount that could be raised, the trouble that would be caused. For the reckoning, he deferred blandly to the expert.
