Cardinal Mazarin

Born Giulio Mazzarino in 1602, he worked as a papal diplomat before catching Richelieu's eye and moving to Paris in 1640. When Richelieu died in 1642, Mazarin became chief minister to Louis XIII and then, a year later, to the five-year-old Louis XIV, managing both the regency for Anne of Austria and the boy's education. He closed out the Thirty Years' War with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, making France the dominant European power, but that same year the Fronde erupted — a noble uprising that forced him to flee Paris with the royal family and regroup from Germany. His general Turenne crushe…