. The seven richest heiresses of France. igny he wonRichelieu. It is difficult to know how much truth thereis in this phrase, but it is easy to see that whileRetz made in his Memoirs a splendid portrait ofRichelieu, he gave us only a bad caricature ofMazarin. An Italian historian wrote marvellous storiespertaining to Mazarins sojourn at the Court ofFrance; they are fairy tales created, one wouldsay, by the distance. Here is one of them : Oneevening Mazarin went to the Palais Royal, wherea great number of noblemen and ladies weregathered and gambled much. Being urged totry his luck, he agreed t
. The seven richest heiresses of France. igny he wonRichelieu. It is difficult to know how much truth thereis in this phrase, but it is easy to see that whileRetz made in his Memoirs a splendid portrait ofRichelieu, he gave us only a bad caricature ofMazarin. An Italian historian wrote marvellous storiespertaining to Mazarins sojourn at the Court ofFrance; they are fairy tales created, one wouldsay, by the distance. Here is one of them : Oneevening Mazarin went to the Palais Royal, wherea great number of noblemen and ladies weregathered and gambled much. Being urged totry his luck, he agreed to do so, hoping to be seenby the Queen; soon he won so prodigiouslythat the news was spread in the galleries andeverybody rushed to see the amount of goldpieces heaped in front of him. The Queen camealso ; she entered when Mazarin won a greatstake and he failed not to attribute his good luckto the presence of Her Majesty. He won thenninety thousand gold pieces ; he left the table anddistributed a part of his winnings among the ladies 44. The Cardinal de Richklieu [to face page 44 Seven Richest Heiresses of France and gentlemen ; then he caused to be sent fiftythousand to the Queen. At first she refused toaccept such a present, but the Italian begged ofher in such convincing words and so sweetly—conparole si agguistate et con si soavi accenti—thatshe allowed herself to be persuaded. This might be true or not, although one couldjudiciously say that when Mazarin was at the Courtof France he could not help seeing that Anneof Austria had then no influence whatever, thateverything was in the hands of Richelieu, and thatit was of far greater consequence to win the PrimeMinister than the Queen. This naturally could not have been seen atRome, and they talked but of Mazarins deeds inFrance, and naturally gambling and love playeda big part in the imagination of his old friends. As soon as Mazarin returned to Rome hegave up the Nunciature and went to France,where he must have seen grea
Size: 1432px × 1746px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmazarinjules16021661
