The relationship between Anne and her royal husband was never more than remotely cordial. They led separate lives and met only on rare occasions. Nevertheless, the neglected Queen maintained the high standards of behavior instilled in her by her strict Spanish Catholic upbringing. That the birth of young Louis XIV after 23 barren years was considered miraculous rather than scandalous (he was christened Louis "Dieudonné" or "God-given") speaks volumes to her spotless reputation.
She was less wise in her politics. She remained sympathetic to the cause of her Spanish brother, Philip IV, even as Cardinal Richelieu catapulted France into twenty-four years of war with Spain. This earned her the lasting enmity of the influential Cardinal, who served as Louis XIII's chief minister 1624-1642.
Anne took over as sole regent for her son after his father's death in 1642, despite provisos in Louis XIII's will intended to limit her influence. Many members of the French nobility supported her regency in the hopes that she would restore their privileges lost under Richelieu. They were soon disillusioned, however, when she took as her first minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin, one of Richelieu's protégés and an ardent proponent of the absolute power of the King. By steadfastly adhering to Mazarin's advice, she survived the Fronde, a series of revolts by the nobility between 1648 and 1653, and preserved her son's position as absolute monarch.
Her regency ended in 1651, when Louis XIV officially came of age. In 1659, the war with Spain ended. The following year, that peace was cemented by the marriage of the young King Louis to Anne's niece, the Spanish Hapsburg princess Marie-Thérèse of Austria.
Although Anne's influence with her son waned after his marriage, he continued to treat her with respect and consideration. She lived in retirement until her death in 1666 in Paris.
In 1690, claiming falsely that he had been in the employ of the late Mademoiselle de Guise, he obtained a privilege allowing him to engrave music. However, when he attempted to bring out an engraved edition of a work by Moreau, one of the composers whose work was published exclusively by Ballard, the printer brought suit against de Baussen and received a judgement against him and his partner, Henry Foucault. Despite this inauspicious introduction, de Baussen later worked as an engraver for the Ballard publishing house. The de Baussen "second editions" of Lully works in the UNT collection are among those which sparked a second lawsuit, brought by Ballard against M. Guyenet and Lully's eldest son.
Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711)
The UNT volume of Achille et Polyxène has two signatures on p. ?? (the end of the prologue) which appear to be those of Pascal Collasse and the publisher, Christoph Ballard.
Achille et Polyxène achieved only a modest success. However, Thétis et Pélée, Collasse's next opera, was very well received. Of particular note was the tempest scene, which was so complex that it could not be printed using Ballard's movable type and had to be engraved instead. Collasse's innovative use of the orchestra in this highly dramatic scene was much admired and inspired other composers to try similar orchestral effects. Thétis and Pélée was successfully revived in 1708, a year before the composer's death.
Unfortunately, Thétis and Pélée turned out to be the high point of Collasse's career. His only later work to achieve even marginal success was an opéra-ballet, Ballet des saisons (1695), which pre-dated Campra's more famous L'Europe galante by two years. Collasse's attempt to found an opera company in Lille failed when the theater burned down. According to one of his contemporaries, Titon du Tillet, Collasse spent much time and money in his later years in alchemical research, which " . . . served only to ruin him and weaken his health." His last opera, Polyxéne et Pyrrus (1706) was a miserable failure. For more information on the life and works of Pascal Collasse, we recommend the article on Collasse by Caroline Wood in the New Grove Dictionary of Opera (vol. 1, pp. 901-902).
Isaac Lloyd Hibberd
In 1624, Louis made Cardinal Richelieu his principal minister, and became increasingly dependent on the Cardinal's keen political sense. Richelieu put his attention to consolidating the King's powers at home, and undermining the power of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs abroad. Inevitably, this brought both the Cardinal and Louis into conflict with the Queen Mother, who, together with other members of the Catholic nobility, demanded that the King dismiss Richelieu and end his practice of supporting Protestant states against the Catholic Habsburgs. After some hesitation, the King decided to stand behind Richelieu. Marie withdrew into exile, taking the King's rebellious younger brother, the duc d'Orleans, with her.
France declared war on Spain in May of 1635; by August of 1636, the Spanish army was advancing on Paris. For once rejecting Richelieu's advice to evacuate the city, Louis rallied his troops and drove out the invaders. The war with Spain continued after Louis' death, ending only with the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) and the marriage of Louis's son, Louis XIV, to Marie-Thérese of Austria, daughter of the Spanish king.
The young dauphin Louis was born in 1638, after 23 barren years of marriage between Louis and his Spanish wife. Exactly how the child came to be conceived has been an object of some speculation, since the king and queen were barely on speaking terms; however, there never seems to have been any question of his legitimacy. Not surprisingly, the child was christened Louis "Dieu-donnée" ("God-given").
In 1642, the king's young favorite, the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, conspired with the Spanish court to overthrow Richelieu. The conspiracy was unsuccessful, however, and only deepened Louis' dependence on the Cardinal. Principally through his guidance, Louis was established as one of the most powerful monarches in Europe.
Richelieu died in December, 1642, and was succeeded as principal minister by his protegée, Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Louis XIII died of tuberculosis the following May. He was succeeded by his five-year-old son, under the regency of Anne of Austria.
The marriage between Louis XIV of France and his cousin, Marie-Thérèse of Austria, was one of the conditions of the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), which ended a twenty-four year war between France and Spain. The treaty signed as part of the marriage settlement stipulated that Marie-Thérèse would renounce all claim to the Spanish throne in return for a large dowry. The dowry, however, was never paid, and Louis later conquered part of the Spanish Netherlands in his wife's name (War of Devolution, 1667-68).
Just as Louis XIV was the stereotype of the absolute monarch, Marie-Thérèse was the stereotype of the dutiful wife. Although she shared the king's affections with a succession of royal mistresses, she maintained to the end of her life an impenetrable dignity and sangfroid. She bore Louis five children of whom only one, the Dauphin Louis (d. 1711) survived to adulthood. At her death, Louis XIV is reported to have said, "This is the only trouble she has caused me."
An able successor to the brilliant Richelieu, Mazarin helped to establish France's supremacy in Europe, and the absolute power of the monarchy in France itself.
Mazarin first met Richelieu in 1630, while on a mission from the Holy See to negotiate a peace between France and Spain. He immediately came under the influence of that powerful and enigmatic personality, and, in his own words, "resolved to devote myself to him entirely." Although his immediate mission was frustrated when Richelieu brought France into the Thirty Years' War and Mazarin was recalled to Rome, he remained a strong supporter of French interests within the papal court.
In 1640, Mazarin left the employ of the Pope and entered the service of France. He received the Cardinal's hat in 1641, primarily through the influence of Richelieu. After the Cardinal died in 1642, Mazarin succeeded him as First Minister of France. When Louis XIII died the following year, Mazarin retained his position and his influence during the regency of Anne, mother of the young King Louis XIV.
Although Mazarin's diplomatic acumen steered the French ship of state safely through the choppy waters of war with Spain, ??? with Germany and an uneasy alliance with England, he remained unpopular with the nobility at home in France. As successor to Richelieu, he had inherited the ill will created by his predecessor's determination to focus the power of the state in the person of the King. The nobility, hopeful at first that Anne would re-instate their privileges lost under Richelieu, became increasingly hostile. In 1648, this hostility erupted into outright rebellion. The Fronde ("Front"), as the alliance of nobles was called, took up arms against the crown. During the five years of the Fronde, Anne, the young king, and his younger brother, Philip, the Duc d'Orléans, were at various times on the run, in hiding, or under house arrest in Paris. The rebellion lasted until 1653, when it was suppressed by government troops.
Louis was finally crowned in 1654. Mazarin, who had supervised the young king's education, gradually involved him in the affairs of government. Mazarin's position as first minister of France was sometimes complicated by his family obligations. The uncle of a flourishing crop of attractive niblings, he used his influence to arrange advantageous marriages for many of them. However, in 1659, when Louis XIV allowed his attraction to Marie Mancini, one of Mazarin's nieces, to call into question his political marriage to the Spanish infanta, Maria Theresa, Mazarin put his political allegiance first. Marie was packed off to visit relatives, and Louis was, with equal efficiency, packed off to Spain for his arranged marriage.
Mazarin remained Louis' most respected advisor until his death in 1661. Even after his death, Louis did not replace him, but rather took over the reins of government himself.
