LOUIS XIV. succeeded his father in 1643, being then hardly five years old. His reign, including his minority, lasted seventy-two years, a long and important period, marked by many events and vicissithdee all over Europe, in most of which Louis took an active part. The history of such a reign requires volumes, and has been written or adverted to and commented upon by numerous historians who have treated of the age. But the best works for making na acquainted with the character of Lords and of his govern ment, and the condition of France under his reign, are the contempo rary memoirs of St. Simon, Dangoau, Louville, Noailles, Cardinal de Itetz, Madame de Motteville, and others, and above all the writings of Louis XIV. himself, especially his 'Instructions pour le Dauphin, which reveal his most secret thoughts. Cardinal Mazariu, an Italian by birth and a pupil of Richelieu, but inferior to his master, was the minister of the regency during the minority of Louis. He continued the war against Spain and the emperor of Germany in conjunction with the Swedes. Turenne, the marshal of Grammont, and the Duke of Eughien, afterwards the great Conde, distinguished themselves in those wars. The treaties of Munster and Osnabruck (1648) put an end to the Thirty Years War, and Mazarin had the satisfaction of concluding this peace, called that of Westphalia, by which France acquired Alsace, the Suntgan, and the seigniory of the bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. The same year however that the war in Germany was terminated the civil war of La Fronde broke 'out in France. The parliament of Paris and several of the high nobility revolted against the authority of the cardinal. Louis, then ten years of sge, the queen-regent, and Mazarin, were obliged to leave the capital in January 1649, and this humiliation seems to have made a deep Impression on the mind of Louis, and to have contributed to render him mistrustful, arbitrary, and stern. After some fighting, peace was made, and the court re-entered Paris in the month of August. This was the seine year in which Charles I. was beheaded in England and the monarchy abolished. The prince of Coude, who had been the means of appeasing the civil war, having given offence to the queen and the cardinal, was arrested, and Turenne and other Frondeurs began again the civil war in the following year (1650). [Corr* Louts DE.] In 1651 the queen ordered the release of Conde; Turenne made his peace with the court, and Mazarin was exiled by a sentence of the parliament of Paris. Conde however continued the war, and being joined by the Duke of Orleans, took possession of Paris, which the court had left again. In October, 1652, an arrangement took
place, the king re-entered Paris, Conde emigrated to join the Spaniards, the Cardinal de Retz, one ()lathe chief actors in the dis turbances, was put in prison at Vincennes, and Mazarin himselt returned to l'aris in February 1653, and resumed the ministry. In 1654 Louis XIV. made his first campaign in Flanders against the Spaniards. In the following year he concluded a treaty of alliance with Cromwell against Spain. The war continued during that and the next year with various success; Turenne commanded the French troops, and the prince of Conde fought on the side of the Spaniards against his own country.
In 1567 the Emperor Ferdinand III. died, and Mazarin intrigued to prevent the election of his son Leopold, and to obtain the imperial dignity for Louis XIV. He began by supporting, through his agents at Diet, the pretensions of the elector of Bavaria, and representing and exaggerating the danger to the liberties of Germany which would attend another election of an Austrian prince to the imperial throne.
It was soon found however that the elector of Bavaria, was not likely to be nominated, and Mazarin then intrigued separately with the electors in favour of Louis. He bribed, by actual disbursements of money and ample promises of territorial aggrandisement, the arch bishops electors of Troves and Cologne, as well as the elector-palatine, and even the elector of Brandenburg. Had he succeeded in gaining over the elector of Mayence, John Philip de Schoenborn, chancellor of the empire, Louis XIV. would have succeeded. Louie himself repaired to Metz, his army being cantoned in that neighbourhood, as if to support his pretensions. The cardinali sent to the Diet at Frankfurt the marshal of Grammont and M. de Lyonne to further his object. In his instructions he empowered them to offer to the elector of Mayence 300,000 livres, bssidea a revenue of 90,000 more for his relations, and, if necessary, to send at once to Frankfurt tho value of 1,200,000 livres in plate and other valuable objects as a security. (' Instructions adresseca do Stenay, le 29 Juillet, 1637, par Mazarin, b, Messrs. de Grammont et de Lyoune,' quoted by Lemoutey among the Pieces Justificativea ' of his Essai sur l'Etablissernent Monarchique de Louie XIV.') The elector of Mayenco however adjourned the election to the following year, and wrote to Leopold of Austria, king of Hungary and Bohemia, son of Ferdinand, promising him his vote. The other electors kept the money they had received from Mazario, and turned also iu favour of Leopold, who was unanimously elected in 1658.