Clement on 12 Dec 2006  •  Link

A summary snippet with editorial from the Catholic Encyclopaedia: "...the Abbé Choisy asserts that Mazarin died 'in the vision of being made pope'. One reminiscence at least of the old political ideas of Christian Europe is to be found in his will: he left the pope a fund (600,000 livres) to prosecute the war against the Turks. The cardinal, who throughout his life had given but little thought to the interests of Christianity, seems to have sought pardon by remembering them on his deathbed. The same will directed the foundation of the College of the Four Nations, for the free education of sixty children from those provinces which he had united to France. To this college he bequeathed the library now known as the Bibliothèque Mazarine."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/1…

"...after some political instruction to his young master he passed away at Vincennes on the 9th of March 1661, leaving a fortune estimated at from 18 to 40 million livres behind him, and his nieces married into the greatest families of France and Italy."
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/J…

Terry F on 13 Dec 2006  •  Link

The will of Mazarin figures in the plot of *The Vicomte de Bragelonne*, Chs. XLIX-LVII Vol. I (1848 -- 1850) by Alexandre Dumas http://classicreader.com/booktoc.…