284 THE AGE OF HAPSBURG ASCENDENCY rule been beneficent. The idea of ' government by the people,' which was at the root of the dispute which in England was just then culminating in the Civil War, had not presented itself to any of the rulers of Europe. Absolutism was the one alternative to feudal disunion and anarchy. Richelieu died ; Louis took for his minister Mazarin, who pursued the great cardinal's policy though by different methods. 8 France Louis died a few months later, and the regency was under conferred on his widow Anne of Austria, who Mazarin. disappointed the expectations under which she had been chosen by retaining Mazarin. Five years later the policy of Richelieu and Mazarin bore its fruit for France in the treaty of Westphalia. Before the peace was actually signed, there had broken out that travesty of a constitutional struggle known as the War of the Fronde; a contest in which there were no The Fronde. . . . . . . , . , principles at stake except the desire of various nobles to get rid of all controlling authority, and of some few to capture the controlling authority for themselves ; sign of other than personal motives there was none. Leaders who were on the same side one day were on opposite sides the next. After four years, during which the Spaniards had recovered some ground — for the Peace of Westphalia had not terminated the contest between France and Spain — Mazarin was reinstated in power. The government troops were placed under the command of the great general Turenne. Mazarin sought and obtained the support of the Lord Protector of England, whose fleets under Robert Blake smote those of Spain, while his Ironsides joined Turenne in the Netherlands. Dunkirk was captured, and the conquest of the whole country appeared to be merely a question of time. The success of France was assured largely through the help she had received from Cromwell. Had Cromwell lived he would have seen to it that the policy of France of the should subserve his own or at least should not Pyrenees, override it. But Cromwell died. England again fell into confusion, and Mazarin could turn every- thing that had been gained to the advantage of France. Spain
