The administration is in the hands of a governor, who appoints the sub-governors of the nine districts of Amol, Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar, Sari, Ashref, Farah-abad, Tunakabun, Kelarrustak and Kujur into which the province is divided. There is fair security for life and property; and, although otherwise indifferently administered, the country is quite free from marauders; but local disturbances have latterly been frequent in the two last-named districts. The revenue is about £30,000, of which little goes to the state treasury, most being required for the governors, troops and pensions. The capital is Sari, the other chief towns being Barfarush, Meshed-i-Sar, Ashref and Farah-abad. (A. H.-S.) MAZARIN, JULES (1602-1661), French cardinal and statesman, elder son of a Sicilian, Pietro Mazarini, the intendant of the household of Philip Colonna, and of his wife Ortensia Buffalini, a connexion of the Colonnas, was born at Piscina in the Abruzzi on the 14th of July 1602. He was educated by the Jesuits at Rome till his seventeenth year, when he accompanied Jerome Colonna as chamberlain to the university of Alcala in Spain. There he distinguished himself more by his love of gambling and his gallant adventures than by study, but made himself a thorough master, not only of the Spanish language and character, but also of that romantic fashion of Spanish love-making which was to help him greatly in after life, when he became the servant of a Spanish queen. On his return to Rome, about 1622, he took his degree as Doctor _utriusque juris_, and then became captain of infantry in the regiment of Colonna, which took part in the war in the Valtelline. During this war he gave proofs of much diplomatic ability, and Pope Urban VIII. entrusted him, in 1629, with the difficult task of putting an end to the war of the Mantuan succession. His success marked him out for further distinction. He was presented to two canonries in the churches of St John Lateran and Sta Maria Maggiore, although he had only taken the minor orders, and had never been consecrated priest; he negotiated the treaty of Turin between France and Savoy in 1632, became vice-legate at Avignon in 1634, and nuncio at the court of France from 1634 to 1636. But he began to wish for a wider sphere than papal negotiations, and, seeing that he had no chance of becoming a cardinal except by the aid of some great power, he accepted Richelieu's offer of entering the service of the king of France, and in 1639 became a naturalized Frenchman.