Whether they were eventually secretly married or not is one of the unsolved problems of history, but that during the rest of their lives they were united by the strongest bonds of mutual affection and respect is beyond a doubt. To the astonishment of all who were not in the secret, Anne signalised her assumption of power by confirming Mazarin in the position of chief minister to which he had been designated by Richelieu, by continuing the foreign and domestic policy of the great cardinal, and by exiling afresh the dukes of Vendôme Mercoeur and Guise and the duchess of Chevreuse who were already portioning out the vengeance they would take on the cardinalists. [Sidenote: =Character of Mazarin.=] Cardinal Mazarin was a very different character from his great predecessor. He was altogether of meaner mould. Richelieu was a man of original genius, who had made for himself his own position in the world, and had been the architect of his own fame. Mazarin would never have emerged from the ruck of mankind had not Richelieu led the way and given him a task to perform. It was his business to maintain, carry on, develop, that of Richelieu to create and establish. Soft and conciliatory in manner, graceful in address, tactful and considerate in business, deferential without being obsequious in conversation, he disarmed his opponents instead of conquering them, he persuaded instead of frightening them. Management not action was his strong point, finesse and diplomacy not the scaffold and the sword his weapons. An absolute master of dissimulation, he crept catlike through life, the outward picture of trustful innocence, concealing a callous heart and poisoned claws. It was a character as hateful to the open-hearted Frenchman as to the honest Englishman, and even if it had not been disfigured by the grossest avarice, could never have made itself tolerable to either. Italian to the backbone in his suppleness of character, his love of finesse, his courtly manners, his advancement of his relations, his art collections of rare books and sculptures, in the meanness of his avarice and in the prodigality of his display, he was looked upon by the French nobles and the bulk of the French people as a foreigner, who, having by unworthy arts made himself the master of the affections of a silly woman, a foreigner like himself, had fastened like a leech upon France and was sucking its lifeblood with insatiable voracity. Nothing can exceed the virulence of the hatred with which Mazarin was regarded. Not even the triumphs of the Thirty Years’ War and the peace of Westphalia, not even the battle of Rocroy and the intoxicating cup of glory which he offered to France could save him from the indiscriminating and loathsome abuse showered on him by that strange outburst of patriotism and selfishness, liberty and frivolity, known as the Fronde, of which hatred to him was the chief factor. [Sidenote: =Outbreak of the Fronde.=]