Anne of Austria

ANNE OF AUSTRIA. - Daughter of Philip III, King of Spain, and of Margaret of Austria-Styria, born 27 Sept. 1601; on 25 Dec. 1615 she was married to Louis XIII, King of France, at a moment when French policy was oriented toward a Franco-Spanish understanding and was attempting bonds of friendship with the Habsburg sovereigns: a policy, however, that was definitively cut short when Card. Richelieu became first minister on 16 Apr. 1624. A. had neither the love nor the trust of her husband; and in one of the many palace intrigues, so frequent at the court of France, woven by Marie de Rohan, marchioness of Chevreuse, in Aug. 1626, when a probable imminent death of the king was being anticipated, the marriage of the latter with Gaston, the king's half-brother and heir presumptive, was being plotted. Once the conspiracy was thwarted by Richelieu, who knew how to retain the sovereign's full favor, A. remained entirely set apart; on 5 Sept. 1638 she had her first son Louis and on 21 Sept. 1640 her second son Philip, who was the founder of the Orléans branch.

At the time of his death, Richelieu (4 Dec. 1642) designated Card. Mazarin as first minister to Louis XIII, whom the king hastened to appoint; when he himself then died (14 May 1643), A. assumed the regency of her son; but it was Mazarin who held the government until his death (9 March 1661), and he continued that anti-Spanish direction which had been the guiding line of Richelieu's policy. In fact the declaration of the very young king that he was taking over the government (7 Sept. 1651) did not interrupt the work of the powerful minister, who knew how to overcome the tumults of the Fronde (1648-52) provoked by the impatience of the turbulent nobility, more concerned with its own particular interests than with the general interests of the nation. A.'s familiarity with Mazarin, who was less than a year younger than she, stirred up a heap of insinuations and calumnies, and people even went so far as to speak of a secret marriage between them, in which St. Vincent de Paul would have had a hand (Mazarin never received Holy Orders). The saint resolutely denied such a rumor (Coste, III, p. 101). He was in a position to influence A.'s mind, for she had great trust in him even before the regency and wished him to be part of the Council of Conscience, to which the religious affairs of France were entrusted; but Mazarin, who was overshadowed by the saint's work, removed him from it in 1652. A., however, continued to help him in his works of charity, founded institutes of Missionaries and of Daughters of Charity; she opposed nascent Jansenism (Coste, III, p. 87 ff.), in which the rigor of the doctrine on Communion repelled her; and although her conduct was not always beyond reproach, she gave proof of sincere piety and of love for the people. She died of cancer on 20 Jan. 1666, widely mourned, and was buried in the monastery of Val de Grâce, which she herself had founded.

Luigi Berra.