Editing Pope Alexander VII (section)

=== France ===
In foreign policy his instincts were not as [[Humanism|humanist]] or as successful. Alexander VII's pontificate was shadowed by continual friction with Cardinal Mazarin, adviser to and effectively [[Chief minister of France|chief minister]] of [[Louis XIV of France]] (1643–1715), who had opposed him during the negotiations that led to the Peace of Westphalia and who defended the prerogatives of the [[Catholic Church in France|Gallican Church]]. During the conclave, Mazarin had been hostile to Chigi's election, but was in the end had been compelled to accept him as a compromise. However, he prevented Louis XIV from sending the usual embassy of obedience to Alexander VII, and, while he lived, foiled the appointment of a French ambassador to Rome, diplomatic affairs being meantime conducted by cardinal protectors, generally personal enemies of the Pope. In 1662, Louis XIV made the equally hostile [[Duc de Crequi]] his ambassador. By his abuse of the traditional right of asylum granted to ambassadorial precincts in Rome, Crequi precipitated a [[Corsican Guard Affair|quarrel between France and the papacy]], which resulted in Alexander VII's temporary loss of [[Avignon]] and his forced acceptance of the humiliating [[Treaty of Pisa]] in 1664.<ref>Paul Sonnino, ''Louis XIV's View of the Papacy (1661–1667)'' (Berkeley-Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966), p. 53.</ref>