The term Mazarinade, used by scholars since 1850, derives from La Mazarinade, the title of a 1651 Paul Scarron literary parody of the Iliad (French Iliade). It serves as an umbrella term for over 4,000 mostly highly polemical pamphlets, published in France at the time of the Fronde (1648-1653) in opposition to attempts by the crown to centralize the government and administration in the spirit of absolutism. Because these efforts were embodied by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the confidant and chief…