The original goal of the insurrection was to protect the ancient liberties from royal encroachments. The pressure that eroded these liberties came in the form of increased taxes as the Crown needed to recover from its expenditures in the recent wars.

Some leaders of the Fronde were attempting to overthrow Mazarin and reverse the policies of his predeces-sor Cardinal Richelieu who had taken power for the crown from great territorial nobles.

When Louis XIV became king in 1643, he was only a child, and though Richelieu had died the year before, his policies continued to dominate French life under his successor Cardinal Mazarin.

The timing of the outbreak of the Fronde, directly after the end of the Thirty Years War, was significant, because it became later an incentive for Louis XIV for the establishment of absolutism, since the disorders eventually discredited the feudal concept of liberty.