A new crisis arrived on 19 May 1635; France declared war on the Habsburg rulers of Austria and Spain. Mazarin wrote later that he had done his best to persuade Richelieu to avoid a war. He wrote that in March 1635 he gave Richelieu all his reasons to maintain the peace. "His Eminence told me, in standing up," Mazarin wrote, "that I courted Peace as if she were the woman of my dreams. Then he shook my hand, and concluded, 'You are no longer on the side of France.'"Mazarin left Paris for Avignon on 7 April 1636.