(1585-1642)
[Illustration: Richelieu. [TN]]
Armand Jean Du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu, the future cardinal, was the
third son of Francois Du Plessis, Grand Provost of the French Court, and
was born on September 5, 1585, at Paris, say his biographers, Aubery and
Leclerc; while tradition claims this honor for the family chateau in
Poitou. He received the elements of education at home from the Prior of
St. Florent, but soon quitted the paternal mansion, first for the
College of Navarre, subsequently for that of Lisieux. From thence he
removed to a military academy, being intended for the profession of
arms. But on his brother, who was Bishop of Lucon, resolving to quit the
world for the cloister, young Armand was advised to abandon the sword
for the gown, in order that he might succeed to his brother's bishopric.
He adopted the advice, entered with zeal into the study of theology, and
soon qualified himself to pass creditably through the exercises
necessary to obtain the degree of doctor in theology. He already wore
the insignia of his bishopric, but the Pope's sanction was still
wanting, and was withheld on account of the extreme youth of the
expectant. Resolved to overcome this difficulty, he set off to Rome,
addressed the pontiff in a Latin oration, and gave such proofs of talent
and acquirements above his age, that he was consecrated at Rome on the
Easter of 1607, being as yet but twenty-two years of age.
This position attained, Richelieu endeavored to make the utmost
advantage of it. He acquired the good-will of his diocese by rigid
attention to the affairs that fell under his jurisdiction; while in
frequent visits to the capital, he sought to acquire reputation by
preaching. In the Estates General of 1614, he was chosen deputy by his
diocese, and was afterward selected by the clergy of the States to
present their _cahier_ or vote of grievances to the monarch. It was an
opportunity not to be thrown away by the ambition of Richelieu, who
instantly put himself forward as the champion of the queen-mother
against the cabal of the high noblesse. He at the same time pointed out
where she might find auxiliaries, by complaining that ecclesiastics had
no longer a place in the public administration, and were thus degraded
from their ancient and legitimate share of influence. Richelieu was
rewarded with the place of almoner to the queen; and he was soon
admitted to her confidence as well as to that of her favorite, the
Marechal D'Ancre.
In 1616 he was appointed secretary of state; but aware by what slender
tenure the office was held, he refused to give up his bishopric. This
excited not only the animadversions of the public, but the anger of the
favorite. Richelieu offered to give up his secretaryship, but the queen
could not dispense with his talents. The assassination of the favorite,
however, soon overthrew the influence of the queen herself. Still
Richelieu remained attached to her, and followed her to Blois; but the
triumphant party, dreading his talents for intrigue, ordered him to quit
the queen and repair to one of his priories in Anjou. He was
subsequently commanded to retire to his bishopric, and at last exiled to
Avignon. Here he sought to avert suspicion by affecting to devote
himself once more to theological pursuits. During this period he
published one or two polemical tracts, the mediocrity of which proves
either that his genius lay not in this path, or, as is probable, that
his interest and thoughts were elsewhere.
The escape of the queen-mother from her place of confinement, excited
the fears of her enemies and the hopes of Richelieu. He wrote instantly
to court, to proffer his services toward bringing about an
accommodation. In the difficulty of the moment, the king and his
favorite accepted the offer. Richelieu was released from exile, and
allowed to join the queen at Angouleme, where he certainly labored to
bring about a reconciliation. There were long and bitter struggles, but
an agreement was finally concluded, and it was found that Richelieu, the
negotiator, had himself reaped all the benefits. He received the
cardinal's hat from the king's hand at Lyons, toward the close of the
year 1622.
Not content with this advancement of her counsellor, Mary de Medici
continued to press the king to admit Richelieu to his cabinet. Louis
long resisted her solicitations, such was his instinctive dread of the
man destined to rule him. Nor was it until 1624, after the lapse of
sixteen months, and when embarrassed with difficult state questions,
which no one then in office was capable of managing, that the royal will
was declared admitting Richelieu to the council. Even this grace was
accompanied by the drawback that the cardinal was allowed to give merely
his opinion, not his vote.
Once, however, seated at the council table, the colleagues of the
cardinal shrunk before him into ciphers. He boldly avowed his
determination to adopt the policy and resume the scheme of Henry IV.,
for the humiliation of the House of Austria. His anchor of safety was in
the confidence reposed in him by Louis XIII. This prince, although of
most feeble will, was not without the just pride of a monarch; he could
not but perceive that his former ministers or favorites were but the
instruments or slaves of the noblesse, who consulted but their own
interests, and provided but for the difficulties of the moment.
Richelieu, on the contrary, though eager for power, sought it as an
instrument to great ends, to the consolidation of the monarchy, and to
its ascendancy in Europe. He was in the habit of unfolding these high
views to Louis, who, though himself incapable of putting them into
effect, nevertheless had the spirit to admire and approve them.
Richelieu proposed to render his reign illustrious abroad, and at home
to convert the chief of a turbulent aristocracy into a real monarch. It
forms indeed the noblest part of this great statesman's character, that
he won upon the royal mind, not by vulgar flattery, but by exciting
within it a love of glory and of greatness to which, at the same time,
he pointed the way.
Accordingly, through all the plots formed against him, Louis XIII.
remained firmly attached to Richelieu, sacrificing to this minister's
pre-eminence his nobility, his brother Gaston, Duke of Orleans, his
queen, and finally the queen-mother herself, when she too became jealous
of the man whom she had raised.
If Richelieu thus imprudently indulged his passion or his pique, he
redeemed the error by activity and exertion unusual to the age. He at
once formed the project of attacking the Huguenots in their chief
stronghold of La Rochelle. Buckingham, the English minister, could not
fail to attempt the relief of this sea-port, and the cardinal
anticipated the triumph of personally defeating a rival. He accordingly
himself proceeded to preside over the operations of the siege. To render
the blockade effectual, it was requisite to stop up the port. The
military officers whom he employed could suggest no means of doing this.
Richelieu took counsel of his classic reading, and having learned from
Quintus Curtius how Alexander the Great reduced Tyre, by carrying out a
mole against it through the sea, he was encouraged to undertake a
similar work. The great mound was accordingly commenced, and well-nigh
finished, when a storm arose and destroyed it in a single night. But
Richelieu was only rendered more obstinate: he recommenced the mole, and
was seen with the volume of Alexander's History in his hand, encouraging
the workmen and overruling the objections of the tacticians of the army.
The second attempt succeeded, the harbor was blocked up, and the
promised aid of England rendered fruitless. The cardinal triumphed, for
La Rochelle surrendered. In his treatment of the vanquished, Richelieu
showed a moderation seldom observable in his conduct. He was lenient,
and even tolerant, toward the Huguenots, content with having humbled the
pride of his rival, Buckingham.
La Rochelle was no sooner taken, and Richelieu rewarded by the title of
prime minister than he resumed those projects of humbling the House of
Austria, in which he had previously been interrupted. A quarrel about
the succession to Mantua afforded him a pretext to interfere; and he did
so, after his fashion, not by mere negotiations, but by an army. This
expedition proved a source of quarrel between him and the queen-mother,
Mary de Medici, who hitherto had been his firm and efficient friend.
The voice of the conqueror of La Rochelle triumphed in council, and his
project in the field. The French were victorious in Italy, and the
minister equally so over the mind of the monarch.
But Mary de Medici could not forgive, and she now openly showed her
hatred of Richelieu, and exerted herself to the utmost to injure him
with the king. Though daily defeating her intrigues, the cardinal
dreaded her perseverance, and resolved to drag the king with him to
another Italian campaign. Louis obeyed, and the court set out for the
south, the queen-mother herself accompanying it. Richelieu, however, did
not tarry for the slow motions of the monarch. He flew to the army, took
upon him the command, and displayed all the abilities of a great general
in out-manoeuvring and worsting the generals and armies of Savoy. In the
meantime Louis fell dangerously ill at Lyons. His mother, an
affectionate attendant on his sick-couch, resumed her former empire over
him. At one moment his imminent death seemed to threaten the cardinal
with ruin. Louis recovered, however, and his first act was to compel a
reconciliation, in form at least, between the cardinal and the
queen-mother.
The king's illness, although not so immediately fatal to Richelieu as
his enemies had hoped, was still attended with serious consequences to
him. The French army met with ill success through the treachery of the
general, Marillac, who was secretly attached to the queen's party, and
the failure was attributed to Richelieu.
Mary de Medici renewed her solicitations to her son, that he would
dismiss his minister. Louis, it appears, made a promise to that effect;
a reluctant promise, given to get rid of her importunity. Mary
calculated too securely upon his keeping it; she broke forth in bitter
contumely against Richelieu; deprived him of his superintendence over
her household, and treated Madame de Combalet, the cardinal's niece, who
had sunk on her knees to entreat her to moderate her anger almost with
insult. The king was present, and seemed to sanction her violence so
that Richelieu withdrew to make his preparations for exile. Louis,
dissatisfied and irresolute, retired to Versailles; while Mary remained
triumphant at the Luxembourg, receiving the congratulations of her
party. Richelieu, in the meantime, ere taking his departure, repaired to
Versailles, and, once there, resumed the ascendant over the monarch. The
tidings of this was a thunder-stroke to Mary and her party, who became
instantly the victims of the cardinal's revenge. Marillac was beheaded,
and Mary de Medici, herself at length completely vanquished by her
rival, was driven out of France to spend the rest of her days in exile.
The trial of Marillac had roused the spirit and indignation even of
those nobles who had previously respected, and bowed to, the minister of
the royal choice. Richelieu not only threatened their order with the
scaffold, but his measures of administration were directed to deprive
them of their ancient privileges, and means of wealth and domination.
One of these was the right of governors of provinces to raise the
revenue within their jurisdiction, and to employ or divert no small
portion of it to their use. Richelieu, to remedy this, transferred the
office of collecting the revenue to new officers, called the _Elect_. He
tried this in Languedoc, then governed by the Duc de Montmorenci, a
noble of the first rank, whose example, consequently, would have weight,
and who had always proved himself obedient and loyal. Moved, however, by
his private wrongs, as well as that of his order, he now joined the
party of the nobles and the king's brother, Gaston, Duke of Orleans.
That weak prince, after forming an alliance with the Duke of Lorraine,
had raised an army. Richelieu lost not a moment in despatching a force
which reduced Lorraine, and humbled its hitherto independent duke almost
to the rank of a subject. Gaston then marched his army to Languedoc and
joined Montmorenci. The Marechal de Breze, Richelieu's brother-in-law,
led the loyal troops against them, defeated Gaston at Castelnaudari, and
took Montmorenci prisoner. This noble had been the friend and supporter
of Richelieu, who even called him his son; yet the cardinal's cruel
policy determined that he should die. There was difficulty in proving
before the judges that he had actually borne arms against the king. "The
smoke and dust," said St. Reuil, the witness, "rendered it impossible to
recognize any combatant distinctly. But when I saw one advance alone,
and cut his way through five ranks of gens-d'armes, I knew that it must
be Montmorenci."
This gallant descendant of five constables of France perished on the
scaffold at Toulouse. Richelieu deemed the example necessary to strike
terror into the nobility. And he immediately took advantage of that
terror, by removing all the governors of provinces, and replacing them
throughout with officers personally attached to his interests.
Having thus made, as it were, a clear stage for the fulfilment of his
great political schemes, Richelieu turned his exertions to his original
plan of humbling the House of Austria, and extending the territories of
France at its expense. He formed an alliance with the great Gustavus
Adolphus, who then victoriously supported the cause of religious liberty
in Germany. Richelieu drew more advantage from the death than from the
victories of his ally; since, as the price of his renewing his alliance
with the Swedes, he acquired the possession of Philipsburg, and opened
the way toward completing that darling project of France and every
French statesman, the acquisition of the Rhine as a frontier.
The French having manifested their design to get possession of Treves,
the Spaniards anticipated them; and open war ensued betwixt the two
monarchies. Richelieu in his wars was one of those scientific combatants
who seek to weary out an enemy, and who husband their strength in order
not to crush at once, but to ruin in the end. Such, at least, were the
tactics by which he came triumphant out of the struggle with Spain. He
made no conquests at first, gained no striking victories; but he
compensated for his apparent want of success by perseverance, by taking
advantage of defeat to improve the army, and by laboring to transfer to
the crown the financial and other resources which had been previously
absorbed by the aristocracy. Thus the war, though little brilliant at
first, produced at last these very important results. Arras in the
north, Turin in the south, Alsace in the east, fell into the hands of
the French; Roussillon was annexed to the monarchy; and Catalonia
revolted from Spain. Richelieu might boast that he had achieved the
great purposes of Henry IV., not so gloriously indeed as that heroic
prince might have done, but no less effectually. This was effected not
so much by arms as by administration. The foundation was laid for that
martial pre-eminence which Louis XIV. long enjoyed; and which he might
have retained, had the virtue of moderation been known to him.
It was not without incurring great personal perils, with proportionate
address and good fortune, that Cardinal Richelieu arrived at such great
results. Constant plots were formed against him, the most remarkable of
which was that of Cinq-Mars, a young nobleman selected to be the king's
favorite, on account of his presumed frivolity. But he was capable of
deep thoughts and passions; and wearied by the solitude in which the
monarch lived, and to which he was reduced by the minister's monopoly of
all power, he dared to plot the cardinal's overthrow. This bold attempt
was sanctioned by the king himself, who at intervals complained of the
yoke put upon him.
Great interests were at stake, for Richelieu, reckoning upon the
monarch's weak health, meditated procuring the regency for himself. The
Queen, Anne of Austria, aware of this intention, approved of the project
of Cinq-Mars, which, of course, implied the assassination of the
cardinal. No other mode of defying his power and talent could have been
contemplated. But Richelieu was on the watch. The court was then in the
south of France, engaged in the conquest of Roussillon, a situation
favorable for the relation of the conspirators with Spain. The minister
surprised one of the emissaries, had the fortune to seize a treaty
concluded between them and the enemies of France; and with this flagrant
proof of their treason, he repaired to Louis, and forced from him an
order for their arrest. It was tantamount to their condemnation.
Cinq-Mars and his friends perished on the scaffold; Anne of Austria was
again humbled; and every enemy of the cardinal shrunk in awe and
submission before his ascendancy. Among them was the king himself, whom
Richelieu looked upon as an equal in dignity, an inferior in mind and in
power. The guards of the cardinal were as numerous as the monarch's, and
independent of any authority save that of their immediate master. A
treaty was even drawn up between king and minister, as between two
potentates. But the power and the pride of Richelieu reached at once
their height and their termination. A mortal illness seized him in the
latter days of 1642, a few months after the execution of Cinq-Mars. No
abatement of his pride marked his last moments. He summoned the monarch
like a servant to his couch, instructed him what policy to follow and
appointed the minister who was to be his own successor.
Such was the career of this supereminent statesman, who, although in the
position of Damocles all his life, with the sword of the assassin
suspended over his head, surrounded with enemies, and with insecure and
treacherous support even from the monarch whom he served, still not
only maintained his own station, but possessed time and zeal to frame
and execute gigantic projects for the advancement of his country and of
his age. It makes no small part of Henry IV.'s glory that he conceived a
plan for diminishing the power of the House of Austria. Richelieu,
without either the security or the advantages of the king and the
warrior, achieved it. Not only this, but he dared to enter upon the war
at the very same time when he was humbling that aristocracy which had
hitherto composed the martial force of the country.
The effects of his domestic policy were indeed more durable than those
of what he most prided himself upon, his foreign policy. He it was, in
fact, who founded the French monarchy, such as it existed until near the
end of the eighteenth century--a grand, indeed, rather than a happy
result. He was a man of penetrating and commanding intellect, who
visibly influenced the fortunes of Europe to an extent which few princes
or ministers have equalled. Unscrupulous in his purposes, he was no less
so in the means by which he effected them. But so long as men are
honored, not for their moral excellences, but for the great things which
they have done for themselves, or their country, the name of Richelieu
will be recollected with respect, as that of one of the most successful
statesmen that ever lived.
As a patron of letters and of the arts, Richelieu has acquired a
reputation almost rivalling that of his statesmanship. His first and
earliest success in life had been as a scholar supporting his theses;
and, as it is continually observed that great men form very erroneous
judgments of their own excellences, he ever prided himself especially in
his powers as a penman.
[Illustration: A Concert At Richelieu's Palace.]