Cardinal de Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), known as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman and statesman. He was also known as ''l'Éminence rouge'', or "the Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and the red robes that they customarily wear.

Consecrated a bishop in 1607, Richelieu was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. He continued to rise through the hierarchy of both the Catholic Church and the French government by becoming a cardinal in 1622 and chief minister to King Louis XIII of France in 1624. He retained that office until his death in 1642, when he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered. He also became engaged in a bitter dispute with the king's mother, Marie de Médicis, who had once been a close ally.

Richelieu sought to consolidate royal power and restrained the power of the nobility in order to transform France into a strong centralized state. In foreign policy, his primary objectives were to check the power of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain and Austria and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War after the conflict engulfed Europe. Despite suppressing the Huguenot rebellions, he made alliances with Protestant states like the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic to help him achieve his goals. However, although he was a powerful political figure in his own right, events such as the Day of the Dupes, or ''Journée des Dupes'', showed that Richelieu's power was still dependent on the king's confidence.

An alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the College of Sorbonne, Richelieu renovated and extended the institution. He was famous for his patronage of the arts and founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and New France, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés; he also negotiated the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye under which Quebec City returned to French rule after its loss in 1629.

Richelieu is also known for being the inventor of the table knife. Annoyed by the bad manners that were commonly displayed at the dining table by users of sharp knives, who would often use them to pick their teeth, in 1637 Richelieu ordered that all of the knives on his dining table have their blades dulled and their tips rounded. The design quickly became popular throughout France and later spread to other countries.

Richelieu has frequently been depicted in popular fiction, principally as the lead villain in Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel ''The Three Musketeers'' and its numerous film adaptations.

Early life

Born in Paris on 9 September 1585, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children and the last of three sons: he was delicate from childhood, and suffered frequent bouts of ill-health throughout his life. His family belonged to the lesser nobility of Poitou: his father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, was a soldier and courtier who served as the Grand Provost of France, and his mother, Susanne de La Porte, was the daughter of a famous jurist.

When he was five years old, Richelieu's father died of fever in the French Wars of Religion, leaving the family in debt; with the aid of royal grants, however, the family was able to avoid financial difficulties. At the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy. Thereafter, he began to train for a military career. His private life seems to have been typical for a young officer of the era: in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for gonorrhea.

Henry III had rewarded Richelieu's father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the Bishopric of Luçon. The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use; they were, however, challenged by clergymen who desired the funds for ecclesiastical purposes. To protect the important source of revenue, Richelieu's mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon.Bergin, p. 61. Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk. Thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong academic interests and threw himself into studying for his new post.

In 1606, Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon. As Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from Pope Paul V. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607. Soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer. He became the first bishop in France to implement the institutional reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563.

At about this time, Richelieu became a friend of François Leclerc du Tremblay (better known as "''Père Joseph'' or "Father Joseph"), a Capuchin friar, who would later become a close confidant. Because of his closeness to Richelieu, and the grey colour of his robes, Father Joseph was also nicknamed '' L'éminence grise'' ("the Grey Eminence"). Later, Richelieu often used him as an agent during diplomatic negotiations.

Rise to power

In 1614, the clergymen of Poitou asked Richelieu to be one of their representatives to the Estates-General. There, he was a vigorous advocate of the Church, arguing that it should be exempt from taxes and that bishops should have more political power. He was the most prominent clergyman to support the adoption of the decrees of the Council of Trent throughout France; the Third Estate (commoners) was his chief opponent in this endeavour. At the end of the assembly, the First Estate (the clergy) chose him to deliver the address enumerating its petitions and decisions.Treasure, p. 4. Soon after the dissolution of the Estates-General, Richelieu entered the service of King Louis XIII's wife, Anne of Austria, as her almoner.

Richelieu advanced politically by faithfully serving the Queen-Mother's favourite, Concino Concini, the most powerful minister in the kingdom. In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs. Like Concini, the Bishop was one of the closest advisors of Louis XIII's mother, Marie de Médicis. The Queen had become Regent of France when the nine-year-old Louis ascended the throne; although her son reached the legal age of majority in 1614, she remained the effective ruler of the realm. However, her policies, and those of Concini, proved unpopular with many in France. As a result, both Marie and Concini became the targets of intrigues at court; their most powerful enemy was Charles de Luynes. In April 1617, in a plot arranged by Luynes, Louis XIII ordered that Concini be arrested, and killed should he resist; Concini was consequently assassinated, and Marie de Médicis overthrown.Parker, 1984, p. 130. His patron having died, Richelieu also lost power; he was dismissed as Secretary of State, and was removed from the court. In 1618, the King, still suspicious of the Bishop of Luçon, banished him to Avignon. There, Richelieu spent most of his time writing; he composed a catechism entitled ''L'Instruction du chrétien''.

In 1619, Marie de Médicis escaped from her confinement in the Château de Blois, becoming the titular leader of an aristocratic rebellion. The King and the duc de Luynes recalled Richelieu, believing that he would be able to reason with the Queen. Richelieu was successful in this endeavour, mediating between her and her son.Parker, 1984, p. 199. Complex negotiations bore fruit when the Treaty of Angoulême was ratified; Marie de Médicis was given complete freedom, but would remain at peace with the King. The Queen-Mother was also restored to the royal council.

After the death of the King's favourite, the duc de Luynes, in 1621, Richelieu rose to power quickly. The year after, the King nominated Richelieu for a cardinalate, which Pope Gregory XV accordingly granted in September 1622. Crises in France, including a rebellion of the Huguenots, rendered Richelieu a nearly indispensable advisor to the King. After he was appointed to the royal council of ministers on 29 April 1624, he intrigued against the chief minister, Charles, duc de La Vieuville. On 12 August of the same year, La Vieuville was arrested on charges of corruption, and Cardinal Richelieu took his place as the King's principal minister the following day, although the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld nominally remained president of the council (Richelieu was officially appointed president in November 1629).

Chief minister

Cardinal Richelieu's policy involved two primary goals: centralization of power in France and opposition to the Habsburg dynasty (which ruled in both Austria and Spain). Shortly after he became Louis' principal minister, he was faced with a crisis in Valtellina, a valley in Lombardy (northern Italy). To counter Spanish designs on the territory, Richelieu supported the Protestant Swiss canton of Grisons, which also claimed the strategically important valley. The Cardinal deployed troops to Valtellina, from which the Pope's garrisons were driven out. Richelieu's early decision to support a Protestant canton against the Pope was a foretaste of the purely diplomatic power politics he would espouse in his foreign policy.

To further consolidate power in France, Richelieu sought to suppress the influence of the feudal nobility. In 1626, he abolished the position of Constable of France and ordered all fortified castles razed, with the exception only of those needed to defend against invaders. Thus he stripped the princes, dukes, and lesser aristocrats of important defences that could have been used against the King's armies during rebellions. As a result, Richelieu was hated by most of the nobility.

Another obstacle to the centralization of power was religious division in France. The Huguenots, one of the largest political and religious factions in the country, controlled a significant military force, and were in rebellion. Moreover, the King of England, Charles I, declared war on France in an attempt to aid the Huguenot faction. In 1627, Richelieu ordered the army to besiege the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle; the Cardinal personally commanded the besieging troops. English troops under the Duke of Buckingham led an expedition to help the citizens of La Rochelle, but failed abysmally. The city, however, remained firm for over a year before capitulating in 1628.

Although the Huguenots suffered a major defeat at La Rochelle, they continued to fight, led by Henri, duc de Rohan. Protestant forces, however, were defeated in 1629; Rohan submitted to the terms of the Peace of Alais.Zagorin, p. 18. As a result, religious toleration for Protestants, which had first been granted by the Edict of Nantes in 1598, was permitted to continue, but the Cardinal abolished their political rights and protections. Rohan was not executed (as were leaders of rebellions later in Richelieu's tenure); in fact, he later became a commanding officer in the French army.

Habsburg Spain exploited the French conflict with the Huguenots to extend its influence in northern Italy. It funded the Huguenot rebels to keep the French army occupied, meanwhile expanding its Italian dominions. Richelieu, however, responded aggressively; after La Rochelle capitulated, he personally led the French army to northern Italy to restrain Spain. On 26 November 1629, he was created duc de Richelieu and a Peer of France.
In the next year, Richelieu's position was seriously threatened by his former patron, Marie de Médicis. Marie believed that the Cardinal had robbed her of her political influence; thus, she demanded that her son dismiss the chief minister. Louis XIII was not, at first, averse to such a course of action, as he personally disliked Richelieu. Despite this, the persuasive statesman was able to secure the king as an ally against his own mother. On 11 November 1630, Marie de Médicis and the King's brother, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, secured the King's agreement for the dismissal. Richelieu, however, was aware of the plan, and quickly convinced the King to repent. This day, known as the Day of the Dupes, was the only one on which Louis XIII took a step toward dismissing his minister. Thereafter, the King was unwavering in his political support for him.

Meanwhile, Marie de Médicis was exiled to Compiègne. Both Marie and the duc d'Orléans continued to conspire against Richelieu, but their schemes came to nothing. The nobility also remained powerless. The only important rising was that of Henri, duc de Montmorency in 1632; Richelieu, ruthless in suppressing opposition, ordered the duke's execution. In 1634, the Cardinal had one of his outspoken critics, Urbain Grandier, burned at the stake in the Loudun affair. These and other harsh measures were orchestrated by Richelieu to intimidate his enemies. He also ensured his political security by establishing a large network of spies in France as well as in other European countries.

File:Siege of La Rochelle 1881 Henri Motte.png, Henri Motte's depiction of Cardinal Richelieu at the siege of La Rochelle.
File:Letter of Richelieu to Claude de Razilly asking him to do everyhting in his power to relieve Re Island July 1627.jpg, Letter of Cardinal Richelieu to Claude de Razilly asking him to do everything in his power to relieve Ré Island in the siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, July 1627.
File:Peter Paul Rubens 095b.jpg, On the "Day of the Dupes" in 1630, it appeared that Marie de Médicis had secured Richelieu's dismissal. Richelieu, however, survived the scheme, and Marie was exiled as a result.

Thirty Years' War

Before Richelieu's ascent to power, most of Europe had become enmeshed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). France was not openly at war with the Habsburgs, who ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, so subsidies and aid were provided secretly to their adversaries. He considered the Dutch Republic as one of France's most important allies, for it bordered directly with the Spanish Netherlands and was right in the middle of the Eighty Years' War with Spain at that time. Luckily for him, Richelieu was a ''bon français'', just like the king, who had already decided to subsidize the Dutch to fight against the Spanish via the Treaty of Compiègne in June 1624, prior to Richelieu's appointment to First Minister in August. That same year, a military expedition, secretly financed by France and commanded by Marquis de Coeuvres, started an action with the intention of liberating the Valtelline from Spanish occupation. In 1625, Richelieu also sent money to Ernst von Mansfeld, a famous mercenary general operating in Germany in English service. However, in May 1626, when war costs had almost ruined France, king and cardinal made peace with Spain via the Treaty of Monçon. This peace quickly broke down after tensions due to the War of the Mantuan Succession.

In 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II subjugated many of his Protestant opponents in Germany. Richelieu, alarmed by Ferdinand's growing influence, incited Sweden to intervene, providing money.Parker, 1984, p. 219. In the meantime, France and Spain remained hostile due to Spain's ambitions in northern Italy. At that time northern Italy was a major strategic region in Europe's balance of power, serving as a link between the Habsburgs in the Empire and in Spain. Had the imperial armies dominated this region, France would have been threatened by Habsburg encirclement. Spain was meanwhile seeking papal approval for a universal monarchy. When in 1630 French diplomats in Regensburg agreed to make peace with Spain, Richelieu refused to support them. The agreement would have prohibited French interference in Germany. Therefore, Richelieu advised Louis XIII to refuse to ratify the treaty. In 1631, he allied France to Sweden, who had just invaded the empire, in the Treaty of Bärwalde.

Military expenses placed a considerable strain on royal revenues. In response, Richelieu raised the ''gabelle'' (salt tax) and the '' taille'' (land tax). The ''taille'' was enforced to provide funds to raise armies and wage war. The clergy, nobility, and high bourgeoisie either were exempt or could easily avoid payment, so the burden fell on the poorest segment of the nation. To collect taxes more efficiently, and to keep corruption to a minimum, Richelieu bypassed local tax officials, replacing them with '' intendants'' (officials in the direct service of the Crown). Richelieu's financial scheme, however, caused unrest among the peasants; there were several uprisings in 1636 to 1639. Richelieu crushed the revolts violently, and dealt with the rebels harshly.

Because he openly aligned France with Protestant powers, Richelieu was denounced by many as a traitor to the Roman Catholic Church. Military action, at first, was disastrous for the French, with many victories going to Spain and the Empire. Neither side, however, could obtain a decisive advantage, and the conflict lingered on after Richelieu's death. Richelieu was instrumental in redirecting the Thirty Years' War from the conflict of Protestantism versus Catholicism to that of nationalism versus Habsburg hegemony. In this conflict France effectively drained the already overstretched resources of the Habsburg empire and drove it inexorably towards bankruptcy.Wedgwood, p. 450. The defeat of Habsburg forces at the Battle of Lens in 1648, coupled with their failure to prevent a French invasion of Catalonia, effectively spelled the end for Habsburg domination of the continent, and for the personal career of Spanish prime minister Olivares. Indeed, in the subsequent years it would be France, under the leadership of Louis XIV, who would attempt to fill the vacuum left by the Habsburgs in the Spanish Netherlands and supplant Spain as the dominant European power.

New World

When Richelieu came to power, New France, where the French had a foothold since Jacques Cartier, had no more than 100 permanent European inhabitants. Richelieu encouraged Louis XIII to colonize the Americas by the foundation of the ''Compagnie de la Nouvelle France'' in imitation of the Dutch West India Company. Unlike the other colonial powers, France encouraged a peaceful coexistence in New France between Natives and Colonists and sought the integration of Indians into colonial society. Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France at the time of Richelieu, saw intermarriage between French and Indians as a solution to increase population in its colony. Under the guidance of Richelieu, Louis XIII issued the Ordonnance of 1627 by which the Indians, converted to Catholicism, were considered as "natural Frenchmen":

The 1666 census of New France, conducted some 20 years after the death of Cardinal Richelieu, showed a population of 3,215 ''habitants'' in New France, many more than there had been only a few decades earlier, but also a great difference in the number of men (2,034) and women (1,181).

Final years

Towards the end of his life, Richelieu alienated many people, including Pope Urban VIII. Richelieu was displeased by the Pope's refusal to name him the papal legate in France; in turn, the Pope did not approve of the administration of the French church, or of French foreign policy. However, the conflict was largely resolved when the Pope granted a cardinalate to Jules Mazarin, one of Richelieu's foremost political allies, in 1641. Despite troubled relations with the Roman Catholic Church, Richelieu did not support the complete repudiation of papal authority in France, as was advocated by the Gallicanists.

As he neared death, Richelieu faced a plot that threatened to remove him from power. The cardinal had introduced a young man named Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars to Louis XIII's court.Perkins, p. 195. The Cardinal had been a friend of Cinq-Mars's father. More importantly, Richelieu hoped that Cinq-Mars would become Louis's favourite, so that he could indirectly exercise greater influence over the monarch's decisions. Cinq-Mars had become the royal favourite by 1639, but, contrary to Cardinal Richelieu's belief, he was not easy to control. The young marquis realized that Richelieu would not permit him to gain political power. In 1641, he participated in the comte de Soissons's failed conspiracy against Richelieu, but was not discovered. Then, the following year, he schemed with leading nobles (including the King's brother, the duc d'Orléans) to raise a rebellion; he also signed a secret agreement with the King of Spain, who promised to aid the rebels. Richelieu's spy service, however, discovered the plot, and the Cardinal received a copy of the treaty. Cinq-Mars was promptly arrested and executed; although Louis approved the use of capital punishment, he grew more distant from Richelieu as a result.

However, Richelieu was now dying. For many years he had suffered from recurrent fevers (possibly malaria), strangury, intestinal tuberculosis with fistula, and migraine. Now his right arm was suppurating with tubercular osteitis, and he coughed blood (after his death, his lungs were found to have extensive cavities and caseous necrosis). His doctors continued to bleed him frequently, further weakening him. As he felt his death approaching, he named Mazarin, one of his most faithful followers, to succeed him as chief minister to the King.

Richelieu died on 4 December 1642, aged 57. His body was embalmed and interred at the church of the Sorbonne. During the French Revolution, the corpse was removed from its tomb, and the mummified front of his head, having been removed and replaced during the original embalming process, was stolen. It ended up in the possession of Nicholas Armez of Brittany by 1796, and he occasionally exhibited the well-preserved face. His nephew, Louis-Philippe Armez, inherited it and also occasionally exhibited it and lent it out for study. In 1866, Napoleon III persuaded Armez to return the face to the government for re-interment with the rest of Richelieu's body. An investigation of subsidence of the church floor enabled the head to be photographed in 1895.

Arts and culture

Richelieu was a famous patron of the arts. An author of various religious and political works (most notably his ''Political Testament''), he sent his agents abroad in search of books and manuscripts for his unrivaled library, which he specified in his will – leaving it to Armand Jean de Vignerot du Plessis