Great part of Richelieu’s correspondence with Pozzo di Borgo, Capo d’Istria and others, with his journal of his travels in Germany and the Turkish campaign, and a notice by the duchesse de Richelieu, is published by the Imperial Historical Society of Russia, vol. 54. There is an exhaustive study of his career by L. de Crousaz-Crétêt, Le Duc de Richelieu en Russie et en France (1897), with which compare an article by L. Rioult de Neuville in the Revue des questions historiques (Oct. 1897). See also R. de Cisternes, Le Duc de Richelieu, son action aux conférences d’Aix-la-Chapelle (1898), containing copies of documents.
RICHELIEU, ARMAND JEAN DU PLESSIS DE, Cardinal (1585–1642), French statesman, was born of an ancient family of the lesser nobility of Poitou. The original name of the family was Du Plessis, but in the 15th century a younger branch obtained by marriage the estate of Richelieu with its strong castle surrounded by the waters of the Mable, and took the name of Du Plessis de Richelieu. The family produced not a few turbulent warriors during the Hundred Years’ War, and the cardinal’s father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, began his career by killing the murderer of his elder brother and then fighting through the wars of religion, first as a favourite of Henry III., and after his death under Henry IV. He was a typical fighting gentleman of the period. The mother of the cardinal, Susanne de La Porte, belonged to a family of the magistrature, her father, François de La Porte, being one of the first advocates of the parlement of Paris. Armand was the third son and was born in Paris on the 9th of September 1585. When he was five years old his father died while assisting at the siege of Paris (on the 10th of July 1590); and his mother was left with five children and the estate heavily in debt. By care and economy, however, aided by generous royal grants, she was enabled to pay off mortgages and to bring up the children in a way befitting their rank. At the age of nine Armand was sent to Paris to the College of Navarre, where he passed with credit the regular courses in grammar and philosophy, and then entered a “finishing academy” which prepared the sons of nobles for the life of a courtier or a cavalier. But his training for a military career was suddenly cut short by the refusal of his elder brother, Alphonse, to accept the office of bishop of Luçon. The right of preferment to that see had been given to the Richelieu family by Henry III. as a reward for the services of Armand’s father, and the family drained its revenues for private use. When the cathedral chapter found courage to oppose this and opened suit to recover the ecclesiastical revenues for ecclesiastical purposes, Richelieu’s mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, bishop. He defeated this scheme, however, by becoming a monk of the Grande Chartreuse, and Armand, whose health was rather feeble in any case for a military career, was induced to propose himself for the priesthood.
In 1606, at the age of twenty-one, Richelieu was nominated bishop of Luçon by Henry IV. As he was almost five years under the canonical age, he was obliged to go to Rome to obtain a dispensation and was consecrated there in April 1607. In the winter of 1608 Richelieu went out to his poverty-stricken little bishopric, and for the next six years devoted himself seriously to his episcopal duties. He became favourably known among the zealous reformers of the church, and it was during this stage of his career that he made a friend of Father Joseph. Meanwhile he was impatiently waiting for an opening to a larger career. This came in 1614 when he was elected by the clergy of Poitou to the last States-general which met before the Revolution. In this he attracted the favourable attention of Marie de’ Medici, the queen-mother, and was chosen at its close to present the address of the clergy embodying its petitions and resolutions. After the States-general was dissolved he remained in Paris, and the next year he became almoner to Anne of Austria, the child-queen of Louis XIII. Then, by adroit courtly intrigue and faithful service to Concini, he was appointed in 1616 a secretary of state to the king. But he owed all to Concini, and his taste of power ended with the murder of his patron on the 24th of August 1617.
The reign which Richelieu was to dominate so absolutely began with his exile from the court. He had, however, already shown his ability, his firmness, and his diplomatic skill, and conducted the negotiations on the part of the queen-mother with Luynes, the king’s representative. Then, as he had incurred too much of the odium of a creature of Concini to hope for royal favour, he resigned himself to the post of chief adviser to Marie de’ Medici in her exile at Blois. Here he sought to ingratiate himself with Luynes and the king by reporting minutely the actions of Marie and by protestations of loyalty. As this ungrateful work brought no reward, Richelieu, in spite of the earnest entreaties of the queen-mother, retired once more to his bishopric. But the king, while approving his conduct, was still suspicious of him, and he was exiled to Avignon, along with his brother and brother-in-law, on the 7th of April 1618. There he lived in discreet, if melancholy retirement, writing “A Defence of the Main Principles of the Catholic Faith,” and had apparently little hope of a further political career when the escape of Marie de’ Medici from Blois, on the 22nd of February 1619, again opened paths for his ambition. Luynes and the king recalled him to the post at Angouléme with the queen-mother, who received him ungraciously but who soon yielded to his judgment and allowed him to sign the treaty of Angouléme with the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld, acting for the king. By this treaty Marie was given liberty to live wherever she wished, and the government of Anjou and of Normandy with several castles was entrusted to her. The bishop of Luçon was led to believe that the king would recommend him for a cardinalate, but, if we may trust the evidence, Luynes secretly opposed the request, and it was not until after his death that Richelieu was made a cardinal by Pope Gregory XV., on the 5th of September 1622. His rank in the church was due to his skill in intrigue with Marie de’ Medici.
Luynes’s death on the 15th of December 1621 made possible a reconciliation a month later between the king and his mother. Although Louis still distrusted her at heart, and disliked her dominating minister more, he allowed her to take up her residence in the Luxembourg palace in Paris, thus rendering intercourse possible. Richelieu seized his opportunity. He furnished Marie de’ Medici with political ideas and acute criticisms of the king’s ministry, especially of the Brularts. Marie zealously pushed her favourite towards office, and had gone so far as to absent herself from court for three months on account of the king’s persistent refusal, when Charles, duc de La Vieuville, then head of the council, in need of her aid in his negotiations with reference to the marriage of her daughter Henriette Marie, finally agreed to force Richelieu’s appointment to office upon the king, Louis XIII. La Vieuville thought to compromise by forcing the cardinal into a “council of despatches,” with merely the privilege of advising the king’s council but entrusted with no power. Richelieu raised many objections to such a partial realization of his ambition, but the king ended them in April 1624 by naming him as a member of his council. By August Vieuville’s worst fears were realized; he was arrested on the 13th of the month for corrupt practices in office, and the intriguing cardinal who had caused his overthrow became chief minister of Louis XIII. His advent was hailed with joy by both the Catholic party and the patriotic party, eager for the overthrow of Habsburg supremacy in Europe.
For the next eighteen years the biography of Richelieu is the history of France, and to a large degree that of Europe. His work was directed toward a twofold aim: to make the royal power—his power—absolute and supreme at home, and to crush the rival European power of the Habsburgs. At home there were two opponents to be dealt with: the Huguenots and the feudal nobility. The former were crushed by the siege of La Rochelle and the vigorous campaign against the duc de Rohan. But the religious toleration of the edict of Nantes was reaffirmed while its political privileges were destroyed, and Huguenot officers fought loyally in the foreign enterprises of the cardinal. The suppression of the independence of the feudal aristocracy was inaugurated in 1626 by an edict calling for the destruction of all fortified castles not needed for defence against invasion.
