Richelieu

“ Prematurely old, ruined in constitution, ever dreading the knife of the assassin and the pen of the satirist, greedy of gold and power, wrapping himself lovingly in the purple and fine linen of earth, while conscious that ere long the sumptuous draperies of pride must be exchanged for a winding-sheet, Richelieu looked with a jaundiced eye on all about him, and appeared to derive solace and gratification only from the sufferings of others. ”

“ Richelieu strode towards his public objects with a footstep unswervingly firm, though his servants found it the easiest thing in the world to put him into a passion. Sometimes they did so on purpose, pleased to be scolded unjustly, because sure of some handsome amends. And in treating of self-control, I am contented to take that same Richelieu, the Cardinal, as an illustration of the various and expansive meaning which I give to the phrase. Richelieu did not command his temper in the sphere of his private household: he commanded it to perfection in his administration of a kingdom. ”

“ Richelieu's Administration.—Cardinal de Richelieu's whole idea of statesmanship consisted in making the King of France the greatest of princes at home and abroad. To make anything great of Louis XIII., who was feeble alike in mind and body, was beyond any one's power, and Richelieu kept him in absolute subjection, allowing him a favourite with whom to hunt, talk, and amuse himself, but if the friend attempted to rouse the king to shake off the yoke, crushing him ruthlessly. It was the crown rather than the king that the cardinal exalted, putting down whatever resisted. ”

“ But there was one point on which he paused: “You forget,” said he,—“you forget that I owe all to Richelieu,—you forget that, however he may have wronged this country, he has not wronged me; and though I may wish that such a being did not exist, it is not for me to injure him.”
“True, most true!” replied his wily companion, who knew that the appearance of frank sincerity would win more from Cinq Mars than aught else: “if he has done as you say, be still his friend. Forget your country in your gratitude—though in the days of ancient virtue patriotism was held paramount. ”

“ He has ever been the tool of those about him. I am his best substitute. This is a miserable plot by which you basely seek to disgrace me by my own act—to rise by my fall.”
“Oh, Madame, to whom I owe so much,” pleads Richelieu, “whom I would now serve while I can, hear me. I speak from my heart—I speak for the last time. Be warned, I beseech you.” His hands are still clasped, his voice falters, tears flow down his cheeks. Any one less obstinately blind than the Queen would have been warned by the evidence of such unusual emotion in a man ordinarily so cold and impassible as the Cardinal. ”

“ They told him that there was one man in France whose hand ought to be on the helm, a man who would serve his own country and his own King, not the interests of a foreign power; a man of high courage, prudence and incomparable dexterity, as wise as he was brilliant, ready, like a burning torch, to consume himself in giving light to the State. This man would be the saviour of France, renewing the great days of Henry. It was hardly necessary to name the Cardinal de Richelieu. ”

“ But the next moment, as the light fell strongly on the face of his friend, the countenance of Richelieu brightened with a smile; and perceiving that Chavigni, who did not see he was awake, approached silently towards the attendant to rouse him, the Cardinal pronounced his name in an under-tone, and beckoned him towards his bedside.
“It is grateful,” said Richelieu, as the Statesman drew near, “to find that even declining fortunes cannot alienate some hearts. You have seen Mazarin, I suppose.” ”

“ And though the momentary flashes of a vigorous intellect would show that nature had been originally bountiful to him, yet he never evinced any steady determination of purpose. Richelieu spared no pains to secure the power he had acquired; and that he might leave the King no means of extricating himself, plunged the kingdom in wars and negociations which he well knew that none but himself could conduct with success. ”

“ On the other hand, Richelieu himself declared on more than one occasion that he was born in Paris, a Parisian, a native of the city which always had his heart; and his enemies dwelt strongly on the same fact, treating the Poitevin theory as an outcome of that immense pride and vanity which encouraged the Cardinal’s worshippers to represent his family and their possessions as older and greater than they really were; feudal magnates of centuries, instead of country gentlemen with their fortune to seek. ”

“ Richelieu’s page was daring, reckless, and seemingly a very unscrupulous youth, following the impulses of his will even to the periling of liberty and life! Yet her heart pleaded in his favor—the homage he paid was flattering—even the peril was incurred for her sake—and though their first rencontre was humiliating to her delicacy, and strangely indecorous on his part, yet, ere parting, it must be confessed that the rudeness had been forgiven, and his frankness and sincerity won favor. ”

“ During the twenty months of waiting, Richelieu indulged the natural tastes for building and collecting which had been, no doubt, trained and encouraged by Marie de Médicis, herself so great a lover of art in its more splendid forms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He trusted Richelieu far more sincerely than Richelieu trusted him, and it is interesting to notice in their correspondence at critical moments, that it is the king who becomes more calm, more collected, more dignified, as the intensity of the crisis increases, while Richelieu is torn by doubts and hesitations and seems overwhelmed by anxieties and fear. ”

“ Richelieu resigned himself in a more dignified fashion. Every action of his life must be considered in view of the fact that he was a politician of extraordinary cleverness, with clear eyes fixed unchangeably on the future of power which he always meant to attain. For five months, under most troublesome circumstances, he had practically ruled France. ”

“ He never attempted to interfere with one of their social privileges, though it was by those that they made the lives of the bulk of the French peasants hideous and miserable. As a benefactor of the French people he is as infinitely below Sully and Colbert as he is above them in statesmanship. A wretched financier, an incapable administrator, prompt to demand the obedience of the people whom he governed, and careless of their happiness, without one spark of sympathy, without one touch of weakness, Richelieu stands before us as the embodiment of intellect and of will. ”

“ All was doomed to fall to pieces with the death of Henry, followed by the regency of a stupid woman and the new policy of Richelieu.
Henry was himself the centre point of Paris, the beloved city, which he made his home, only leaving the Louvre for visits to Saint-Germain and Fontainebleau, or for hunting excursions in the country. Small, active, carelessly dressed, ever on the move, the Parisians saw their King among them at all seasons, all hours, riding or driving in the streets, equally eager after business and amusement ”

“ In the Queen’s very household he had a spy, long unsuspected and exceedingly clever at her odious trade, Mademoiselle de Chémerault, a young maid-of-honour, an intimate friend of Madame de Hautefort. From the most private interior of the Court, this girl reported every word and deed to a Madame Maline, who conveyed the information direct to Richelieu in letters which still exist, a mine of ancient gossip written in the curious jargon used by him in his secret notes. Everybody has a nickname: the Cardinal himself, in these notes, is sometimes Amadeo, sometimes l’Oracle ”

“ The three Estates of the realm had each its own separate point of view. The princes and nobles loved war; but the majority, Catholic and hating Richelieu, were rebels at heart. However, each man had his orders: content or malcontent, each governor found himself dispatched to his own province, each commander to his post, while generals dashed hither and thither in pursuit of armies which had to be hired, recruited, disciplined, poured in half-a-dozen directions over the frontier—Germany, Flanders, Lorraine, Switzerland, Italy. ”

“ It seemed that Richelieu had little now to fear from open enemies at home, though the secret dread of assassination clung about him with reason to his life’s end. He had already shown a certain sense of security by acts of indulgence or of conciliation: the Duc de Vendôme had been set at liberty and the Duchesse de Chevreuse had been allowed to return to the Court, while her husband was made governor of Picardy. ”

“ If the Duc de Vendôme—the “César-Monsieur” flattered and feared by Henry IV.’s Court—had been a man of character to match his position, no one of the great nobles could have equalled him in power and popularity. Even as a vain and vicious coward, few men in the kingdom were more dangerous to Richelieu’s plans and Louis XIII.’s government. From his province of Brittany, the Duke had watched the failure of the great conspiracy in which he and his brother were deeply engaged. They feared, and with reason, that their own ruin would follow that of the Maréchal d’Ornano. ”

“ The king’s consciousness of his weakness was combined with a sense of duty, and it was upon these two chords that Richelieu played. Besides, he was eternally on the alert. Spies in every salon in Paris and every court in Europe kept the grim courtier informed of every change in his master’s disposition and every intrigue against himself. The piquant comments of his platonic friend, Mademoiselle de Hautefort, upon Richelieu were relished by the king until he was informed of others said to have been made by her upon himself. ”

“ Richelieu would crush rebels with his whole strength, but he left men free to practise their own religion, provided it did not interfere with their obedience to the State. In this he was consistent: a wiser man than Louis XIV., he would never have revoked the great Henry’s edict and deprived France of a multitude of her most capable citizens. ”

“ There were those in Paris at the moment who did not wait for the failure of these negotiations to suggest an even wiser plan. One man in France could manage the Queen-mother: he was in exile at Avignon. Restore him to her council; give him authority to mediate between her and the King; his cleverness and moderation would soon bring her to a less violent frame of mind, and so arrange matters to the King’s satisfaction.
The originators of this idea were Richelieu’s two faithful friends, the Dean of Luçon and Père Joseph. ”

“ Richelieu entered the King's council in 1624. The king was soon an instrument in his hands, and he ruled France, as though the scepter was his own, for eighteen years. He was as pitiless a despot as ever set heel on a nation's neck; but the power which he grasped with what seemed to be a miserly and commonplace greed, was all gathered for the aggrandizement of the monarchy that he served. He believed that the nation needed to have one master, sole and unquestioned in his sovereignty. That he enjoyed being that one master, in reality, while he lived, is hardly doubtful ”

“ He bore himself in the carelessly defiant manner peculiar to the French cadets and younger sons of noble families in North America at the time, an accentuation of the French at home, and to some extent a survival of the spirit which Richelieu partially checked. Even in the forest he wore a slender rapier at his belt, and his hand rested now upon its golden hilt. ”

“ At this time young Richelieu was looking forward to nothing but the life of a soldier, and of course a mercenary one, for his family was likely to endow him with little means of living. The world was his oyster, which he with sword must open. It was nothing new: he would walk in the footsteps of his father and his great-uncles, with the advantage of serving a King whom he heartily admired; of this his Memoirs give proof enough.
When the usual University course was over, M. de la Porte proceeded to make a man and a soldier of his nephew. ”

“ Habit in this had far more power over his mind than even the vast and aspiring talents of Richelieu. No man in France, perhaps, more contemned or hated the Cardinal than the royal slave whom he had so long subjugated to his burdensome sway. Yet Louis, amidst all his dreams for the future, looked with dread upon losing the support of a man whom he detested, but upon whose counsels and abilities he had been accustomed to rely with confidence and security.
Cinq Mars saw plainly the state of his master’s mind ”

“ Politicians as deep, but more humane than Richelieu—Men who can govern, and yet not tyrannize? I will undertake to find such a one for your Majesty, and yet remain myself fully satisfied with being the humble friend of my royal master, and the sincere well-wisher of my native Country. But let me order, in your name, the Duke of Bouillon to march into France ”

“ Her interest gained him the Court appointment of échanson, or chief butler, to Henry II. But he was neither clever nor prudent, and his widow was left with five young children, very little money, a sharp, proud temper, and a deep discontent with her lot in life.
She settled herself at Richelieu, then only a small castle on an island in the river Mable, in the heart of a country terribly disturbed by civil war, and commanded, from the neighbouring hills, by the strongholds of unfriendly neighbours. ”