The INFAMOUS Cardinal Richelieu - A Biography: Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac was born on 9 September 1585 and died on 4 December 1642. He was a French clergyman, nobleman and statesman. He was ordained bishop in 1608 and later entered politics, when he became Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu quickly rose in importance, in both the Catholic Church and in the French government, as he became a Cardinal in 1622, and the Prime Minister of Louis XIII in 1624. He was succeeded by Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Cardinal De Richelieu is considered the world's first prime minister, in the modern sense of the word. He wanted to strengthen royal power, and by restricting the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His main foreign policy goals were to curb the power of the Austrian House of Habsburg and to defend France’s interests in the Thirty Years' War. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to enter into alliances with Protestant rulers in order to achieve his goals. Richelieu is one of the main characters in Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Three Musketeers, in which he is portrayed as the antagonist even more powerful than the king, but history recognizes that the Cardinal’s power was in fact very dependent on the trust that the king placed in him.
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Cardinal Duc de Richelieu was born as Armand-Jean du Plessis
into the noble du Plessis family to François du Plessis and to Susanne de Laporte.
His father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, was given command of the Marais-Chaussée,
a precursor of the police by Henry III of France in 1578.
The Marais-Chaussée was charged with maintaining order
As a result, in 1588, after the murder of the duke Henry I de Guise,
it was du Plessis' duty to burn the body of the duke at the stake
and to scatter his ashes in the Loire.
He became captain in the royal guard of Henry IV,
but he died when the later cardinal was only 5 years old.
From the age of 9, Richelieu was educated at the Collège de Navarre.
Later on, he underwent military training as an officer.
His brother Alphonse was the intended bishop of Luçon,
which was the Plessis family's profitable permanent seat.
But Alphonse became a Carthusian and, as a monk, could not become a bishop.
Therefore, Armand had to prepare himself for an ecclesiastical career
and went to study at the Collège de Licieux, where he became a candidate in theology.
Because he had always been relatively weak and sickly,
and because he liked to study,
he did not mind exchanging his military career for a clerical one.
At the age of 21, Richelieu was appointed bishop of Luçon.
He was appointed cardinal in 1622 and remained in Luçon until 1624.
In 1614, he became a representative at the Estat Général
and managed to gain the favor of the dowager queen and regent of France, Maria de' Medici,
who appointed him secretary of state and gave him the responsibility for foreign affairs in 1616.
When the young king Louis XIII seized power in 1617,
Richelieu was relieved from his position and removed from court.
However, Richelieu managed to restore the relationship between the king and his mother
in 1620, which earned him the recognition throughout the country
and ever since that moment, his influence at court started to grow.
Richelieu was appointed to the royal council of ministers in 1624.
On August 13 of that same year, he became the king's prime minister
and was appointed president of the royal council in 1629.
In his Testament Politique, which was first published after Richelieu's death in 1688,
he summarized his goals for France.
To destroy the Huguenot party, to bring down the pride of the nobility,
to restore all subjects to their duties,
and to raise the king's name abroad to the level where it belongs.
Richelieu was driven by his Catholic faith and saw himself entirely as an instrument of God
who had to establish peace and order in Europe.
In the field of foreign relations, Richelieu managed to persuade the king
to resume the anti-Habsburg policies of his father Henry IV.
This political move was a purely rational one, determined by the interests of the state.
France had been under siege from the German and Spanish Habsburgs for over a century.
The fact that the Habsburgs had always been defenders of the Catholic faith
was no interest to Richelieu.
He forged alliances with Charles I of England and with other Protestant states
such as the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, Denmark and Sweden.
He was also pragmatic in his domestic relations.
If he fought the Huguenots, it was only because they threatened
to form a state within the state, a danger he wanted to eliminate.
When the Huguenots rebelled, Richelieu abandoned his relatively tolerant politics towards them
and personally led the siege of La Rochelle,
after which he drastically reduced the political privileges of the Protestants
which had been granted to them by the Edict of Nantes in 1598.
Meanwhile, Richelieu also had to deal with a conspiracy of among others the dowager queen,
Henri de Condé, the king's brother Gaston d'Orléans and their followers.
When the conspiracy was revealed, Maria de' Medici was forced into exile,
but Gaston d'Orléans continued his scheming against Richelieu.
However, Richelieu had highly sophisticated intelligence and security services
and a private militia of bodyguards at his disposal
and kept a close eye on the duke from there on out.
The Thirty Years' War, which had been raging since 1618,
which placed the Habsburgs against France, had varying success for the French military.
In 1635, open war broke out with Spain, in 1636 also with the German emperor.
As the military campaigns placed a heavy burden on the royal coffers,
Richelieu created new taxes which were mostly paid by the Third Estate,
the poorest segment of the population.
The new taxes were not well received and several revolts broke out between 1636 and 1639
which were violently put down and plummeted the cardinal's popularity in the final years of his life.
In 1642, the cardinal felt his health deteriorating rapidly.
He sensed the end approaching and persuaded the king
to appoint one of his most trusted followers, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, as his follower.
Although Mazarin was originally a representative of the Vatican,
he stepped out of the papal ministry to enter the service of the king of France.
Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu,
died of pulmonary tuberculosis on December 4, 1642.
In accordance with his wishes, Richelieu was buried in the chapel of the Sorbonne in Paris.
Richelieu's legacy is profound.
Despite his lack of popularity, Richelieu was one of the most skillful politicians in history.
His actions were always aimed at safeguarding the interests of the state
and Richelieu undoubtedly prepared the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV
and the long-term political, military and cultural dominance of France
over Western and Central Europe.
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