THE RISE OF RICHELIEU

A few years before the death of Henry IV, a young man of a family called Richelieu was at a military school in training for the army. Suddenly he was called home by his mother and asked if he was willing to become a priest. In both army and Church there were opportunities to rise in the world; but in the Church there was a specially good opportunity for a son of the Richelieus. The family had been presented by King Henry III with the privilege of naming a bishop for the diocese of Luçon, and they wished to name this young Armand de Richelieu. The income of Luçon was not very large, but a bishop of even so small a diocese would always receive honor and be treated as a man of rank. To what position he might rise would depend in great degree upon himself.

Armand accepted the invitation. He promptly dropped his military pursuits and devoted himself to the study of theology and philosophy; and before he was twenty-three years of age, he had become Bishop of Luçon. According to the custom of the times, no one would have found any fault with him if he had made his home in Paris, where he could be at court and on the lookout for chances of promotion; but he went to the dirty little town of Luçon, to what he called the “most disagreeable bishopric in France,” and did his best for his people.

The bishop was a poor man, but he was also a very ambitious man; and he never failed to have his eyes open to any opportunity to rise in the world. An opportunity soon appeared. When he had been at Luçon only three years, the murder of Henry IV took place, and a nine-year-old prince became Louis XIII and the ruler of France. His mother, Marie de’ Medici, was made regent. “Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child,” said a writer of the olden time; and the truth of this was soon evident in France. Confusion and discontent prevailed. The boy king was eager to rule, but he was allowed to have no power whatever. The queen was a weak, vain woman, who was controlled by an Italian and his wife. The nobles gathered around her. They cajoled and flattered her and begged for money and positions--which she gave to them for the sake of peace. Whether they were fitted for the positions into which she placed them was of no consequence to her or to them. She actually gave command of the whole French army to her pet Italian, although he had never been even a private soldier.

Such a condition of things could not last forever. Before long the money which Henry IV had left in the royal treasury had been handed out to the greedy nobles. They wanted more, and they felt sure that if they made life sufficiently unpleasant for the queen, she would manage in some way to get it for them. When she did not, they took up arms against her. Now was the time for the country bishop. He had made it plain that he was on the queen’s side, and when she called a meeting of the States-General, he succeeded in being elected as a delegate of the clergy, and he made a speech or two that attracted attention. The wheels were beginning to turn.

All this time the boy Louis was becoming more and more indignant at being deprived of his birthright. When he was thirteen, he was declared of age; but the queen and her favorites showed no intention of allowing the rightful sovereign of France to share their power. Louis grumbled angrily, but he had not spirit enough to seize his proper position. Three years more passed, and then De Luynes, a man who took care of his hawks and who was a favorite of the king, persuaded him that the Italian was plotting to kill him. Louis was aroused. “You have my permission to arrest the man,” he said, “and if he resists, to shoot him.” Of course he resisted. Louis was watching, and when he heard the shot, he called out of the window to the murderers, “Thank you, thank you, I am king now.” He really thought that if he was freed from the sway of his mother and her favorites, he would be able to rule; but De Luynes and the nobles were still much stronger than he. They now banished the queen; but the boy of sixteen soon found that he had no more power than before.

But what of the Bishop of Luçon in these years of confusion and snatching at money and offices? When the queen was sent away from court, he left court also, and followed her to her new abode, where she set up a court of her own. The bishop was now skillful enough to win the favor of both queen and king. He became chief of the queen’s council--but refused to accept the office without the king’s consent. He sent to De Luynes careful reports of whatever the queen might do--“to show that there is no reason for suspecting her,” he assured one party; “to guard the king from any possible plots against him,” he assured the other. He tried to make his faithfulness to the king very clear; but somehow neither Louis nor De Luynes was quite sure of it; and it may be that a hint from the king was what induced him to return to his diocese. After a while the queen became so troublesome that to prevent further difficulty the king was glad to have Richelieu return and act as her adviser.

Meanwhile, the Huguenots had risen against the royal forces. They planned to form a Protestant republic in the west of France with La Rochelle as its capital; and of course war resulted between the king and his Huguenot subjects. De Luynes, as the head of the army, was in command; and a strange commander he made, for he knew as little as a man could know about military matters, and even the private soldiers laughed at him. If he had been a very brave man, they would have respected him in spite of his ignorance; but they suspected that he was rather inclined to keep out of the way of danger.

De Luynes died of fever while the campaign was going on. What he would have done if he had lived is a question, for the Huguenots were in arms, the nobles were turbulent and rebellious, and Austria was becoming much stronger than was for the advantage of France. Now was the time for Richelieu. He had brought about peace between the king and his mother and, chiefly through the influence of Marie de’ Medici, he was made a cardinal by the Pope. He soon became minister of state, and the most powerful man in France.

There was need of such a man. The king was keen enough to see it, and although he never really liked Richelieu, he kept him in office because this was for the interest of the country; and he followed the advice of his prime minister because it was the only thing to do. Cardinal Richelieu was the keenest politician France has ever known, and for a score of years he ruled king, council, and country. He was honestly devoted to France. He aimed at making her stronger than other European lands, especially Austria and Spain. One step toward this was to make an alliance with England. In France there was a princess of fourteen years, and in England there was a young prince in search of a wife. Richelieu brought it about that the two should marry. The princess was a Catholic, and he hoped that this marriage would make easier the lives of the Catholics in England. He was glad to do something for them, of course, but he was equally glad to form an alliance with the Protestant Dutch and Germans, because they were enemies of Austria. But while he was perfectly willing to marry the French princess to a Protestant Englishman and to join hands with Protestant countries if this would help to make France greater, he had no idea of permitting the Huguenots to become strong enough to have any political power in France. There was already warfare between them and the French Catholics. Before long it was plain that the party which could hold La Rochelle would be the winner. The Huguenots had fortified the city and were in possession. Richelieu besieged it. He had never forgotten his military training, and he commanded the siege in person. Even after twenty years as a bishop, he was still a soldier, and some one has pictured him in full military dress, with two pistols and a sword, and from his hat a long white plume floating as he allowed his horse to prance and caracole.

To capture this city was not an easy task. Troops could be stationed on three sides, and so prevent the sending of food by land; but there was the harbor, and it was a hard matter to keep ships from entering it, especially as King Louis had very few ships of war, and none at all that the defenders of La Rochelle could not easily overcome. In earlier struggles, Richelieu had borrowed vessels of Holland and England; but the Dutch did not care to assist the Catholics against the Protestants; and as for the English, they had before this declared that the French had not kept the promises of the marriage treaty, and instead of helping Louis, they did all that they could to help the Huguenots. They sent ships with food, and the French could not drive them away. At length Richelieu built of stonework directly across the mouth of the harbor a dike or mole almost a mile long; and this served his purpose well, for now the people of La Rochelle must either surrender or starve. They chose to starve. They lived on the flesh of horses, dogs, and rats; they boiled every scrap of leather that could be found and made a nauseous soup of this and any bit of green that they could discover. They held out for fifteen months, but finally they submitted; that is, the few who still lived submitted.

When the Huguenots had finally yielded, every one waited eagerly to see how the king--or rather, his minister--would treat them. A few were punished as rebels, but nearly all were pardoned. The Edict of Nantes was confirmed; the Huguenots were as free as the Catholics to practice their own form of worship. They were protected and treated with justice and considerable favor. Here the cardinal-general showed himself a shrewd politician. These Huguenots were industrious, thrifty people. Now that they were left free in matters of faith, they had no grievance against the king, and they became loyal subjects.

Richelieu’s third aim was to lessen the power of Marie de’ Medici and of the nobles. The queen-mother was indignant because Richelieu did not pay heed to her wishes, and she persuaded Louis to send the cardinal away from court. Fortunately, it was made clear to the king that this would be a great mistake. He and Richelieu had a talk together, and Richelieu unpacked his goods. The cardinal now punished severely those who had plotted against him, and the queen-mother left court.

This was a heavy blow to the power of the nobles; but they were even more alarmed and astonished to discover that in the rule of the cardinal all men were to be equal before the law. For instance, fighting duels was terribly common. A careless word or look might lead to a fight for life. There was a law against dueling, but no one paid any attention to it. Richelieu made a new law against the practice; but the number of duels became no smaller. Suddenly the nobles were amazed and aghast to find that the survivor of a duel, a member of a wealthy and powerful family, together with the seconds in the affair, had been executed as murderers. It was quite in style to be reckless of one’s life; but to be put to death by the common executioner was another matter. It is no wonder that dueling went out of fashion.

The nobles were furiously angry, of course, but they were helpless, and they soon learned that under Richelieu’s sway a man who broke a law was reasonably sure of punishment, and that it would not make the least difference whether he was a noble or a peasant. Another shock to the notions of the nobles was the lessening of the number of their fortresses; and still another was the appointment of officers to watch over the various provinces and so make sure that the nobles in power were governing them according to the laws of the land.

Richelieu died when only fifty-seven years of age, saying, almost as his last words, “I heartily pray that I may be condemned if I have ever had other intentions than the welfare of the religion and of the state.” In the eighteen years during which he was the real ruler of France he was always a friend to art and literature; he made his country the most powerful state in Europe; and he increased the royal power until the sovereign of France was almost unlimited in his supremacy. Whether this was for the good of the country and its people was left to later reigns to make manifest.