RICHARDSON 



5010 



RICHELIEU 



Related Subjects. The following: articles in 

 these volumes give added information on the 

 periods covered by these reigns : 

 Blondel Plantagenet 



Crusades, subhead The Roses. Wars of the 



Third Crusade Tyler, Wat 



Edward, the Black 



Prince 



RICHARDSON, JOHN (1796-1852), a Cana- 

 dian soldier and novelist, best known as the 

 author of Wacousta, or The Prophecy, an ex- 

 citing tale dealing with the siege of Detroit by 

 the Indians under Pontiac. Richardson was 

 born near Niagara Falls, Ont. During the War 

 of 1812, though still a boy in his teens, he 

 fought as a volunteer until his capture at the 

 Battle of the Thames. After his release he 

 joined the British army, and eventually rose to 

 the rank of major. In 1835 he fought for the 

 queen regent against the Carlists in Spain, but 

 in 1838 returned to Canada as a special cor- 

 respondent for the London Times. In 1840 he 

 founded at Brockville a paper called The New 

 Era, and later for two years edited the Kings- 

 ton Native Canadian. The last years of his 

 life were spent in the United States in news- 

 paper work. In addition to Wacousta he wrote 

 Ecarte, or the Salons of Paris; The Canadian 

 Brothers; War of 1812; Eight Years in Canada, 

 and Tecumseh. 



RICHARDSON, SAMUEL (1689-1761), the first 

 of the great English novelists. He was born 

 in Derbyshire, where he received an elementary 

 education. In his sixteenth year he went to 

 London and became apprenticed to a printer, 

 and after several years of service, in which he 

 proved himself an industrious and careful 

 worker, he went into business for himself. In 

 this occupation he continued until 1739, when 

 he was engaged by two booksellers to prepare 

 a collection of letters which might serve as 

 models for uninstructed people. 



Richardson was a letter writer of some ex- 

 perience, for in his boyhood he had carried on 

 correspondence for several Derbyshire young 

 women. With a desire to make the proposed 

 work interesting as well as useful, he repre- 

 sented several persons as exchanging letters 

 which formed a complete narrative. Thus his 

 first novel, Pamela, was written. Its popularity 

 was great and immediate, and Clarissa liar- 

 lowe, his greatest work, published eight years 

 later, met with an even more enthusiastic re- 

 ception. Late in his life appeared Sir Charles 

 Grandison, which dealt with fashionable life, 

 as Pamela had dealt with the lowest and Clar- 

 issa Harlowe with the middle class. The fact 



that they were written in the form of letters 

 made these novels of Richardson very long, and 

 at times tiresome and overburdened with de- 

 tail, but it gave the author an opportunity to 

 show his wonderful power of portraying char- 

 acter. In the analysis of the finer shades of a 

 woman's emotions and thoughts, he has never 

 been surpassed. 



RICHELIEU, reshchlyu', or rccsh'cloo, 

 ARMAND JEAN Du PLESSIS, Duke de, Cardinal 

 (1585-1642), a distinguished French statesman, 

 for eighteen years practically the absolute ruler 

 of France. He was born in Paris and prepared 

 to enter the 

 army, but later 

 turned to the 

 Church and in 

 1607 was con- 

 secrated Bish- 

 op of Lucon. 

 In this office he 

 proved zealous 

 and able. 



However, 

 he had politi- 

 cal ambitions, 

 and when in 



he was 



to the 



1614 



sent 



CARDINAL RICH ELIEU 

 H e used questionable means to 

 S ain his ends, which he believed 

 to be for the good of his country. 

 as a repre- He developed France, but he also 

 e developed an absolutism in gov- 

 sentative Ot eminent which led eventually to 

 the clergy, he autocracy's downfall. 

 managed to win the favor of Maria de' Medici, 

 mother of King Louis XIII, and through her 

 to gain a position at court. In 1616 he was 

 promoted to the secretaryship for war and for- 

 eign affairs, but in the following year, when the 

 queen mother fell into disfavor, Richelieu, too, 

 was banished from court. 



Most Powerful Man in France. The recon- 

 ciliation of the king and his mother was largely 

 the work of Richelieu, who as a reward was 

 raised to the rank of a cardinal. Recalled in 

 1624 to the royal council and made minister of 

 state, he found himself the strongest man in 

 France and a factor to be reckoned with in the 

 affairs of Europe. France was disturbed at 

 home by the political ambitions of the Hugue- 

 nots and the lawlessness of the great nobles, and 

 threatened abroad by the power of the Aus- 

 trian House of Hapsburg; Richelieu's policy, 

 adhered to throughout his life, sought, among 

 other things, to remedy these conditions. He 

 was not religiously intolerant and made no at- 

 tempt to take away the freedom of worship 



