82 RICHE 
disconcerted those courts by sending an army into the Valte- 
line, and preventing its projected union with the Milanese. 
He next turned his arms against the French Calvinists, who, 
rendered disaffected by the frequent breaches of the treaties 
made with them, were become a kind of republic within the 
kingdom itself, under ambitious leaders. Having first secured 
the friendship of Holland by pecuniary aid, he obtained the 
assistance of its fleet and that of the English against their 
brother protestants of Rochelle, and expelled them from the 
isle of Rhe. In order to prepare for 'the great schemes he 
had formed respecting foreign politics, if was necessary to 
begin by strengthening the royal authority at home, and for 
this purpose the humiliation of the turbulent and factious 
grandees was an essential measure. This he effected by a 
course of despotic severity which has fixed upon his admi¬ 
nistration the stigma of tyranny, though his vigour was in 
many instances justified by the criminality of its subjects; 
and it is acknowledged that the French monarchy dates from 
him its strength and independence. One of the principal 
enemies he had to contend with was Gaston duke of Orleans, 
the king’s brother, a feeble but restless character, perpetually 
engaged in intrigues against the government, and as constant¬ 
ly, when his plots were discovered, giving up his partizans to 
make his peace. • In consequence of a conspiracy entered 
into by this prince to assassinate the minister, and effect 
reat changes at court, Richelieu arrested several of his con- 
dants, and brought some of them to the scaffold. The dan¬ 
ger he had incurred formed a pretext for giving him a body¬ 
guard ; and by his pretended wishes to quit his station, he 
augmented his influence over his weak master. In 1627 war 
broke out with England, chiefly in consequence of the inso¬ 
lent vanity of the duke of Buckingham; and the Rochellers, 
with whom an accommodation had been made, were induced 
to favour the English. Richelieu thereupon resolved to re¬ 
duce to submission a town which had long been the seat of 
an independent power, often leagued with the enemies of the 
kingdom; and after the duke of Buckingham had been 
obliged with disgrace to quit the isle of Rhe, Rochelle was 
invested on all sides. Richelieu in person took the command 
of the siege, and in order to prevent the arrival of succours by 
sea, he caused to be constructed a vast dyke in the ocean, by 
which all communication from abroad was cut off. This 
circumstance has given occasion to the cardinal’s flatterers to 
compare him with Alexander before Tyre, and the work has 
been represented as one of the prodigies of his genius; but it 
was really that of the genius of the engineer Metezeau, and 
Richelieu only deserves the praise of adopting a bold design, 
and finding resources for putting it in execution. At length, 
after a noble resistance of eleven months, Rochelle submitted 
to famine; and the protestants having lost their great bulwark, 
and all their other strong places, were rendered incapable of 
again acting as an armed party. It is to the credit of the po¬ 
licy and moderation of Richelieu that they were still allowed 
the free exercise of their religion. 
In 1629 Richelieu received the patent of prime-minister, 
and was nominated lieutenant-general of the army employed 
in the war in Italy, with powers so extensive, that the royal 
authority was reduced to a shadow. The king, who sub¬ 
mitted to his minister without loving him, was easily indis¬ 
posed against him during an illness by the queen-mother, 
whose former attachment for the cardinal was turned into in¬ 
veterate hatred; and a promise was extorted from him for 
Richelieu’s dismissal. After his recovery, however, he at¬ 
tempted to reconcile his mother and the minister, but without 
effect, and the disgrace of the latter was fully expected by the 
whole court. But another interview restored all the ascen¬ 
dancy of the servant over the master, who assured him of his 
support against all his enemies. The queen-mother’s crea¬ 
tures were left to his vengeance, which he exercised with 
great severity. One of his victims was the marshal de Ma- 
i iliac, who, after a process of two years, was condemned for 
peculation and illicit profits, and brought to the scaffold. 
Both queens, and the king’s brother, were made to feel the 
resentment of the cardinal, and all that was great in the na¬ 
tion trembled before him, His foreign politics had ehiefly 
LIEU. 
in view the humiliation of the house of Austria: and by his 
treaty, in 1631, with Gustavus Adolphus, he enabled that 
great king to pursue those plans which brought the empire to 
the brink of ruin. Gaston, duke of Orleans, in his retreat 
with the duke of Lorraine, whose sister he had married for 
his second wife, plotted to excite a civil war for the expulsion 
of Richelieu, and his own return to consequence. His in¬ 
trigues were discovered, and all his partizans were declared 
guilty of treason. The duke of Lorraine was compelled to 
abandon him, and incurred the loss of some of his strongest 
places. Gaston entered France with a small body of troops, 
accompanied by the brave duke of Montmorenci, but was 
defeated at Castelnaudari. Montmorenci was taken prisoner, 
and expiated his crime on the scaffold, whilst resent¬ 
ment against the duke of Orleans was carried so far as 
to procure from the parliament of Paris a cassation of his 
marriage, as having been contracted without the king’s con¬ 
sent. The queen-mother herself was put under arrest, her 
servants were sent to the Bastille, and she finally ended her 
days in exile at Cologne. The king supported his minister 
m all these severities, created him a duke and peer, and gave 
him the government of Britanny. 
France had hitherto acted only as an ally to the Swedes 
in their hostilities against the house of Austria; but after their 
defeat at Norlingen in 1634, the cardinal thought it necessary 
to enter as a principal into the war: and forming an alliance 
with Holland, and the dukes of Savoy and Parma, he caused 
war to be declared against the king of Spain in 1635. Events 
were at first unfavourable to the French arms, and Richelieu 
saw himself in danger of being ruined by a measure which he 
had adopted in order to render himself necessary, and aug¬ 
ment his power. Picardy was overrun by the Spanish troops; 
the alarm spread to Paris, and the cardinal thought seriously 
of resigning his post. In this emergency he was supported 
by the courage of his confidant, the famous capuchin Father 
Joseph du Tremblay, a man whom he had for some years 
employed in court intrigues and foreign negociations, and 
who, with the habit and austerities of a friar, united consum¬ 
mate political skill, and a haughty intrepidity of spirit. 
Father Joseph advised him to appear without his guards in 
the streets of Paris, putting on an air of tranquillity and con¬ 
fidence; and the result was, that he received benedictions 
instead of execrations from the people. He was brought into 
greater personal danger by a plot between the dukeof Orleans 
and the count of Soissons to cause him to be assassinated in 
the presence of the king; but when all was prepared for the 
execution, it failed through the wonted irresolution of Gaston. 
On its discovery the two princes quitted the court: but Riche¬ 
lieu was so much alarmed with the hazard he had undergone, 
that he reconciled himself with the duke of Orleans, by pro¬ 
curing the king’s ratification of his marriage with the prin¬ 
cess of Lorraine. 
The war at length became more prosperous to France, and 
the enemy was driven from her territories; the public finan¬ 
ces were, however, exhausted, and recourse was had to the 
creation of a great number of venal offices, and other objec¬ 
tionable measures, to raise the necessary supplies. The talents 
of a financier do not seem to have been among Richelieu’s 
qualifications; and he himself gave an example of profusion 
which increased the public discontent. No prime minister 
ever affected more state or splendour. The daily expence of 
his household was estimated at a thousand crowns—a prodi¬ 
gious sum at that period! His guards and attendants, his 
equipage and establishments, were rather upon the scale of a 
sovereign prince than of a subject, and he much surpassed 
his master in external pomp. Lewis betrayed a dissatisfaction 
on this account, which probably induced Richelieu to make 
him a present of his palace, since called the Palais Royal. It 
is observable that Cardinal Wolsey fell into the same extrava¬ 
gance, and made a similar sacrifice of his palace of Hampton- 
court. 
Richelieu proceeded in his career of promoting wars 
abroad, and avenging himself of his enemies at home. He is 
said to have fomented the discontents in England which pro¬ 
duced the civil war under Charles I., but they had a much 
deeper 
