Cardinal Richelieu
Cardinal Richelieu governed France for eighteen years and built the centralised state that Louis XIV inherited. Born Armand Jean du Plessis in Paris in 1585 into minor nobility, he was intended for a military career and took holy orders instead when his brother refused the family bishopric, becoming Bishop of Luçon at twenty-two by papal dispensation. He came to notice at the Estates-General of 1614, attached himself to the queen mother Marie de' Medici, and survived her fall and exile. He was made a cardinal in 1622 and chief minister in 1624. His stated aims were to ruin the Huguenots as a political force, humble the great nobles, and raise France in Europe. He besieged La Rochelle for fourteen months in 1627-28, building a mole across the harbour to exclude English relief, and took it. The Peace of Alès in 1629 removed the Protestants' fortified towns and armies while leaving their freedom of worship intact — a deliberate distinction between political and religious rights. He demolished noble castles, banned duelling and executed grandees who defied him, including Montmorency. He survived repeated conspiracies, and on the Day of the Dupes in November 1630 the king chose him over his own mother. He extended the use of intendants, royal officials sent into the provinces with wide powers, which is the beginning of modern French administration. Abroad he subsidised Protestant Sweden and the German princes against the Habsburgs and entered the Thirty Years' War openly in 1635 — Catholic France fighting Catholic powers, on reasons of state. He founded the Académie française in 1635. He died in 1642, months before the king.
- Lived: 1585 CE – 1642 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: statesman, cardinal
