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Read Ebook: Cardinal de Richelieu by Price Eleanor C Eleanor Catherine
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Ebook has 1159 lines and 112304 words, and 24 pages
List of Authorities Pages xiii, xiv
PART I
Friends and relations--The household at Richelieu--Country life in Poitou Pages 10-15
The University of Paris--The College of Navarre--The Marquis du Chillou--A change of prospect--A student of theology--The Abb? de Richelieu at Rome--His consecration Pages 16-25
PART II
Richelieu arrives at Lu?on--His palace and household--His work in the diocese--His friends and neighbours Pages 38-47
Waiting for an opportunity--Political unrest--The States-General of 1614--The Bishop of Lu?on speaks Pages 63-71
Richelieu appointed Chaplain to Queen Anne--Discontent of the Parliament and the Princes--The royal progress to the south--Treaty of Loudun--Return to Paris--Marie de M?dicis and her favourites--The young King and Queen--The Duc de Luynes--Richelieu as negotiator and adviser--The death of Madame de Richelieu Pages 72-87
A contemporary view of the state of France--Barbin, Mangot, and Richelieu--A new rebellion--Richelieu as Foreign Secretary--The Abb? de Marolles--Concini in danger--The death of Concini--The fall of the Ministry--Horrible scenes in Paris--Richelieu follows the Queen-mother into exile Pages 88-100
Richelieu at Blois--He is ordered back to his diocese--He writes a book in defence of the Faith--Marriage of Mademoiselle de Richelieu--The Bishop exiled to Avignon--Escape of the Queen-mother from Blois--Richelieu is recalled to her service Pages 101-115
The Treaty of Angoul?me--The death of Henry de Richelieu--The meeting at Couzi?res--The Queen-mother at Angers--Richelieu's influence for peace--The battle of the Ponts-de-C?--Intrigues of the Duc de Luynes--Marriage of Richelieu's niece--The campaigns in B?arn and Languedoc--The death of Luynes--The Bishop of Lu?on becomes a Cardinal Pages 116-130
Cardinal de Richelieu--Personal descriptions--A patron of the arts--Court intrigues--Fancan and the pamphlets--The fall of the Ministers--Cardinal de Richelieu First Minister of France Pages 131-142
Richelieu's aims--The English alliance--The affair of the Valtelline--The Huguenot revolt--The marriage of Madame Henriette--The Duke of Buckingham Pages 143-157
Peace with Spain--The making of the army and navy--The question of Monsieur's marriage--The first great conspiracy--Triumph of Richelieu and death of Chalais Pages 158-175
Two famous edicts--The tragedy of Bouteville and Des Chapelles--The death of Madame and its consequences--War with England--The siege of La Rochelle Pages 176-192
The Duc de Nevers and the war of the Mantuan succession--The rebellion in Languedoc--A new Italian campaign--Richelieu as Commander-in-Chief Pages 193-206
Flight from France of the Queen-mother and Monsieur--New honours for Cardinal de Richelieu--The fall of the Marillac brothers--The Duc de Montmorency and Monsieur's ride to Languedoc--Castelnaudary--The death of Montmorency--Illness and recovery of the Cardinal Pages 217-233
Conquests in Lorraine--The return of Monsieur--The fate of Puylaurens--France involved in the Thirty Years' War--Last adventures of the Duc de Rohan--Defeat, invasion, and panic--The turn of the tide--Narrow escape of the Cardinal--The flight of the Princes Pages 249-262
Palace intrigues--Mademoiselle de Hautefort--Mademoiselle de la Fayette--The affair of the Val-de-Gr?ce--The birth of the Dauphin--The death of P?re Joseph--Difficulties in the Church Pages 263-275
Victories abroad--The death of the Comte de Soissons--Social triumphs--Marriage of the Duc d'Enghien--The revolt against the taxes--The conspiracy of Cinq-Mars--The Cardinal's dangerous illness--He makes his will--The ruin of his enemies--His return to Paris Pages 276-290
The Cardinal's last days--Renewed illness--His death and funeral--His legacies--The feeling in France--The Church of the Sorbonne Pages 291-298
INDEX Pages 299-306
FACING PAGE
CLOISTER AT CHAMPIGNY 34
From a photo by A. Pascal, Thouars.
From a photo by Neurdein, Paris.
CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Portrait by Philippe de Champagne 132
From a photo by A. Giraudon, Paris.
GASTON DE FRANCE, DUC D'ORL?ANS. From a contemporary portrait 162
From a photo by Neurdein, Paris.
From a photo by Neurdein, Paris.
THE CH?TEAU DE RICHELIEU. From an old print 234
THE TOWN OF RICHELIEU. From an old print 238
ANNE OF AUSTRIA. From a miniature in the Victoria and Albert Museum 268
PORTE DE CH?TELLERAULT, RICHELIEU 280
From a photo by Imprimerie Photo-M?canique, Paris.
TOMB OF CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU, by Girardon, in the Church of the Sorbonne 294
From a photo by Neurdein, Paris.
CONTEMPORARY
Etc., etc.
MODERN
Etc., etc.
CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU
PART I
EARLY YEARS
In the year 1585, when Elizabeth of England was at the height of her power, when Mary of Scotland lay in prison within two years of her death, when Philip of Spain was beginning to dream of the Invincible Armada, when Henry of Guise and the League were triumphing in France, the future dominator of European politics was born.
Armand Jean du Plessis, third and youngest son of Fran?ois du Plessis, Seigneur de Richelieu, was an infant of no great importance. Even his birthplace, for a long time, was not known with any certainty.
The Du Plessis were an old family of Poitou. In that ancient and famous province they had held several fiefs so far back as the early thirteenth century; but they were a wandering, fighting race, without strong attachment, it seems, to their native soil. One of them is said to have gone to England in the suite of Guy de Lusignan, and to have married a noble English wife. Another journeyed to Cyprus with the same distinguished patron. In the Hundred Years War, two Du Plessis brothers were found fighting on opposite sides, French and English. Pierre, the elder, head of the less distinguished branch of the family, was a robber of Church property as well as a traitor to the national cause; but in the way of morals there was not much to choose between him and his brother Sauvage, the patriot, in favour of whom their father threatened to disinherit him.
An ecclesiastical turn--for the sake of gain rather than of godliness--was given to the family by its relationship with that "true prelate of the Renaissance," Jacques Le Roy, uncle of Madame de Richelieu. He was successively Abbot of Villeloing, Cluny, and St. Florent-de-Saumur, and Archbishop of Bourges, and in him the bad sixteenth-century alliance between the Church and the world, the consequence of royal nomination to benefices, might be seen at its most flourishing point.
He chose three out of his five Richelieu great-nephews to follow in his footsteps. Two of them rose to be abbot and bishop; the other, Antoine, took the vows as a monk at Saumur against his will, and after a short religious life varied by floggings and other punishments for rebellion, unfrocked himself and ran away to the wars. Known throughout his military life as "the Monk," he was a cruel and ferocious soldier. With his brother Fran?ois, a man of very different type, he first saw service in the Italian campaigns under the Mar?chal de Montluc. Both brothers returned to Poitou towards 1560, and both took the Catholic side in the religious civil war which raged for years in the miserable western provinces of France, where Protestantism, from various causes, had taken a firm hold. Attached to the Guise faction, the brothers became special partisans of the Duc de Montpensier, the King's lieutenant in Poitou and their own near neighbour at the Ch?teau de Champigny. His army swept the province with fire and sword, and among his many fierce and adventurous followers Fran?ois and Antoine du Plessis-Richelieu led the way.
She settled herself at Richelieu, then only a small castle on an island in the river Mable, in the heart of a country terribly disturbed by civil war, and commanded, from the neighbouring hills, by the strongholds of unfriendly neighbours. Here she brought up her children, of whom the second son, Fran?ois, was the father of Cardinal de Richelieu.
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