Table Of Content“Miss Wedgwood is completely at home with her
material, her conception of her subject is broad and
sound, her style is simple, direct and interesting. . . .
The personality of Richelieu emerges forcefully in
these pages—a strong man who had to operate in a
political atmosphere that was often murky, and who,
therefore, could not always show his hand.” —The
American Historical Review
“A generous and sympathetic portrayal of the power
ful French Cardinal who built a powerful French
monarchy from a corrupted and dying country”
—Catholic Monthly Review
Miss C. V. Wedgwood is an English historian who
specializes in the seventeenth century. Her works in
clude a biography of William the Silent, which was
awarded the James Taite Black Memorial Prize, a
biography of Oliver Cromwell, a history of the
Thirty Years War, and several studies of the Eng
lish Civil War.
MEN AND HISTORY
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Peter The Great and the Emergence of Russia by B. H. Sumner
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Richelieu and the French Monarchy by C. V. Wedgwood
Robespierre and the French Revolution by J. M. Thompson
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ara® w
C. V. WEDGWOOD
New, Revised Edition
COLLIER BOOKS
NEW YORK, N. Y.
This edition, revised for Collier Books, is published by arrange
ment with the Macmillan Company
Collier Books is a division of The Crowell-Collier Publishing
Company
First Collier Books Edition 1962
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-19197
This title first appeared as a volume in the Teach Yourself
History series under the general editorship of A. L. Rowse
First printed 1949
Copyright © 1962 by C. V. Wedgwood
All Rights Reserved
Hecho en los E.E.U.U.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
1 Richelieu and the French Monarchy 9
2 “Armand for the King” 12
3 The Situation in 1624 29
4 Uncertain Tenure, 1624-1630 42
5 War Underhand, 1630-1635 62
6 The Year of Anxiety, 1635-1636 77
7 The Army and Navy 84
8 The Internal Organisation of France 98
9 French Civilisation 108
10 Cinq Mars, 1639-1642 123
11 The Testament of Richelieu 138
Notes on Books .147
Richelieu
Chapter 1
Richelieu and the French Monarchy
This book is an account of a man’s life. Armand Jean da
Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, was first minister of France for
eighteen critical years (1624-1642) of the seventeenth
century. During that time two things happened to France.
First: the monarchy was established so firmly that even the
long minority of Louis XIV and the series of rebellions
known as the Fronde could not shake its foundation.
Secondly, France became the dominating power on the
continent of Europe, both in politics and in the arts.
Making every reasonable allowance for the impersonal
forces which assisted these two developments, it is im
possible not to allow a good deal of the credit for both of
them to Cardinal Richelieu. The part played by the Great
Man in history is usually overestimated; on the other hand
the modem fashion for allowing no influence to die indivi
dual at all, and ascribing all historical developments to
social or economic forces seems equally mistaken. If forces
beyond individual control—the spiritual force of a great
religious revival, the economic and social forces, driving
France towards national consciousness and expansion—
played an important part in the creation of the French
monarchy, it is difficult to imagine quite how these forces
9
10 / Richelieu and the French Monarchy
would have found expression under other guidance than
that of Cardinal Richelieu. It is the measure of his great
ness that it should be so difficult to imagine the growth of
the French monarchy, or the development of Europe in the
seventeenth century, without him.
The Cardinal was so formidable a personality that, in
his lifetime, his influence was suspected everywhere. He
was credited wrongly by the English with having provoked
the Scots Wars of 1639 and 1640, and rightly by the Span
iards with organising the Portuguese and Catalan revolts
of the same period. His spies and agents covered Europe
no less than his police system covered France. In the
imagination of his contemporaries he was the cunning
spider seated all-powerful in the midst of an enormous web
of intrigue.
We are more inclined today to recognise that such per
sonalities are not necessarily the dominating forces of his
tory, that beneath the spectacular achievements of an
astute diplomat and perspicacious politician, the threads of
millions of other lives make up the colour-pattern of a
period. Richelieu indeed could not have done what he did
but for opportunities which were a part of a more vast and
complicated design. France could not have risen to domi
nate Europe had it not been for her tough, hard-working
peasant population, the toilers in the vineyards and the
olive fields, or for her industrious artisans, the men and
women at the looms of Lyons and Tours, in the glassworks
of Meaux; or for her hard-headed and thrifty bourgeoisie,
the solid and calculating shopkeepers of a hundred provin
cial cities. The French monarchy could not have been con
solidated without the general desire for stable government
which was the outcome of increasing prosperity and the
need for expansion.
Richelieu achieved only what it was necessary to achieve.
Moreover he was not a creative statesman for he invented
nothing new. Instead he selected, as occasion dictated, such
elements as already existed in the French state, and
strengthened these at the expense of others.
