Cardinal Richelieu
Chief minister to King Louis XIII of France (1585–1642)
Biography
Armand Jean du Plessis, known as Richelieu, became a bishop at twenty-one to help his impoverished noble family, and his talent for practical business won him the queen's confidence and a place at court. He was made a cardinal in 1622 and from 1624 served as chief minister to Louis XIII, effectively directing French policy.
He had two aims. At home, to bring down anyone who challenged the king's authority; abroad, to break the ring of Habsburg power that enclosed France. Since both Spain and Austria were ruled by Habsburgs, France faced the same family on its western and its eastern borders.
Those aims led him to choices that look contradictory. Inside France he besieged and broke La Rochelle, the stronghold of the Protestant Huguenots; outside it he poured money into the Protestant Dutch Republic and Sweden. What mattered to him was not shared religion but French advantage — which is why later writers treat him as a starting point for diplomacy conducted in the interest of the state.
In 1635 he finally brought France into the war directly. The early years were dangerous, with Spanish troops pushing close to Paris, but the army and the finances he had built led in the end to the victory at Rocroi in 1643. He died in 1642 without seeing it, yet the course he set made France the greatest gainer at the Peace of Westphalia. The Académie Française, which he founded to refine French learning and language, still exists today.