San Antonio College Library

"Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac; 9 September 1585 ? 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman. Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded...

"Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac; 9 September 1585? 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman. Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded...

His successes as a political reformer have been exaggerated, and his diplomatic views have been largely misunderstood. In religion, government and diplomacy he was only more or less successful, and his greatness lies in the personal influence he wielded in all these spheres, rather than in the actual changes he brought about. His defects of character are those of his generation; his virtues are those of Counter-Reformation Europe; and his life is...

"Armand Jean du Plessis, cardinal-duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac; 9 September 1585 ? 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman. Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded...

"The problem of the relationship between moral principles and political necessity, of the purposes of power and the justice of means, has always been a central theme in European history. The ministry of Cardinal Richelieu is a focal point for the problem because it existed during a time when the continuing strength of religiously based political ideas and the growth of the modern state converged. In this major study William F. Church examines Richelieu's...

Chief minister to King Louis XIII, Cardinal Richelieu was the architect of a new France in the seventeenth century, and the force behind the nation's rise as a European power. Among the first statesmen to clearly understand the necessity of a balance of powers, he was one of the early realist politicians, practicing in the wake of Machiavelli. Forging a nation-state amid the swirl of unruly nobles, widespread corruption, wars of religion, and an ambitious...