Cardinal de Richelieu

by Eleanor C. Price

So much for correspondence. The later notes deal with a courtier’s most difficult study, dissimulation, and here, as elsewhere, it strikes one how large a part of Richelieu’s commanding genius lay in “an infinite capacity for taking pains.” His advice to himself is mostly—“Silence.”

“Not to publish abroad what has been said in confidence: Not to divulge any affair that may cause scandal: Not to discover one’s own plans, which being discovered may fail: Not to show that we are aware of the faults and the bad actions of others, because men with these faults hate those who know them: Not to show that we perceive the ill-will men bear to ourselves or to those whom we love: Not to show that we know any harm men have done us, or that we feel ourselves offended: Not to run any risk of brawls and quarrels.... To all these ends, silence is necessary and is not reprehensible. And though it may be very hard to live with one’s friends in this manner and to be silent as to their affairs, nevertheless reason teaches us to fix our eyes on what signifies most, and to do no harm or prejudice to ourselves.”

Here, a thought of sinning against truth and sincerity seems to have troubled the Bishop a little, for he ends by trying to explain how a man may with difficulty steer between two risks, “the reproach of lying and the peril of truth.” His counsel is, “Make a timely and cautious retreat without downright falsehood, saying nothing that ought not to be said.” Finally, “Be very reserved in words and in writing, and neither say nor write what is not absolutely necessary.”

Altogether a severe set of rules to be followed by a fiery, proud and impatient nature.

Imagination, of course, should not be allowed to play with history: but considering that the exact date of Richelieu’s “Instructions et Maximes” is not and never can be known, one may venture to fancy that he laid down his pen on a certain day in May 1610, just as the post from Paris had clattered into his courtyard, bringing crushing news for France and for himself. Henry, “un si bon maître et si grand Roy,” had been stabbed to death by the fanatic hand of Ravaillac, leaving his country in the hands of a weak woman just crowned, a melancholy little boy, and a group of princes and great nobles, greedy of money and power.

We have the very letter in which this news came to Richelieu. His faithful Sébastien Bouthillier was in Paris at the time, and wrote to him immediately after the tragic event. He had intended, he said, to send him an account of the Queen’s coronation; but had been interrupted by “the most strange and fatal accident.”

“On Friday, the 14th, His Majesty had gone to the Rue Saint-Denis to see the preparations for the Queen’s entry, and, returning, was in the street called de la Ferronnerie, when a wicked man, or rather the most execrable monster on earth, climbed on the hinder part of the coach inside which His Majesty was, and, unrestrained by the respect and fear due to the Lord’s anointed and the greatest prince in the world, attacking him from behind whose face brought terror to his enemies and assurance to all his subjects, gave him two blows with a knife, of which the first was not mortal, although both went through the body. When the report ran through Paris that the King was dead, you cannot imagine, Sir, the grief of all the people, the amazement of the nobles, every one sad and cast down; and yet, in the midst of this general sadness, it was courageously resolved to establish the Queen as regent, so that, three hours after the catastrophe, the King having expired, the Court of Parliament assembled at the Augustins, M. le Prince de Conti, MM. de Guise, d’Épernon, de Montbazon and many others being present, and verified the letters patent of the Regency which the late King had caused to be made out.”

The Abbé goes on to describe the sorrowful and loyal reception of the young Louis XIII., on Saturday, at the Palais de Justice, and then adds what he knows will interest his Bishop more than any other Parisian news he can send him at the moment.

“I must tell you that M. le Cardinal du Perron shows on all occasions the esteem in which he holds you; for I hear that when there was talk a few months ago, in his presence, of the young prelates of France, and when some one spoke of you in terms of praise, according to the reputation you have gained, M. le Cardinal said that you should not be counted among the young prelates, that the oldest ought to give way to you, and that for his own part he was ready to be an example to the rest. M. de Richelieu, to whom this was said, repeated it to me in so many words.”

This penetrating Cardinal du Perron, Archbishop of Sens, was one of the loftiest ecclesiastical figures of the time. Theologian and politician, he had been Richelieu’s chief patron in Paris, and his words, as Sébastien Bouthillier very well knew, were not a mere piece of flattery addressed to Richelieu’s brother.