Armand Jean du Plessis Richelieu
Cardinal and politician Armand Jean du Plessis, titled duc de Richelieu as chief minister of Louis XIII, worked to strengthen the authority of the monarchy and directed France during the Thirty Years' War from 1618.
Louis XIII, king from 1610, relied heavily on Armand Jean du Plessis, his adviser, in his struggles with Spain, the Huguenots, and the Habsburg family.
This clergyman, noble, and statesman, consecrated as a bishop in 1607, later entered as a secretary of state in 1616. He quickly rose in the Church and the state in 1622 and 1624.
People sometimes consider him the first prime of the world in the modern sense of the term. He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. He restrained the power of the nobility and thus transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His foreign objective checked the power of the dynasty of Habsburg family in Austria and Spain. He hesitated not to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve this goal. The Thirty Years' War engulfed Europe and marked his tenure.
Upon his death, Jules Mazarin succeeded him in office.
“Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles.”
“Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.”
“Deception is the knowledge of kings.”
“If you give me six sentences written by the most innocent of men, I will find something in them with which to hang them.”