Chapter L: Section V: Aims and Character of Richelieu

[Sidenote: § 1. Richelieu's domestic policy.]

Unlike Lewis XIV. and Napoleon, Richelieu counts amongst those few French statesmen whose fortune mounted with their lives. It is not difficult to discover the cause. As in Gustavus, love of action was tempered by extreme prudence and caution. But in Richelieu these ingredients of character were mingled in different proportions. The love of action was far less impetuous. The caution was far stronger. No man had a keener eye to distinguish the conditions of success, or was more ready to throw aside the dearest schemes when he believed them to be accompanied by insuperable difficulties. Braver heart never was. There was the highest courage in the constancy with which he, an invalid tottering for years on the brink of the grave, and supported by a king whose health was as feeble as his own, faced the whole might of the aristocracy of France. If he was harsh and unpitying it was to the enemies of the nation, to the nobles who trod under their feet the peasant and the serf, and who counted the possession of power merely as the high-road to the advancement of their private fortunes. The establishment of a strong monarchical power was, as France was then constituted, the only chance for industry and commerce to lift up their heads, for the peaceable arts of life to develop themselves in security, for the intellect of man to have free course, and for the poor to be protected from oppression.

[Sidenote: § 2. His designs only partially accomplished.]

All this was in Richelieu's heart; and some little of this he accomplished. The work of many generations was in this man's brain. Yet he never attempted to do more than the work of his own. As Bacon sketched out the lines within which science was to move in the days of Newton and of Faraday, so Richelieu sketched out the lines within which French statesmanship was to move in the days of Colbert and of Turgot, or in those of the great Revolution itself.

[Sidenote: § 3. The people nothing in France.]

"All things for the people, nothing by the people." This maxim attributed to Napoleon embodied as well the policy of Richelieu. In it are embalmed the strength and weakness of French statesmanship. The late growth of the royal power and the long continuance of aristocratic oppression threw the people helpless and speechless into the arms of the monarchy. They were happy if some one should prove strong enough to take up their cause without putting them to the trouble or the risk of thinking and speaking for themselves. It is no blame to Richelieu if, being a Frenchman of the seventeenth century, he worked under the only conditions which Frenchmen of the seventeenth century would admit. We can well fancy that he would think with scorn and contempt of the English Revolution, which was accomplishing itself under his eyes. Yet in the England of the Civil War, men were learning not merely to be governed well, but to know what good government was. It was a greater thing for a nation to learn to choose good and to refuse evil, even if the progress was slow, than to be led blindfold with far more rapid steps.

[Sidenote: § 4. His foreign policy.]

Richelieu's foreign policy was guided by the same deep calculation as his home policy. If at home he saw that France was greater than any faction, he had not arrived at the far higher notion that Europe was greater than France, excepting so far as he saw in the system of intolerance supported by Spain an evil to be combated for the sake of others who were not Frenchmen. But there is no sign that he really cared for the prosperity of other nations when it was not coincident with the prosperity of France. As it is for the present generation a matter of complete indifference whether Breisach was to be garrisoned by Frenchmen or imperialists, it would be needless for us, if we regarded Richelieu's motives alone, to trouble ourselves much with the later years of the Thirty Years' War.

[Sidenote: § 5. His support of rising causes.]

But it is not always by purity of motive only that the world's progress advances. Richelieu, in order to make France strong, needed help, and he had to look about for help where the greatest amount of strength was to be found. An ordinary man would have looked to the physical strength of armies, as Wallenstein did, or to the ideal strength of established institutions, as Ferdinand did. Richelieu knew better. He saw that for him who knows how to use it there is no lever in the world like that of a rising cause, for a rising cause embodies the growing dissatisfaction of men with a long-established evil, which they have learned to detest, but which they have not yet learned to overthrow.

[Sidenote: § 6. And of those causes which were in themselves good.]

In England Richelieu was on the side of Parliamentary opposition to the crown. In Germany he was on the side of the opposition of the princes against the Emperor. In Italy he was on the side of the independence of the states against Spain. In the Peninsula he was on the side of the provinces against the monarchy. There is not the slightest reason to suppose that he cared one atom for any of those causes except so far as they might promote his own ends. Yet in every case he selected those causes by which the real wants of the several countries were best expressed.

[Sidenote: § 7. Contrast between Richelieu and later French politicians.]

It is this which distinguishes Richelieu from those who in later times have measured the foreign policy of France by French interests alone. They have taken up any cause which promised to weaken a powerful neighbour, without considering what the cause was worth. They favoured Italian division in 1860, and German division in 1870. Richelieu had a clearer insight into the nature of things than that. There can be no doubt that he would far rather have attacked Spain and Austria through the instrumentality of the League than through the instrumentality of Gustavus and the Protestants; but he saw that the future was with Gustavus and not with the League. He sacrificed his wishes to his policy. He coquetted with the League, but he supported Gustavus.

[Sidenote: § 8. He has no exorbitant aims.]

When once Richelieu had gained his point, he was contented with his success. He never aspired to more than he could accomplish: never struck, excepting for a purpose: never domineered through the mere insolence of power. He took good care to get Alsace into his hands, and to make himself master of the passes of the Alps by the possession of Pignerol; but he never dreamed of founding, like Napoleon, a French Confederation of the Rhine, or a French kingdom of Italy. His interference with his neighbours was as little obtrusive as possible.

[Sidenote: 1643.

§ 9. Death of Lewis XIII.]

Richelieu was quickly followed to the grave by the sovereign in whose name he had accomplished so much. Lewis XIII. died on the 14th of May, 1643.