'fHE POLI'fICAL 'fES'fAMEN'f OF CARDINAL GJ\.ICHELIE U THE SIGNIFICANT CHAPTERS AND SUPPORTING SELE-CTIONS TRANSLATED BY HENRY BERTRAM HILL THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS The University of Wisconsin Press II4-North Murray Street Madison, Wisconsin 53715 The University of Wisconsin Press, Ltd. 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 1961 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System Copyright renewed 1989 by Henry Bertram Hill All rights reserved 15 14- 13 12 II 10 9 Printed in the United States of America CON.CfEN.CfS page Translator's Introduction v THE POLITICAL TESTAMENT Introductory Epistle (in large part) 3 PART I Chapter I General Statement of the Royal Program (selections) 9 II The Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Order (selections ) 13 III The Reformation of the Nobility (selections) 20 IV The Reformation of the Third Order of the Realm (selections) 27 V Minor Administrative Details (omitted) VI The Role of the King (complete) 34 VII The Reformation of the Royal Household (complete) 48 VIII The Qualifications for Royal Councillors (selections) 57 · tV CONTENTS PART II I The Reign of God the First Essential (complete) 67 II Reason Should Guide the Governing of a State (complete) 71 III Public Interest the First Objective (complete) 76 IV Foresight Necessary to Good Government (complete) 80 V The Uses of Punishments and Rewards (complete) 84 VI The Need for Continuous Negotiation in Diplomacy (complete) 94 VII The Need to Appoint Suitable Men to Public Offices (complete) 103 VIII The Evils of Flattery, Slander, and Scheming (complete) III IX The Power of the Prince (selections) Il8 X Conclusion (complete) 125 IN.CfROD UCCfION. m Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, the most im portant single figure in the building of French absolut ism, was born and died in the parish of St. Eustache in Paris (1585-1642). He was a younger son of an impe cunious nobleman from Poitou who had risen to the rank of Grand Provost in the service of Henry III, the last Valois king of France. Intended for a military career, he dutifully agreed to abandon it to support his widowed mother by fulfilling the family claim to the bishopric of Lucon, replacing an older brother who had belatedly chosen the cloister. After lengthy and serious theologi cal studies the young candidate journeyed to Rome where the pope, impressed with his intelligence and de meanor, granted the necessary dispensation and invested him with his episcopal office in 1606, several years before he reached the canonical age. Soon after, he entered v · VI INTRODU CTIO~ upon the active administration of his diocese, one of the meanest in the country. With what was to become his customary thoroughness and attention to detail he under took its physical and spiritual refabrication, and before long he had established a reputation as a promising young clerical administrator. In 1614, as a representative of the clergy to the Estates General he won the attention of the Queen-Mother, Marie de Medicis, and shortly there after he became a Secretary of State. F onune turned briefly against him in 1617, however, when the Queen's favorite, Concini, was assassinated at the command of the adolescent Louis XIII, but Richelieu was recalled from disgrace and exile by the distraught king who wanted the Bishop to mediate in his ever-recurring con flict with his mother. For this and other services Riche lieu won first the cardinalate (1622) and then, having finally completely subdued the last of the king's suspi cions, the helm of state as prime minister (1624). Once in office, it was Richelieu's program to make Louis the unquestioned master of his realm, and France preeminent in Europe. Although he could be both devi ous and harsh, he preferred the method of subtlety, and he skillfully practiced the art of the possible. He created no new instruments of government and he propounded no systematic theory of state; rather, he treated each problem in the context of his long-range purposes. If one approach seemed inappropriate at the moment, he held it in reserve while trying another. If nothing worked INTRODUCTION Vll he waited for conditions to change. The only fixed as pects of his policy were his utter determination and pa tience. His first completed objective was the destruction of the political privileges (but not the religious immuni ties) of the Huguenots, symbolized by his successful siege of the fortified Protestant port city of La Rochelle and sealed by the tolerant Edict of Alais (1629). He fol lowed this victory by continuing a relentless attack upon all nobles high and low who defied the will of the King, which also meant, needless to say, Richelieu's own will as well. In 1627 he insisted upon the execution of the Seigneur de Bouteville, a noble braggart who flamboy antly fought a preannounced and forbidden duel on the Place Royale. The same fate was meted out in 1632 to the Duke of Montmorency, a highly placed and popular nobleman of ancient family who headed a revolt in Languedoc. He kept Gaston of Orleans, the King's scapegrace brother, under constant threat for his in trigues, and he even drove the troublesome Queen Mother, his one-time protector, out of the country. With the king supreme at home, Richelieu in 1635 carried France into the Thirty Years' War (1618-48). Although a cardinal of the Church, he supported the Protestant side, for his purpose was to destroy the power of the Hapsburg states, Austria and Spain, which had so long encircled and threatened France. More than any other individual he was responsible for turning that war from a predominantly religious struggle into a predom- · Vill INTRODUCTION inantly political one. He died in 1642 before the war was over and won, but not before the outcome he wanted had been shaped, and not before he had provided in Cardinal Mazarin a successor capable of carrying his will to its conclusion. By 1659, when Spain as well as Austria acknowledged defeat, France, strongly absolutist at home, had emerged as the dominant state in Europe. For a man who was both so busy and so frequently ill, Richelieu left a considerable body of writings. This work ranged from plays (the Cardinal was extremely vain about them, and one, Mirame, was at least passable in qual ity) to the Memoires du cardinal de Richelieu compiled posthumously from his papers by Harley de Sancy, Bishop of St. Malo.1 Other parts may be found in his Let tres, instructions diplomatiques et papiers d'etat du cardi nal de Richelieu, edited by Georges Avene1.2 Lastly, there is his Testament politique, which has a special interest and usefulness of its own. More needs to be said about it specifically, if for no other reason than because unlike the rest of Richelieu's writings it has been much abused, misunderstood, and even neglected. Indeed, the two things long most widely known and said of it were both in complete error: that the book was a forgery, and (by some of those who accepted its authenticity) that it out lined Richelieu's plan for an aggressive foreign policy at Germany's expense. 1 10 volumes, Paris, 1907-3 I. t 8 volumes, Paris, 1853-77. . INTRODUCTION IX Before discussing what the book is not, however, it might be well to deal with what it is. As Richelieu him self tells us at the beginning of the Political Testament, it had been his intention from the first moment of his ap pointment to compile a detailed history of the time of Louis XIII, designed in part to glorify his reign, in part to instruct his successors. Coming to realize, however, that his limited time and strength would prevent the ful fillment of this hope, Richelieu decided upon the more modest objective of a book of observations and maxims for the king's guidance should fate still the cardinal's hand. Running to some 360 pages in the best French edi tion, it is divided into two parts. The first, largely retro spective in nature in spite of several of the chapter head ings, is concerned with the history of the earlier portion of the reign of Louis XIII and with the institutions of French government and society; the second, more hor tatory and prospective, deals with public policy. At times fragmentary, at others repetitious, the work is almost always pithy and frequently pungent. Richelieu was not a great speculative genius-not a new Machiavelli-but he was an observant, shrewd, even cunning, and certainly highly successful administrator. His text breathes the atmosphere of this experience and although the reader may not accept the underlying philosophy, he is forced to agree that the cardinal-minister generally knew in great detail and depth what he was writing about. Whether or not the king ever read the Political Testa-