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Cardinal Richelieu

Born on September 9, 1585, Passed away on December 4, 1642

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He was a French statesman and clergyman. He was also known as l'Éminence rouge, or "The Red Eminence", a term derived from the title "Eminence" applied to cardinals and the red robes that they customarily wear.

Consecrated a bishop in 1607, Richelieu was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. He continued to rise through the hierarchy of both the Catholic Church and the French government by becoming a cardinal in 1622 and chief minister to King Louis XIII of France in 1624. He retained that office until his death in 1642 when he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered. He also became engaged in a bitter dispute with the king's mother, Marie de Médicis, who had once been a close ally. Richelieu sought to consolidate royal power and restrained the power of the nobility in order to transform France into a strong centralized state. In foreign policy, his primary objectives were to check the power of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain and Austria and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War after the conflict engulfed Europe. Despite suppressing the Huguenot rebellions, he made alliances with Protestant states like the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic to help him achieve his goals. However, although he was a powerful political figure in his own right, events such as the Day of the Dupes, or Journée des Dupes, showed that Richelieu's power was still dependent on the king's confidence.

An alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the College of Sorbonne, Richelieu renovated and extended the institution. He was famous for his patronage of the arts and founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and New France, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés; he also negotiated the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye under which Quebec City returned to French rule after its loss in 1629. Richelieu is also known for being the inventor of the table knife. Annoyed by the bad manners that were commonly displayed at the dining table by users of sharp knives, who would often use them to pick their teeth, in 1637 Richelieu ordered that all of the knives on his dining table have their blades dulled and their tips rounded. The design quickly became popular throughout France and later spread to other countries. Richelieu has frequently been depicted in popular fiction, principally as the lead villain in Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel The Three Musketeers and its numerous film adaptations.


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