It was not without some relief, therefore, that the cardinal heard the news of the Northern Lion’s death at the battle of Lützen in 1632. Raison d’état fused foreign ideological imports, such as Machiavellianism, with neo-stoicism and France’s own tradition of divine absolutism. 32 As historians such as Marc Bloch have noted, this concept of sacred kingship took root at the intersection of two traditions: the philosophy of the French monarchy, which was defended by theorists such as Jean Bodin who viewed the king as the sole guarantor of unity and enforcer of sovereignty over an otherwise divided nation, and the religion of the French monarchy, which drew on folk traditions and village mysticism in a predominantly rural and deeply superstitious country. The sections of his writings that expound on the nature and characteristics of the French people frequently resemble those of an exasperated, yet loving, parent. 34 On China’s revisionist instrumentalization of its imperial history, see Howard French, Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power (New York: Vintage Books, 2017). In countless tracts, treatises, and pamphlets, the politiques strenuously argued in defense of the cardinal’s character, stressing his personal loyalty to the king, as well as the strategic merits of his foreign policy — however disquieting the short-term costs may be. 101 The means by which Richelieu acquired this fortress were particularly devious. Finally, what insights can be derived from Richelieu’s approach to foreign policy and great power competition? The invading force met unexpectedly feeble resistance as it ravaged Picardy and Champagne and swept through a series of northern forts. The preservation of the kingdom’s newly aggrandized military machine was therefore largely dependent upon a massive expansion of domestic taxation. 61 See, for example, Fritz Dickmann, “Rechtsgedanke und Machtpolitik bei Richelieu. << 1 (January 1955): 65–91, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1508452. In 1640 France was not only secure against invasion, but its frontier had been advanced in the east, in the north, and in the south, and its great rival, Spain, was threatened with imminent dissolution. Au XVIIe siècle, le renforcement de l'Etat, bouleversant les anciennes structures mentales, donne au développement de la pensée politique un caractère dramatique. Its finances were in shambles, its military system in dire need of reform, and its security elites almost irreconcilably disunited in their approach to grand strategy. This was the case, for instance, with the Count of Harcourt, whose military acumen impressed Richelieu, and who was therefore allowed to marry into the chief minister’s family despite his middling aristocratic standing.152 From then on, Harcourt was entrusted with a series of high-level military commands. France’s military performance at the outset of this war was decidedly mixed. 195 Burckhardt, Richelieu and His Age, 54. 142 See, Randall Lesaffer, “Defensive Warfare, Prevention and Hegemony. When Richelieu was elevated to the rank of chief minister in 1624, France’s strategic position, locked in the heart of a war-torn Europe, appeared — at first glance — rather grim. These garrisoned protectorates were viewed by the chief minister as serving a dual function — both as watchtowers and as potential staging areas for future military interventions.109, Even as Richelieu pursued his strategy of delay, limited military involvement, and tailored assertiveness within France’s near abroad, he also sought to sap Habsburg power from afar, through a policy of indirect or subsidized warfare. In this, he, demonstrated that alliances between strong and weak players can work best when the former operates as sponsor of the latter rather than treating them as dispensable junior partners.215, Unfortunately, this sagacious brand of statecraft did not survive Mazarin’s death in 1661. Richelieu was certainly adept at playing the game of patronage politics, but this relentless flow of intrigue also consumed a lot of his time and energy and rendered a purely rationalized and meritocratic approach to government almost impossible. These messianic and nationalist tendencies were buttressed by the development of a sophisticated body of thought on raison d’état — or reason of state. He waged war via a complex constellation of proxies, while his most able diplomats were dispatched to foment internal divisions within both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. And yet, while it is proof of your power, it is also strong proof of your judgment, as it was necessary to focus the attention of your enemies in all places so they could be invincible in none.204. In this, Richelieu was mostly successful, with some estimates showing that the income of the French crown doubled in real terms over the course of his tenure.161 Per capita taxation also soared and the country’s peasantry — already reeling after a series of harsh winters and poor harvests — was plunged into an even more dire state of poverty. The most significant crises during the guerre couverte period occurred at the bloody peripheries and messy intersections of each great power’s sphere of interest. More broadly, are dominant states condemned to periods of self-defeating hubris? /E 36391 See, Maxime Préaud, “L’Imprimerie Royale and Cardinal Richelieu,” in Richelieu: Art and Power, 201. endobj 95 John C. Rule, “The Enduring Rivalry of France and Spain 1462-1700,” in Great Power Rivalries, ed. 6 Jörg Wollenberg, Richelieu: Staatsräson und Kircheninteresse: Zur Legitimation der Politik des Kardinalpremier (Bielfeld: Pfeffersche Buchhandlung, 1977). 52 Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Duc de Richelieu, Lettres, Instructions Diplomatiques du Cardinal de Richelieu Vol. 14 Richelieu, Testament Politique, 2nd Ed. In response to those who advocated an alignment with Madrid, they pointed to Spain’s history of interference in French domestic politics and to its perceived duplicity. In that sense, one could argue that it constituted something of “an inauspicious beginning” in international affairs. For Richelieu’s force-structure goals, which included a fleet of “at least 30 good warships,” see “Memoire touchant la Marine, envoyé à M. Ie Garde des Sceaux, November 18, 1626,” in Papiers de Richelieu, ed. 2 (1964): 120–36, https://doi.org/10.1177/002234336400100204. For classically educated nationalists such as Richelieu, it appeared evident that France was in many ways the new Rome and Spain — with its kaleidoscope of ethnicities, dispersed territories, and maritime empire — was Carthage. National Interest, often referred to by the French expression raison d'État (transl. It was therefore necessary, argued Olivares, to seek an early end to the conflict by striking hard and fast. This single-mindedness was more than just the sign of a merciless operator, however. In the case of Portugal, however, the divorce proved more permanent — after decades of bitter struggle, the Portuguese obtained their full independence in 1668. At the back of his mind, there was no doubt always the cautionary tale of Concino Concini, the queen mother’s former favorite, whose murder Louis XIII had sanctioned in 1617, and whose mangled remains Richelieu had witnessed being borne across the Pont Neuf on a roaring mob’s pikes. See, Fénelon, Lettre à Louis XIV et Autres Ecrits Politiques (Paris: Omnia, 2011), 30–35. �T b � ` { � � = &. From the earliest days of his tenure as chief minister, he moved decisively to exert control over the political media, appointing his minions to head leading publications such as Le Mercure François, France’s first yearly newspaper, and the Gazette, a weekly publication, and waging a tireless counter-intelligence campaign against clandestine printing activities. Avec des repères chronologiques. 96 The Treaty of Monzon did, however, sour France’s relations with its northern Italian allies, such as Venice, as it was discreetly negotiated over their heads. The author would like to thank TNSR’s editorial team, three anonymous reviewers, and the gracious staff of the diplomatic archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in La Courneuve, and the French National Archives, in Paris. 2 (1992): 249–69, https://www.jstor.org/stable/270987. In early 17th-century France, in particular, there was a radioactive quality to affirming oneself as a disciple of Machiavelli, whose very “Italianness” rendered his ideas suspect.41 For many political theorists of the early Baroque era, it was safer to simply bypass the works of the controversial Florentine to plumb the ruminations of the sages of the ancient world. What philosophy of power and statecraft underpinned the cardinal’s approach to counter-hegemonic balancing? Secrétaire d’État puis ministre des Affaires étrangères, il connaît une mise au ban de quelques années lorsque le jeune roi de France écarte sa mère du pouvoir. These day-to-day propaganda efforts were accompanied by a more ambitious and externally-oriented policy of cultural grandeur, whereby the industrious cleric sought to transform Paris into the artistic and academic capital of Europe — a city which would eventually outshine Madrid, Vienna, and maybe even Rome. This was due, in large part, to the manifold bureaucratic limitations of the early modern French state — but not only. 216 See, Janine Garrisson, L’Edit de Nantes et sa Révocation: Histoire d’une Intolérance (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1985). In some instances, theorists clearly struggled to establish neat categories or “guides” of justifiable departures from Christian morality. Pour Richelieu, la raison d’État justifie ces moyens. These developments almost fatally impeded the Spanish war effort. That said, it is also evident upon further examination that he operated under the clear guidance of an overarching vision — one that is best understood as a deep yearning for order in a dislocated world. For Richelieu and his disciples, the prospect of Spanish dominion over the Valtellina was therefore an alarming one, adding to longstanding French fears of encirclement by combined Habsburg forces. 159 Quoted in Parrott, Richelieu’s Army, 95, in the original French. After months of prevarication, a reluctant Ferdinand II succumbed to the pressure exerted by the imperial court’s pro-Spanish lobby and formally declared war on France in March 1636.144 Richelieu was now facing the climactic struggle he had often anticipated but always dreaded: a war waged on an unprecedented scale, on multiple fronts, and against the combined might of both dynastic branches of the Habsburgs. 141 Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares, 482, 490–92. His younger brother — and Richelieu’s future father — the 17-year-old François, was serving as a page at the royal court at the time. There is evidence that these carefully coordinated communication efforts were successful in shaping the overall narrative, as Olivares evinced frustration that the cardinal’s publicists always seemed to move faster and more efficiently than his own.141. could be (…) used to contrast favorably Richelieu’s dealings with the Huguenots to the brutal and futile policies of Louis XIV.” Bergin, “Three Faces of Richelieu,” 523. In 1642, only a few weeks before Richelieu’s death, a heroic comedy, entitled Europe, was performed at the royal court. This minor dynastic squabble quickly took on geopolitical significance. The latter had made substantial inroads in Brazil and the West Indies and Spain’s transatlantic trade routes were now perpetually at risk. 136 James B. Fully answering such complex questions is beyond the remit of this study. As J.H. Meanwhile, the imperial troops Olivares had been hoping would join his prosecution of the Dutch, and who were also much needed in Germany to stave off the advance of the Swedes, were instead channeled southward, toward Mantua, where they were decimated by plague.100 Through secretly negotiated clauses, France also gained access to the strategically positioned mountain fortress of Pinerolo in the Piedmont, which it had quietly wrested from Savoy.101 All in all, therefore — and despite the cost and clear risks associated with France’s decision to intervene in support of its belligerent proxy, Richelieu’s calculus seemed to have paid off — France weathered the protracted crisis far better than its two main competitors. 1 (Summer 2017): 80–113, https://doi.org/10.1162/ISEC_a_00283. Would that not bring about a much-needed peace, advance the cause of international Catholicism, and be preferable to funding the systematic, continent-wide slaughter of co-religionists by foreign heretics? >> 1 (December 2006): 92, http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157180506777834407. 190 This oft-cited definition of grand strategy (and one of the more workable and succinct) is provided in Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security 21, no. Few political theorists have generated quite as much heated controversy as Niccolò Machiavelli.40 The Machiavellian assertion of a clear and necessary distinction between private morality and state behavior was viewed as a moral affront — or at least a severe intellectual challenge — by many early modern Christian thinkers. For classically educated nationalists such as Richelieu, it appeared evident that France was in many ways the new Rome and Spain — with its kaleidoscope of ethnicities, dispersed territories, and maritime empire — was Carthage.67 The challenge was how to effectively implement a strategy that would allow France to buy time, gather its strength, and eventually defeat Spain, much as Rome finally prevailed over its trans-Mediterranean foe after a century of bitter struggle. Although France, unlike Spain, benefited from interior lines of communication, the distances remained vast and the terrain nearly impassable in many parts of the country, with thick forests, underdeveloped roads, and large, rugged mountainous regions.158 Problems of transportation and supply were a chronic source of concern, as were those of funding. The first provided the kingdom with an ideological predisposition toward strategic autonomy, while the second lent a religious “cover” for actions that might otherwise appear hostile to the interests of the Catholic Church. Unlike other great strategic thinkers such as Clausewitz or Machiavelli, the body of thought bequeathed to us in his voluminous writings does not easily lend itself to systematization.12 The cardinal was certainly deeply intellectual: He read Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish; was a major patron of the arts; and his personal library, which contained proscribed works, including books on Calvinist theology, was considered one of the finest in Europe.13 Above all, however, he was a statesman and a policy practitioner, less interested in articulating a set of novel theoretical constructs or in pioneering a school of thought than in harnessing knowledge for the purpose of advancing the interests and ideology of the French state. He famously created the Académie Française, which initially hosted many of the more proficient politique theorists, and established the royal press, or Imprimerie Royale, in the Louvre, which turned France into a publishing hub for high-quality books and engravings.131 Richelieu was particularly intent on nurturing a body of sophisticated legal theorists. 128 Indeed, “if one were to put all the gold on one side, and the blood of the Indians from which it is drawn on the other, the blood would still weigh more than the gold.” Ferrier, Le Catholique d’Etat. For “randomness parading as design,” see Steve Yetiv, The Absence of Grand Strategy: The United States in the Persian Gulf: 1972-2005 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), 197. A few months after becoming chief minister, Richelieu sought to rebalance the situation by conducting secret negotiations with Savoyard and Swiss allies, catching Spain off guard. 169 As Peter Wilson notes, “the French monarchy might have lurched … from one financial crisis to the next, but at least it kept moving forward. He appreciated its age-old emphasis on courage and personal sacrifice, but also criticized its tendency toward erratic emotionalism, along with its vainglorious and self-destructive tendencies.91 In his later correspondence with French nobles deployed to the front, it is telling that he sometimes advised his soldier-aristocrats to rein in their natural hotheadedness and to behave with “prudence.”92 More than anything, the cardinal-minister wished to redirect the famed furia francese and thirst for glory of the nobility so that it served the broader geopolitical ambitions of the French crown rather than merely the competitive impulses of a narrow and fractious social stratum. The Low Countries’ Wars resembled a weakening hold which, when long applied, debilitates a wrestler so that he submits more easily to a new attack from a different quarter.” Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 221. Drawing on the immense resources of a country at the zenith of its power, the Sun King launched a series of bloody wars of conquest. Bireley, Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J., and the Formation of the Imperial Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1981), 227. 7 Henry Kissinger, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History (New York: Random House, 2014), 20. It conducts a postmortem of Richelieu’s grand strategy of counter-hegemonic balancing and points to its successes as well as its failures and shortcomings. The second consists in the fact that lesser princes are often as careful and diligent in involving great kings in important commitments as they are feeble in aiding them, although they are fully obligated to do so.103, Despite these wry observations on the fickleness of security partners, Richelieu put alliance politics at the very center of his grand strategy, seeking to develop, in parallel, two separate German and Italian leagues. On the importance attached to the writings of Tacitus and Cicero in 16th- and early 17th-century France, see J.H.M. Author’s translation from the French. 28 See the magisterial work of the French historian Colette Beaune in Naissance de la Nation France (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1985). 170 See, J.H. 1 (November 2018), http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/868. As contemporary scholars have noted, grand strategy “exists in a world of flux” and “constant change and adaptation must be its companions if it is to succeed.”196 “At best,” suggests one historian, it can provide an “intellectual reference point” for dealing with evolving challenges and “a process by which dedicated policy makers can seek to bring their day-to-day actions into better alignments with their country’s enduring interests.”197 Richelieu was perfectly cognizant of these enduring truths and in his writings consistently and eloquently stressed the need to adhere to a political wisdom structured around compromise and adaptability — prudence in the classical sense — when advancing a country’s interests. Woodman (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 253–69. See also Sharon Kettering, “Political Pamphlets in Early Seventeenth-Century France: The Propaganda War Between Louis XIII and his Mother, 1619–20,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 42, no. 3 (1991): 399–416, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2710044. This last endeavor ultimately proved unsuccessful, with Madrid succeeding in breaking through a French naval interception force in the Mediterranean and relieving Genoa by sea. 90 John A. Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture (New York: Perseus Books, 2008), 143. 41 Following Henri IV’s assassination, his wife Marie de Medici had ruled as regent for a decade before her son Louis XIII came of age. 124 Close to the queen mother, Mathieu de Morgues was initially an ally and collaborator of Richelieu before becoming his most ferocious critic in the years following the Day of the Dupes. See, Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares, 101. 220 Lynn, “The Grand Strategy of the Grand Siècle,” 50. More importantly for Richelieu, the conflict imposed significant financial costs on both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, strained relations between the two partners, and forced them to divert large numbers of troops away from more critical theaters of operation for extended periods.99 Madrid’s decision to intervene on the Italian peninsula negatively affected its military operations in Flanders. 69 James G. Lacey, ed., Enduring Strategic Rivalries (Arlington, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2014), 1–16, www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA621612. 1 (1937): 63–97, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40945750. « L'État au miroir de la raison d'État ». 1 (1885): 38–67. Pope Urban VIII’s frantic diplomatic efforts were to no avail, however. D.N. For Richelieu and his absolutist fellow travelers, monarchy was not only the most effective form of government, it was also the most natural.49 The French monarch, by virtue of his divine nature, was infused with a purer, higher form of reason, which allowed him to pursue a more pragmatic foreign policy at a remove from the unruly passions and parochial concerns of the common man.50 This view of the king as the metaphysical embodiment of the state is evident throughout the works of Richelieu’s closest collaborators, with one of them writing that the king was so divinely “animated by the power of reason,” that “the interests of the state” had replaced the “passions of his soul.”51 At the same time, however, the corporeal structure of the state — its territorial integrity, armies, and institutions — remained profoundly mortal. It is these aspects of his domestic and international legacy — all of which are frequently viewed as closely intertwined — that have triggered the most controversy. Woods, “The Impact of the Wars of Religion: A View of France in 1581,” Sixteenth Century Journal 15, no. As if to emphasize one last time the entangled nature of their complex relationship, Louis XIII followed Richelieu to the grave only a few months after the cardinal’s passing. The cardinal responded that there was nothing and nobody to forgive. 126 Critiques of the Spanish treatment of native Americans was a leitmotiv in French writings at the time. Richelieu’s quest for diplomatic equilibrium, along with his hopes for a durable peace settlement, were undoubtedly driven by an ambition, first and foremost, to recover French primacy. Even before the war, in 1630, Richelieu grumblingly queried whether, There is a kingdom in the world that can regularly pay two or three armies at once … I would like to be told whether reason does not require that one better fund an army operating on enemy territory against powerful forces against whom it has been tried in combat, and where expenses and incommodities are indeterminate, rather than one that remains within the kingdom out of precaution of the harm that could befall it.159. Naturally, the pursuit of Richelieu’s three-part agenda was not as smooth and linear as his self-promotional Testament Politique, written in his twilight years, would suggest. L'article de Marcel Gauchet m'apparaît surtout comme une tentative magnifiquement réussie de lier la problématique du théologico-politique dans la France moderne et celle de la formation d'un espace public critique, suscité, dans un apparent paradoxe, par la dynamique absolutiste. For a recent discussion of the legacy of Polybian thought and its continued relevance, see Iskander Rehman, “Polybius, Applied History, and Grand Strategy in an Interstitial Age,” War on the Rocks, March 29, 2019, https://warontherocks.com/2019/03/polybius-applied-history-and-grand-strategy-in-an-interstitial-age/. 63 David J. Sturdy, Richelieu and Mazarin: A Study in Statesmanship (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 63. The flamboyant manner in which war was declared on Spain — with a mounted herald delivering the message before the Hallegate of Brussels after having been announced by trumpet — was characteristic of the French monarch. The four years of meetings before its signature were the first great … 84 On the storied career of the Duke of Rohan, see Jack Alden Clarke, Huguenot Warrior: The Life and Times of Henri de Rohan 1579-1638 (Berlin: Springer Science, 1966). 205 Quoted in Elliott, Richelieu and Olivares, 154. 164 Thomas Munck, Seventeenth Century Europe: State, Conflict and Social Order in Europe 1598-1700 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 51. En savoir plus. Des milliers de livres avec la livraison chez vous en 1 jour ou en magasin avec -5% de réduction ou téléchargez la version eBook. By 1635, he had succeeded in creating a navy that overshadowed England’s and matched that of Spain in the Mediterranean.78, Finally, Richelieu knew that France would struggle to prosecute a multifront campaign against the combined military might of the Habsburgs’ two dynastic branches. Thereupon followed an extended period during which — Louis XIV not having yet reached maturity — Anne of Austria ruled as regent of France and Cardinal Jules Mazarin served as chief minister. N.Faret (Paris: 1627). While military dispatches to Flanders or Italy would take perhaps 12 to 16 days when sent overland from France, they could take almost three months to arrive by sea from Spain. Indeed, for Olivares and his indignant acolytes, France — with its heady ambitions, exceptionalist ethos, litany of grievances, and overall truculence — was the revisionist power and great disruptor of the status quo. Author’s translation. Richelieu, la raison d'Etat, Collectif, Richelieu, Le Figaro Eds. The unexpected ramifications of the Mantuan succession crisis undoubtedly helped shape some of his more interesting — and still resonant — reflections on the challenges of alliance management. All fortifications were levelled and papal troops were once again dispatched to preserve the peace. Rendre raison de soi-même, telle est la tâche de la politique qui se voudrait rationnelle. From that point, the Franco-Habsburg conflict slipped into a numbing see-saw of partial gains mitigated by temporary losses, a war of attrition that severely strained the resources, stability, and organizational capacity of the French state. /Info 51 0 R 135 Once blades were drawn, the Spanish chief minister insisted, rapidity was of the essence: “Everything must begin at once, for unless they are attacked vigorously, nothing can prevent the French from becoming masters of the world, and without any risks to themselves.” Quoted in R.A. Stradling, “Olivares and the Origins of the Franco-Spanish War, 1627-1635,” English Historical Review 101, no. The du Plessis lands had been repeatedly despoiled by roving war bands and brigands regularly visited their depredations on local villagers.18. 193 Lawrence Freedman, Strategy: A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), xi. 11 Philippe Ariès, Les Temps de l’Histoire (Paris: Plon, 1954), 298. Streaming toward a large sarcophagus in the center of the apse, the mob laid into the cool marble with their rifle butts, hammering away at the central figure’s aquiline features. On Matthieu de Morgues’ career and political thought, see Seung-Hwi Lim, “Mathieu de Morgues, Bon Français ou Bon Catholique?” Dix-Septième Siècle 213, no. 223 For a recent sampling of such discussions as applied to the American context, see Michael Clarke and Anthony Ricketts, “U.S. 171 Elliott, The Count-Duke of Olivares, 286. Peter Trubowitz et al. 87 Richard Herr, “Honor Versus Absolutism: Richelieu’s Fight Against Dueling,” Journal of Modern History 27, no. 39 See for example, Richelieu, Testament Politique, 268–69. 10 While there has been a debate among historians over whether the battle of Rocroi truly constituted a “decisive battle,” there is no doubt that the French victory over Spain was viewed by both nations’ leaderships as something of a turning point in the competition. For a good summary of the events leading up to Concino Concini’s brutal murder, see Sharon Kettering, Power and Reputation at the Court of Louis XIII: The Career of Charles D’Albert, Duc de Luynes 1578-1621 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2008), 63–89. In so doing, their revanchist arguments bear a resemblance to those of certain contemporary Chinese nationalists, who argue that the People’s Republic of China should hold sway over all territories once controlled by the Ming or Qing dynasties.34, This cocktail of wounded nationalism and frustrated exceptionalism was rendered more potent by the rise of foreign adversaries that French elites had long perceived as their natural inferiors. See Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 458. 1 (January 1990): 39–58, https://doi.org/10.1017/S026021050011263X. Joseph Bergin and Laurence Brockliss (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 45–71. /P 0 At the same time, Richelieu worked to accentuate internal frictions within both Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, supporting secessionist movements in Portugal and Catalonia, and quietly stoking the resentment of liberty-starved prince-electors in Germany.79 In this, Richelieu was aided by a formidable coterie of advisers, bureaucratic allies, and diplomatic envoys, who tirelessly crisscrossed the continent and produced exquisitely detailed strategic forecasts. Over the course of his long reign, he massively increased the size of France’s armed forces, heightened internal repression, and — with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 — reprised royal persecution of the Protestant minority.
Verset Biblique Sur La Confiance, Bien Fait Mots Fléchés 4 Lettres, Intentions De Prière Universelle Pour Les Jeunes, Licence Comptabilité Dijon, Tenue Agent De Sécurité Femme, Bachelier En Psychologie à Distance, Hillary Et Sébastien,