The Gallery of Portraits (All 7 Volumes). Arthur Thomas Malkin
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remarkable plot which assailed Richelieu, was that of Cinq-Mars, a young nobleman selected to be the King’s favourite, on account of his presumed frivolity. But he was capable of deep thoughts and passions; and wearied by the solitude in which the monarch lived, and to which he was reduced by the Minister’s monopoly of all power, he dared to plot the Cardinal’s overthrow. This bold attempt was sanctioned by the King himself, who at intervals complained of the yoke put upon him.
Great interests were at stake, for Richelieu, reckoning upon the monarch’s weak health, meditated procuring the regency for himself. Anne of Austria, aware of this intention, approved of the project of Cinq-Mars, which of course implied the assassination of the Cardinal. No other mode of defying his power and talent could have been contemplated. But Richelieu was on the watch. The Court was then in the south of France, engaged in the conquest of Roussillon, a situation favourable for the relation of the conspirators with Spain. The Minister surprised one of the emissaries, had the fortune to seize a treaty concluded between them and the enemies of France; and with this flagrant proof of their treason, he repaired to Louis, and forced from him an order for their arrest. It was tantamount to their condemnation. Cinq-Mars and his friends perished on the scaffold; Anne of Austria was again humbled; and every enemy of the Cardinal shrunk in awe and submission before his ascendency. Amongst them was the King himself, whom Richelieu looked upon as an equal in dignity, an inferior in mind and in power. The guards of the Cardinal were numerous as the Monarch’s, and independent of any authority save that of their immediate master. A treaty was even drawn up between king and minister, as between two potentates. But the power and the pride of Richelieu reached at once their height and their termination. A mortal illness seized him in the latter days of 1642, a few months after the execution of Cinq-Mars. No remorse for his cruelty or abatement of his pride marked his last moments. He summoned the monarch like a servant to his couch, instructed him what policy to follow, and appointed the minister who was to be his own successor. Even in the last religious duties, the same character and the same spirit were observable. As his cardinal’s robe was a covering and excuse for all crimes in life, he seemed to think that it exempted him from the common lot of mortals after death.
Such was the career of this supereminent statesman, who, although in the position of Damocles all his life, with the sword of the assassin suspended over his head, surrounded with enemies, and with insecure and treacherous support even from the monarch whom he served, still not only maintained his own station, but possessed time and zeal to frame and execute gigantic projects for the advancement of his country and of his age. It makes no small part of Henry IV.’s glory that he conceived a plan for diminishing the power of the House of Austria. Richelieu, without either the security or the advantages of the king and the warrior, achieved it. Not only this, but he dared to enter upon the war at the very same time when he was humbling that aristocracy which had hitherto composed the martial force of the country.
The effects of his domestic policy were indeed more durable than those of what he most prided himself upon, his foreign policy. The latter was his end, the former his means; but the means were the more important of the two. For half a century previous, kings had been acquiring a sacro-sanctity, a power founded on respect, which equalled that of Asiatic despots; whilst at the same time their real sources of power remained in the hands of the aristocracy. From this contradiction, this want of harmony betwixt the theoretic and the real power of monarchs, proceeded a state of licence liable at all times to produce the most serious convulsions. To this state of things Richelieu put an end for ever. He crushed the power of the great nobility, as Henry VII., by very different means, had done before him in England. He made Louis a sovereign in the most absolute sense; he reformed and changed the whole system of administration, destroyed all local authorities, and centralized them, as the term is, in the capital and the court. We see, accordingly, that it was only the capital which could oppose Mazarin; all provincial force was destroyed by Richelieu. He it was, in fact, who founded the French monarchy, such as it existed until near the end of the eighteenth century, a grand, indeed, rather than a happy result. He was a man of penetrating and commanding intellect, who visibly influenced the fortunes of Europe to an extent which few princes or ministers have equalled. Unscrupulous in his purposes, he was no less so in the means by which he effected them. But so long as men are honoured, not for their moral excellences, but for the great things which they have done for themselves, or their country, the name of Richelieu will be recollected with respect, as that of one of the most successful statesmen that ever lived.
His measures with respect to commerce were very remarkable. He proposed to render the French marine as formidable as the French armies, and chose the wisest means in favouring colonization and commercial companies for the purpose. The chief part of their successful settlements in the east and west the French owe to Richelieu. In financial measures he showed least sagacity, and the disordered state in which he left this branch of the administration was the principal cause of the difficulties of his successor.
As a patron of letters, Richelieu has acquired a reputation almost rivalling that of his statesmanship. His first and earliest success in life had been as a scholar supporting his theses; and, as it is continually observed that great men form very erroneous judgments of their own excellences, he ever prided himself especially in his powers as a penman: it was a complete mistake on his part. He has left a considerable quantity of theological tracts of trifling merit.
Not content with his own sphere of greatness, he aspired to the minor praise of being skilled in the fashionable literature of the day; and amused himself by composing dramatic pieces, some of which Corneille was employed to correct. The independence of the poet, and the pride of the patron, led to a quarrel of which we have given some account in the life of the great tragedian. In 1635 Richelieu founded the French Academy. We should expect to find in his political writings traces of the master-hand of one, who, with a mind of unusual power, had long studied the subject of which he wrote. But those which are ascribed to him, for none, we believe are avowed, or absolutely known to be his, are of unequal merit. The ‘Mémoires de la Mère, et du Fils,’ are mediocre, and unworthy of him. The ‘Testament Politique du Cardinal de Richelieu’ (the authenticity of which is strongly contested by Voltaire) bears a much higher reputation as a work upon Government. La Bruyere has said of it, that the man who had done such things ought never to have written, or to have written in the style in which it is written.
There are several English lives of Cardinal Richelieu, most of them published in the seventeenth century, but none which we know to be of authority. In French, we may recommend the reader to the life of Aubery. The best account of Richelieu, however, is said to be contained in the ‘Histoire de Louis XIII.’ by P. Griffet.
Engraved by W. Holl. J. H. WOLLASTON. From the original Picture by J. Jackson in the possession of the Royal Society. Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.
WOLLASTON.
No record of this eminent philosopher has yet appeared, except his scientific papers, and a few meagre biographical sketches published shortly after his death. It is to be hoped that some one duly qualified for the task will become the historian of his life and labours before it is too late.
William Hyde Wollaston was born August 6, 1766. His grandfather was well known as the author of a work, entitled ‘The Religion of Nature Delineated.’ He completed his education at Caius College, Cambridge. It has been said, in most of the memoirs of him, that he obtained the honour of being senior wrangler. This is a mistake, arising from Francis Wollaston, of Sidney, having gained the first place in 1783. It appears from the Cantabrigienses Graduati that he did not graduate in Arts; but, with a view to practising medicine, proceeded to the degrees of M.B. in 1787, and M.D. in 1793. He