Richelieu: Bishop and Emerging Political Leader

Abstract

Although certain features of the family background of Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, predisposed him to a position of some eminence in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of France, they did not signal the remarkable political career which he went on to pursue. The du Plessis family were minor nobility, most of whose land was in Poitou in the region around Loudun; among their estates was that of Richelieu, from which Armand-Jean later took his name. Armand-Jean’s parents, François du Plessis and Suzanne de la Porte, grew up and led their married life amidst the conflict and vicissitudes of the Wars of Religion. Ironically, it was the violence of the period which transformed the prospects of François, and by extension those of his children. Being the younger son he had no expectation of inheriting land, but his elder brother Louis was killed in the wars in 1565, and in consequence François became heir to the family estates. He could now seek a wife, and in 1569 he married Suzanne who came from a well-to-do family of Parisian lawyers. As a commoner she was of lower social status than François, but brought a respectable dowry and in due course other financial gifts from her father, all of which added much-needed financial capital to François’s resources.