Not the Cardinal, the Duke, whom cahn can now tell apart from the Cardinal! :)
The Duc de Richelieu is the subject of my latest French-practice biography, which I'm halfway through, and here's what I've learned so far:
His posthumous memoirs are fake, published during the French Revolution (he died in 1788, aged 92), to discredit him and French nobility in general.
When he was six years old, his widowed father remarried a widow. One of the terms of their marriage contract was that the six-year-old future Duc would marry the widow's daughter from her first marriage, who was about a year older than he was. The future Duc de Richelieu was then forced into this marriage when he was not yet 15. He was super unhappy about it, refused to sleep with her, and did his best to have sex with everyone he knew *except* her. Despite this, she is said to have remained faithful to him. (Quoth the biographer, "Despite the fact that he gave her no reason to.")
When he was 15, Richelieu was locked in the Bastille for over a year. Why? Reasons differ as to who pushed for this (his father or Louis XIV) and why (excessive gambling debts vs. flirting too much with the Dauphine), but he definitely had pissed everyone off, to the point where my guess as to the answer to both "who?" and "why?" is: "Why not both?"
The author, who has his moments of humor, says that Richelieu's father, having gambled away an entire fortune in his youth, should have been more sympathetic, but he had become devout in his old age, and did not hesitate to seek (or agree to, depending on which version of the story you believe) an arrest warrant from the king, i.e. one of the infamous lettres de cachet that meant "I'm the king and I can have you locked up whenever I want, for however long I want, without saying why."
Now, you may recall that life in the Bastille could be rough or could be luxurious, depending on how much money and how much prestige your family had. In Richelieu's case, well...you'd think it would be the latter. And it may well have been. He certainly had a servant. But in his old age, he told a friend that his jailer had orders (presumably from his father and/or the king) to let his wife visit him in hopes that he would be desperate enough to have sex with her, and not to alleviate his prison conditions until "she left satisfied."
Richelieu was not that desperate, though.
But also he got smallpox shortly after entering, so that may have been part of why he couldn't have sex. His old age story may not be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (There is a lot of that in this book: "So-and-so said Richelieu did X, but that seems unlikely.") Richelieu also used the time to improve his education, which had been rather lackluster up to this point. He could at least somewhat read Latin now!
After being released, he goes off to war against Eugene of Savoy, distinguishes himself, and things are looking good, but--oh no! Peace is signed and his regiment is disbanded. Now he has no prospect of glory, and financially he's dependent on his tightfisted father. "Fortunately, if one can call it that, the latter died barely a month later."
I'm not enamoured of this author, but like Asprey, he has his moments of humor.
Then Richelieu gets locked in the Bastille for dueling. This is actually Philippe the Regent being nice to him, because otherwise Richelieu was going to be dragged in front of the Parlement of Paris, and this way Philippe took the matter out of their hands and into his own, where he could be benevolent.
Then he ends up in the Bastille a third time for joining one of the conspiracies to dethrone Philippe the Regent in favor of Philip the Frog. Despite the fact that Philippe had been pretty soft on him about the dueling and you'd think Richelieu would owe him one.
By the age of 23, Richelieu had spent over 2 years in the Bastille.
Then he got out and soon after got into a duel with the Duc de Bourbon, who was upset that the Duc de Richelieu was sleeping with his sister. This despite the fact that dueling had landed Richelieu in the Bastille before.
Most of the book so far is a string of Richelieu's affairs. So. Many. Affairs. I mean, this is basically what he's known for, so I'm not surprised, but also...I was hoping his actual biography would have more interesting material than what I'd osmosed from reading about other people. Every occasionally, Richelieu does something other than fuck, like the time he's appointed ambassador to Vienna. He asks Voltaire to be his secretary, something I had forgotten, but Voltaire declines.
In Vienna, Richelieu gets along reasonably well by pretending to be pious, because Charles VI is so pious. But even there, surprisingly little of interest happens, at least as reported by his biographer, who is eager to get back to recounting his affairs upon his return to France. There is a brief comment by the author that it was surprising that so inexperienced a diplomat would be sent to such a sensitive court...but no mention of how diplomacy was often left up to amateurs on the assumption that it didn't require specialized knowledge.
Oh, one time Richelieu gets to administer a province in France, and he does his best to keep the religious tensions and persecution of Protestants down. And it was he who suggested La Pucelle to Voltaire, apparently. So among his good points is not being a religious fanatic, but I'm definitely getting a frat boy vibe from this guy.
Will report if I learn anything interesting in the second half of the book (assuming I finish it, but it's good French practice, if nothing else. I wish Orieux were available on Kindle, sigh.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Duc de Richelieu
Date: 2024-03-24 07:42 pm (UTC)The Duc de Richelieu is the subject of my latest French-practice biography, which I'm halfway through, and here's what I've learned so far:
His posthumous memoirs are fake, published during the French Revolution (he died in 1788, aged 92), to discredit him and French nobility in general.
When he was six years old, his widowed father remarried a widow. One of the terms of their marriage contract was that the six-year-old future Duc would marry the widow's daughter from her first marriage, who was about a year older than he was. The future Duc de Richelieu was then forced into this marriage when he was not yet 15. He was super unhappy about it, refused to sleep with her, and did his best to have sex with everyone he knew *except* her. Despite this, she is said to have remained faithful to him. (Quoth the biographer, "Despite the fact that he gave her no reason to.")
When he was 15, Richelieu was locked in the Bastille for over a year. Why? Reasons differ as to who pushed for this (his father or Louis XIV) and why (excessive gambling debts vs. flirting too much with the Dauphine), but he definitely had pissed everyone off, to the point where my guess as to the answer to both "who?" and "why?" is: "Why not both?"
The author, who has his moments of humor, says that Richelieu's father, having gambled away an entire fortune in his youth, should have been more sympathetic, but he had become devout in his old age, and did not hesitate to seek (or agree to, depending on which version of the story you believe) an arrest warrant from the king, i.e. one of the infamous lettres de cachet that meant "I'm the king and I can have you locked up whenever I want, for however long I want, without saying why."
Now, you may recall that life in the Bastille could be rough or could be luxurious, depending on how much money and how much prestige your family had. In Richelieu's case, well...you'd think it would be the latter. And it may well have been. He certainly had a servant. But in his old age, he told a friend that his jailer had orders (presumably from his father and/or the king) to let his wife visit him in hopes that he would be desperate enough to have sex with her, and not to alleviate his prison conditions until "she left satisfied."
Richelieu was not that desperate, though.
But also he got smallpox shortly after entering, so that may have been part of why he couldn't have sex. His old age story may not be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. (There is a lot of that in this book: "So-and-so said Richelieu did X, but that seems unlikely.")
Richelieu also used the time to improve his education, which had been rather lackluster up to this point. He could at least somewhat read Latin now!
After being released, he goes off to war against Eugene of Savoy, distinguishes himself, and things are looking good, but--oh no! Peace is signed and his regiment is disbanded. Now he has no prospect of glory, and financially he's dependent on his tightfisted father. "Fortunately, if one can call it that, the latter died barely a month later."
I'm not enamoured of this author, but like Asprey, he has his moments of humor.
Then Richelieu gets locked in the Bastille for dueling. This is actually Philippe the Regent being nice to him, because otherwise Richelieu was going to be dragged in front of the Parlement of Paris, and this way Philippe took the matter out of their hands and into his own, where he could be benevolent.
Then he ends up in the Bastille a third time for joining one of the conspiracies to dethrone Philippe the Regent in favor of Philip the Frog. Despite the fact that Philippe had been pretty soft on him about the dueling and you'd think Richelieu would owe him one.
By the age of 23, Richelieu had spent over 2 years in the Bastille.
Then he got out and soon after got into a duel with the Duc de Bourbon, who was upset that the Duc de Richelieu was sleeping with his sister. This despite the fact that dueling had landed Richelieu in the Bastille before.
Most of the book so far is a string of Richelieu's affairs. So. Many. Affairs. I mean, this is basically what he's known for, so I'm not surprised, but also...I was hoping his actual biography would have more interesting material than what I'd osmosed from reading about other people. Every occasionally, Richelieu does something other than fuck, like the time he's appointed ambassador to Vienna. He asks Voltaire to be his secretary, something I had forgotten, but Voltaire declines.
In Vienna, Richelieu gets along reasonably well by pretending to be pious, because Charles VI is so pious. But even there, surprisingly little of interest happens, at least as reported by his biographer, who is eager to get back to recounting his affairs upon his return to France. There is a brief comment by the author that it was surprising that so inexperienced a diplomat would be sent to such a sensitive court...but no mention of how diplomacy was often left up to amateurs on the assumption that it didn't require specialized knowledge.
Oh, one time Richelieu gets to administer a province in France, and he does his best to keep the religious tensions and persecution of Protestants down. And it was he who suggested La Pucelle to Voltaire, apparently. So among his good points is not being a religious fanatic, but I'm definitely getting a frat boy vibe from this guy.
Will report if I learn anything interesting in the second half of the book (assuming I finish it, but it's good French practice, if nothing else. I wish Orieux were available on Kindle, sigh.)