itute of principle--I mean
of political principles, which are the guide of public life as moral
principles are the guide of our private lives. To serve his
deliberate purpose, he shrank from no arbitrary or violent excess,
putting innocent men to death without scruple, if he thought them
dangerous. In such cases, he said, it is better to do too much than
too little. He retained a superstitious belief in magic, and never
soared above his age with the vision of great truths and prevision of
the things to come. But he understood and relentlessly pursued the
immediate purpose of his time.

The work of Henry IV had been undone during his son's minority, and
had to be begun over again. The crown was only one among many rival
forces. Richelieu decided that they should all be made subject and
subservient, that the government alone should govern, not any men or
any group behind the government, striving for their own ends. He
meant that there should be no dominant interest but the reason of
State, no authority but the sovereign, no will but his own. He
pursued this object with perfect distinctness and resolution, and had
succeeded when he died in 1642.

The court was an obstacle. The queen-mother, who had made his
fortune, went against him, and the king's brother became a pivot of
conspiracy. For a moment, they triumphed. Lewis withdrew his
confidence from the too imperious and successful minister, who had
made his master so powerful and so helpless; but in one short
interview the cardinal recovered his position. The queen retired from
the council, went out of the country, and died, an exile, in the house
of Rubens at Cologne. When the greatest nobles of France, strong in
their feudal traditions, rose against his new, and illegal, and
oppressive authority, Richelieu repressed every attempt, and cut off
the head of every offender. For he said that clemency was the bane of
France.

The Huguenots, safe but not satisfied under Henry, had felt that they
were in danger after his death, and sought to transform the
self-government ceded to them at Nantes into a defensive association
against the sovereign. The spectre of federalism threatened the
hard-won unity of France, and challenged the very essence of
Richelieu's policy. The decisive struggle took place at La Rochelle.
Richelieu directed the siege himself, carrying out works as enormous
as those of the siege of Tyre, and infusing his spirit into men who
did not s