fairs. He received the cardinal's hat in 1622,
and for a period of eighteen years, from 1624 to 1642, he was,
in everything but name, the Majesty of France. His mind was
bold, unscrupulous, remorseless, and inscrutable. Yet it was
always noble--the minister who sent so many to the scaffold
could truly say that in his vast labours he had but one
pleasure, to know that so many honest folk slept in security
while he watched night after night. He was a friend to
literature, was founder of the Academy, and was himself a
considerable author in history and theology. His greatest
work, "Testament Politique du Cardinal de Richelieu," which
was published in 1764, and in which is embodied his counsel in
statecraft, is a literary achievement of no small importance,
exhibiting as it does not only a political acumen of a very
high order but an acute faculty for literary expression.
Richelieu died on December 4, 1642.

_Retrospect_

At the time when your majesty admitted me to your counsels and confided
to me the direction of public affairs I may say with truth that the
Huguenots divided the state with your majesty, the great families
behaved as though they had no sovereign, and the governor of provinces
as if they had been sovereigns themselves. Every man took his own
audacity to be the measure of his merit, so that the most presumptious
were considered the wisest, and proved often the most fortunate. Abroad
the friendship of France was despised. At home private interests were
preferred to the general advantage. The dignity of the throne had so far
declined, through the fault of my predecessors in office, that it was
almost unrecognisable. To have continued to entrust to their hands the
helm of the state would have led to irremediable disaster; yet, on the
other hand, too swift and too great a change would have been fraught
with dangers of its own. In that emergency the wisest considered that it
was hardly possible to pass without shipwreck through the reefs and
shoals, and there were many who had foretold my fall even before your
majesty had raised me to power.

Yet, knowing what kings may do when they make good use of their power, I
was able to promise your majesty that your prudence and firmness, with
the blessing of God, would give new health to this kingdom. I promised
to devote all my labours, and all the authority with which I might be
clothed,