Talk:Cardinal Richelieu

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Former featured article Cardinal Richelieu is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
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[edit] Errata, inconsistence between linked articles!

The sentence "Concini was consequently assassinated, and Marie de Médicis overthrown." does not comply with the information in the article on Concino Concini, in which its explained that Concini was killed when shouting "À moi!" ("To me!") to his guards, which was interpreted as resisting the King's order. Only one of these articles can be right, so I'll let you research on it and choose. My vote goes toward the Concino Concini article being right. No fghgddddddjhgktyk, after all, the order of the king. Trubadurix 19:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The Wikiquote at the end does gives an error message - the correct link is http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu, but I can't find a way to tweak the template to it points there rather than to the wikiquote with the full name of the article. Does anyone give a fuck how to fix? I couldn't find documentation on Wikiquote linking either, there should perhaps be a pointer in the Wikiquotes article? Espen 07:53, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I tried it, but failed either. Anybody else? Thijs 12:40 (CET), 15 jan 2006

One thing I've noticed relating to the details of Richelieu here is the omission of his involvement in the founding of the One Hundred Associates, his patronage of Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Québec city, and the subsequent development of New France - and the continued existance of French Canada - as in part due to his actions.

Do people feel that this part of Richelieu's legacy should be detailed here?

What about François du Tremblay? The Merriam-Webster entry 'éminence grise' says:

Etymology: French, literally, gray eminence, nickname of Père Joseph (François du Tremblay) died 1638 French monk and diplomat, confidant of Cardinal Richelieu who was known as Éminence Rouge red eminence; from the colors of their respective habits

Kent Wang 04:31, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In keeping with the other Cardinal pages, shouldn't this be at Armand-Jean du Plessis Cardinal de Richelieu? RickK 06:52, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think it should stay here, as this is the name he's most commonly known by in English (by far). --Delirium 02:53, Jan 16, 2004 (UTC)

Louis XIII had lovers? As far as I know, he had favourites, but I doubt he engaged into homosexual love. David.Monniaux 09:23, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The link to 'secretary of state' does not explain what it means in the context of French politics. Probably people who worked on the Richelieu article can expand on the 'secretary of state' article and include a paragraph on France there? Thanks!

Interesting that this article is the featured article on the day Pope John Paul II died. A very Catholic day on Wikipedia's front page.

The featuring of this article was arranged well beforehand. -- Emsworth 15:17, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I agree with RickK from more than a year ago. This page should be at Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu, or something along those lines. Pages shouldn't be at honorifics. john k 15:20, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree as well, except that there is no need for a comma in such titles. -- Emsworth 15:50, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Except that "Du Plessis," and not "Richelieu" was his surname. john k 17:09, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Should we not then use "Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal et Duc de Richelieu"? -- Emsworth 17:24, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But his ducal title isn't commonly used. I think it should be avoided in the title. john k 17:52, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In any case, it is "Cardinal de Richelieu". "Cardinal Richelieu" is just weird. Rama 18:04, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It would be nice to mention the town Richelieu was granted south of the Loire: It's called "Richelieu", and has a rather interesting archetecture, being surrounded by a moat and arranged in a grid structure around a series of squares, which gives it the appearence of an American rather than a European town. I went there about five years ago (before the era of digital cameras, alas).

At the north end of the town is a park which contains the ruins of the Cardinal's palace.

[edit] Painters' names in captions

It is common practice to mention the names of painters of portraits. One of the editors here has been known to delete them, or I would add them myself. It seems like essential information. Should ther reader have to click on the image to discover the painter's name? --Wetman 1 July 2005 23:15 (UTC)

[edit] Richelieu in popular culture?

Wouldn't it make sense to devote a short separate section to the portrayal of Richelieu in popular culture? Well, that's a personal opinion of a Russian for whom Dumas' legacy is much more actual than for an American, and of a fan of Monty Python, but anyway...

[edit] Famous Sayings

While having a section of quotes from Richelieu is appropriate, it is inappropriate to put one at the top of the article, any such quotes must be cited, and they must be properly formatted. Perhaps simply linking to Wikiquote is sufficient. Michaelbusch 20:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Posthumous reputation

(Cut n pasted notes from Reference desk, which might give further hints Wetman 04:28, 21 May 2007 (UTC))

There are people like Richelieu-Cardinal Wolsey in England is another such-who were born to be politicians rather than churchmen; men, in other words, who are in the church through circumstances, rather than design. Richelieu stands astride his age like a giant, a man who put the interests of the state before that of his class, and the interests of his nation before that of his church. He was not the model of Machiavelli's The Prince; he was the Prince. Inevitably such men make enemies rather more than they make friends, and even Louis XIII, who was so dependent on his great minister, is said to have expressed some relief when he died in December 1642. It was not just the king who was pleased by his departure. According to Father Griffet, writing in 1768, the Cardinal "...was disliked by the people and I have known old men who could still remember the bonfires that were lit in the provinces when the news of his death was received." Cardinal de Retz claimed that Richelieu had created "within the most lawful of monarchies the most scandalous and most dangerous tyranny which may ever have ensalved the state." In his 1712 history on the reign of Louis XIII Michael Le Vasor wrote "I can look only with horror on a prelate who sacrifices the liberty of his fatherland and the peace of Europe to his ambition." This charge against the Cardinal-warmonger was later to make an apperance in Voltaire's Le Siècle de Louis XIV, where he says "...there was fighting since 1635 because Cardinal Richelieu wanted it in order to make himself necessary." For Montesquieu Cardianl Richelieu was, quite simply, a 'wicked citizen.'

Of course, none of this is fair or objective, and most of his later critics underestimate the extent to which Habsburg power, concentrated in Spain and the Empire, was a considerable danger to the security of France, especially after the onset of the Thirty Years War, which the Cardinal viewed in political rather than religious terms. But the image of the malevolent and scheming churchman made its way down the ages, emerging in the Romantic movement of the nineteenth century, in which the Cardinal is relentlessly vilified by poets and dramatists of all sorts. In a sense he became, in post-Revolutionary France, the archetype of all that was wrong with the ancien regime. In Cinq-Mars, Alfred de Vigny's novel of 1826, Richelieu's attack on the nobility is blamed for all of France's subsequent ills. It was in this form that the Cardinal-mad, bad and dangerous to know-made his way across the English Channel, where Vigny's novel inspired Edward Bulwer-Lytton to write a play, called Richelieu or the Conspiracy. Thus it was that the Cardinal, both sinister and witty, made his way on to the English theatre, one of the great stage villains of the age, depicted by Henry Irving, among others. Though barely aware of his existence before, English people discoverd in the Red Eminence qualities that made him 'the man you love to hate.' And so it went on, back to France and The Three Musketeers, and back again to England in Stanley Weyman's popular novel of 1896, Under the Red Robe. From movie, to comedy, and even in children's cartoons, Richelieu lives. Better, I suppose, to be misunderstood and parodied than forgotten. Clio the Muse 23:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Three Musketeers and Richelieu

This article states that Dumas depicted Richelieu as avaricious and power hungry. The french version of it, however, describe the portrayal of Richelieu in Dumas' novel as "il le dépeint comme l'homme d'État par excellence, machiavélique et empli de sa mission gouvernementale (D'Artagnan devient lieutenant des mousquetaires grâce à Richelieu)" ("He depicts him as the ultimate statesman, machiavelian and utterly focused on his governmental mission (D'Artagnan becomes a Lieutenant of the Musketeers thanks to Richelieu)." Having read (admitedly a long time ago) the novel myself, the later depiction seems closer to the facts than the one given here.--65.94.14.92 08:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)