Now amid all these evils Richelieu grew up.  Under the guise of levity and pleasure and good-nature, he studied and comprehended all these parties and factions, and hated them all.  All alike were hostile to the central power, which he saw was necessary to the preservation of law and to the development of the resources of the country.

Moreover, he was ambitious of power himself, which he loved as Michael Angelo loved art, and Palestrina loved music.  Power was his master-passion, and consumed all other passions; and he resolved to gain it in any way he could,—­unscrupulously, by flatteries, by duplicities, by sycophancies, by tricks, by lies, even by services.  That was his end.  He cared nothing for means.  He was a politician.

The progress of his elevation is interesting, but hideous.  Armand Jean Duplessis was born in 1585, of a noble family of high rank.  He was designed for the army, but a bishopric falling to the gift of his family, he was made a priest.  He early distinguished himself in his studies, for he was precocious and had great abilities.  At twenty he was doctor of the Sorbonne, and before he was twenty-one he received from the Pope, Paul V., the emblems of spiritual power as a prelate of the Church.  But he was too young to be made a bishop, according to the canons,—­a difficulty, however, which he easily surmounted:  he told a lie to the Pope, and then begged for an absolution.  He then attached himself to the worthless favorite of the Queen-regent, Concini, one of her countrymen; and through him to the Queen herself, Marie de Medicis, who told him her secrets, which he betrayed when it suited his interests.  When Louis XIII. attained his majority, Richelieu paid his court to De Luynes, who was then all-powerful with the King, and who secured him a cardinal’s hat; and when this miserable favorite died,—­this falconer, this keeper of birds, yet duke, peer, governor, and minister,—­Richelieu wound himself around the King, Louis XIII., the most impotent of all the Bourbons, made himself necessary, and became minister of foreign affairs; and his great rule began (1624).

During all these seventeen years of office-climbing, Richelieu was to all appearance the most amiable man in France; everybody liked him, and everybody trusted him.  He was full of amenities, promises, bows, smiles, and flatteries.  He always advocated the popular side with reigning favorites; courted all the great ladies; was seen in all the fashionable salons; had no offensive opinions; was polite to everybody; was non-committal; fond of games and spectacles; frivolous among fools, learned among scholars; grave among functionaries, devout among prelates; cunning as a fox, brave as a lion, supple as a dog; all things to all men; an Alcibiades, a Jesuit; with no apparent animosities; handsome, witty, brilliant; preacher, courtier, student; as full of hypocrisy as an egg is of meat; with eyes wide open, and thoughts disguised; all eyes and no