And now what was Richelieu’s statesmanship in its sum?

I. In the Political Progress of France, his work has already been sketched as building monarchy and breaking anarchy.

Therefore have men said that he swept away old French liberties.  What old liberties?  Richelieu but tore away the decaying, poisonous husks and rinds which hindered French liberties from their chance at life and growth.

Therefore, also, have men said that Richelieu built up absolutism.  The charge is true and welcome.  For, evidently, absolutism was the only force, in that age, which could destroy the serf-mastering caste.  Many a Polish patriot, as he to-day wanders through the Polish villages, groans that absolutism was not built to crush that serf-owning aristocracy which has been the real architect of Poland’s ruin.  Any one who reads to much purpose in De Mably, or Guizot, or Henri Martin, knows that this part of Richelieu’s statesmanship was but a masterful continuation of all great French statesmanship since the twelfth-century league of king and commons against nobles, and that Richelieu stood in the heirship of all great French statesmen since Suger.  That part of Richelieu’s work, then, was evidently bedded in the great line of Divine Purpose running through that age and through all ages.

II.  In the Internal Development of France, Richelieu proved himself a true builder.  The founding of the French Academy and of the Jardin des Plantes, the building of the College of Plessis, and the rebuilding of the College of the Sorbonne, are among the monuments of this part of his statesmanship.  His, also, is much of that praise usually lavished on Louis XIV. for the career opened in the seventeenth century to science, literature, and art.  He was also a reformer, and his zeal was proved, when, in the fiercest of the La Rochelle struggle, he found time to institute great reforms not only in the army and navy, but even in the monasteries.

III.  On the General Progress of Europe, his work must be judged as mainly for good.  Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and that barrier he broke.  But a far greater impulse to the general progress of Europe was given by the idea of Toleration which he thrust into the methods of European statesmen.  He, first of all statesmen in France, saw, that, in French policy, to use his own words, “A Protestant Frenchman is better than a Catholic Spaniard”; and he, first of all statesmen in Europe, saw, that, in European policy, patriotism, must outweigh bigotry.

IV.  His Faults in Method were many.  His under-estimate of the sacredness of human life was one; but that was the fault of his age.  His frequent working by intrigue was another; but that also was a vile method accepted by his age.  The fair questions, then, are,—­Did he not commit the fewest and smallest wrongs possible in beating back those many and great wrongs?  Wrong has often a quick, spasmodic force; but was there not in his arm a steady growing force, which could only be a force of right?