Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), chief minister to King Louis XIII of France, was a French clergyman who rose to the rank of Cardinal, brilliant politician, effective war leader, spymaster, writer, and patron of the arts. He is also a popular Historical Domain Character and more or less the Trope Codifier for European versions of the Evil Chancellor and Sinister Minister — largely because of his appearance in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers and its many adaptations and derivative works. This is despite the fact that in the novel, he's more of an Anti-Villain who generally has France's interests in mind, if only because making France great means making himself great. Nonetheless, Richelieu's reputation as the deadliest of political manipulators of his time started in his own lifetime, for very, very good reasons.
He was born into a noble family who had been rewarded for their service to the crown by being given the bishopric of Luçon, and who needed the money from that office to support them. However, the brilliant Armand was initially set for a military career, until his older brother decided he wanted to become a monk instead of a bishop. So Armand switched to theology, becoming Bishop of Luçon at the age of 22. He took the job seriously, earning the respect of the Vatican, but eventually moved to the royal court. There, he initially allied with the king's mother, Marie de Médicis, while she was regent for the child king. Armand made enemies and had to work to preserve relations between Marie and Louis as the king grew old enough to rule, but eventually impressed Louis enough to be made chief minister (and thus was a badass Sinister Minister in more than one sense), after which he fell out with Marie. He set to work strengthening the king against both the commoners and the nobility and also strengthening France. That meant undermining the rival Habsburg Empire, initially by financing its enemies in the Thirty Years' War. However, due to the threat of a curious Habsburg counterpart to Richelieu in the form of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, France had eventually to fight the Empire head on — and won in the end, despite some close calls, largely thanks to Richelieu's strategic planning. However, he didn't live long enough to see its ultimate triumph.
Richelieu was known as the "Red Eminence" — red for his grand cardinal's robes, and "eminence" is a term of address for Catholic cardinals — making him something of a real-life Color Character.note He ran a spy network and royal guard that allegedly verged on a prototypical State Sec agency; it is said that his agents carried a letter authorising them to do whatever was necessary in his service, without legal limits. Although he evidently charmed many people whose aid he needed, he apparently wasn't popular with the French peasantry, who presumably knew when they were being used as disposable pawns; he was an aristocrat, with little time for lesser mortals. However, what few of the fictional depictions of the man show is that he was often sickly and unwell. After all, a Magnificent Bastard with a permanent sniffle or cough may not be quite threatening enough...
Richelieu's successor was also a cardinal, the Italian-born Jules Mazarin, and he too had much success in consolidating the French crown's absolute monarchy, paving the way for Louis XIV's assumption of power (not so surprisingly given that Richelieu mentored him). Mazarin is thus often fictionally portrayed as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Richelieu in stories that take place after the end of Richelieu's life.
On the the negative side in art history, Richelieu put a stop to plans to commission a biographic gallery for Louis' father Henry IV similar to the Marie de' Medici Cycle. Oh, and he may have been the Trope Maker for Right-Hand Cat; he had 14 cats at the time of his death, and fictional depictions sometimes reflect this.
Works in which Richelieu appears:
- Alexandre Dumas is single-handedly responsible for Richelieu's enduring presence in pop culture:
- He looms large in The Three Musketeers and its sequels.
- The little known Dumas novel The Red Sphinx can be considered as a Spin-Off of The Three Musketeers (albeit not a swashbuckler story), taking place one year after the end of the latter. Richelieu has a more central role in it, as The Chessmaster who thwarts conspiracies against King Louis XIII at the time of the siege of La Rochelle.
- Then there is a long list of works based on or inspired by The Three Musketeers and sometimes its sequels (though Richelieu doesn't show up in most plots involving the Man in the Iron Mask because those tend to take place during Louis XIV's teen years per The Vicomte of Bragelonne, as he was long dead by then). Among them are:
- Live-action:
- The Three Musketeers (1921 film), portrayed by Nigel de Brulier, and its 1929 sequel, The Iron Mask.
- The Three Musketeers (1932 films), portrayed by Samson Fainsilber.
- The Three Musketeers (1948 film), portrayed by Vincent Price.
- The Three Musketeers (1953 film), portrayed by Renaud Mary.
- The Three Musketeers (1961 films), portrayed by Daniel Sorano.
- The Three Musketeers (1973-1974 films), portrayed by Charlton Heston.
- d'Artagnan And Three Musketeers (1978 mini-series), portrayed by Aleksandr Trofimov.
- The Three Musketeers (1993 film), portrayed by Tim Curry.
- The Musketeer (2001 film), portrayed by Stephen Rea.
- Milady (2004 TV film), portrayed by Martin Lamotte.
- The Three Musketeers (2011 film), portrayed by Christoph Waltz.
- The Musketeers (2014-2016 series), portrayed by Peter Capaldi.
- The Three Musketeers (2023 British film), portrayed by James Cosmo. Possibly the biggest case of Age Lift yet (Richelieu was in his 40s in the 1620s, Cosmo was in his 70s).
- The Three Musketeers (2023 French films), portrayed by Éric Ruf.
- Animation:
- Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (and its 2021 CGI film) has Richelieu depicted as a sort of brown anthropomorphic jackal when most other characters are dogs, and Milady is a cat.
- Albert the Fifth Musketeer depicts him as a Lean and Mean mustache-twirling Evil Chancellor who always concocts diabolical plans to humiliate and usurp King Louis XIII, summons and dispatches Milady de Winter with trap doors in the middle of the Louvre, and wears pink rabbit slippers. He was voiced by Bernard Dhéran in French.
- Live-action:
- Another prominent literary use of Richelieu is the novel Le Lys et la Pourpre by Robert Merle.
- The Devils (1971), portrayed by Christopher Logue.
- Richelieu (1977 French miniseries), portrayed by Pierre Vernier.
- Richelieu: Purple and Blood (2014 French Made-for-TV Movie), portrayed by Jacques Perrin.
- Doctor Who: The Church and the Crown, voiced by Michael Shallard.
- The 1632 Alternate History book series.
- He is centerstage in the show Richelieu's Musketeers at the French theme park Le Puy du Fou.
