MovieChat Forums > The Three Musketeers (1974) Discussion > why is Richelieu always so demonised?

why is Richelieu always so demonised?

posted 18 years ago by ozymandiaskingofkings
36 replies | jump to latest

I hate to burst anyones bubble here but the real Cardinal Richelieu bore no resemblance to how he is depicted in Dumas' work and the countless films derived from it. He was actually a very effective administrator of France and as pretty much the worlds first Prime Minister demonstrated a shrewdness and prudence that helped France grow strong as a nation. Not only did he help centralise French power, adding cohesion to the French nation-state, he also helped curtail the power of the Habsburg empire and though a Catholic himself promoted religious tolerance in order to create political unity. He also removed much of the Feudal power possessed by a number of the Nobility in order to decrease the risk of factional rebellion by the Barons. His greatest success though was as a War commander, with Victory at La Rochelle against Britain being a particular highlight. He was also a keen patron of the arts and education, setting up the Academie Francais and rebuilding the Sorbonne.

His negative reputation is perhaps because of the brutal and heavy tax levies he placed upon the Third Estate (though in fairness not any worse than any other ruler at the time), but he was certainly no traitor and the view he was derives almost entirely from Dumas who,as a post revolutionary thinker, turned Richelieu into a bogeyman for the First Estate, symbolic of the excess and corruption of the Ancien Regime. While the Ancien Regime was repressive, sadistic and corrupt, it is actually quite unfair that Richelieu was picked over Louis XIII, or his successor Cardinal Mazarin, as he was probably one the most progressive of the pre-1789 chief ministers; the best of a bad bunch so to speak.

In terms of his fate, Richelieu was not pushed into a lake or placed on trial for treason or anything rediculous like that as the movies show, but merely fell sick and died at home in his bed. His last words were to the King, to whom he said: "I have the consolation of leaving your kingdom in the highest degree of glory and of reputation.", and in many ways it was he that laid the foundations for what was arguably the greatest pre-revolutionary period, that of the Sun King Louis XIV.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin888 12 years ago

Dumas did not make Richelieu a 2 dimensional villain, nor was D'Artagan a flawless hero either.

The original novel of The Three Musketeers is a lot like The Prisoner of Zenda in that while it's a major influence on the swashbuckler genre, it's much more cynical than the films it inspired (including most of its own adaptations). D'Artagnan is something of an anti-hero: he has several love affairs and is not above tricking Milady into sleeping with him while she thinks she's sleeping with her lover. Unlike the malevolent Evil Chancellor of adaptations, Richelieu is an Anti-Villain who has France's welfare in mind. Ultimately, D'Artagnan ends up working for him and becomes good friends with Rochefort, Richelieu's right hand man, after besting him in several duels.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin2 12 years ago

In the second book, Athos and D'Artagnan both mildly concede that they may have been on the wrong side, considering how badly Louis fared.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

[–] Rueiro 11 years ago

Absolutely true. In the novel "The Dumas Club", in which Roman Polanski's film "The Ninth Gate" is based,the main character actually discusses Richelieu's real figure with a friend and feels very angry by the fact that the man was so much vilified by Dumas. King Louis XIII was an incompetent moron that would have sunk France into complete ruin in no time had he had any real power. Richelieu on the contrary was a very intelligent and erudite man, one of the finest and shrewdest statesmen in modern European history. But Dumas turned him into a ruthless master villain for the purpose of dramatic licence.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 10 years ago

It's the adaptations of Dumas that have done that.

"There's no art to this war Spencer"-Alison DiLaurentis

[–] crlnrgbrght5 10 years ago

Maybe Dumas was anti Catholic, or a Royalist.

[–] AutoexecBatman 10 years ago

I notice that this post is 8 years old, and you haven't posted a follow up, but if you want to know why Richelieu is often demonized the answers are complex....

For one thing, he was always hated, even during his own lifetime.

Protestants hated him because they resented the fact that a Catholic cleric had so much power in the government, and because of his siege against the Protestant rebellion at La Rochelle, during the siege of the city, the population was starved to death, and out of a population of 28,000 more than 12,000, nearly half the population of the city, died of starvation. Even given the fact that in the 17th century military campaigns were much more brutal than they are now, the harsh measures used against La Rochelle were unusually brutal for the time period. And the sheer brutality was even more scandalous due to the fact that the one who ordered it was a cleric.

And Catholics hated him because during his wars, he allied with Protestant nations, like Sweden, against Catholic countries like Austria and Spain. Indeed, there was a movement afoot in the Vatican to try to get a papal condemnation of his foreign policy, an effort which didn't succeed because the Pope at the time, Urban VIII was probably the only person in Europe who hated Austria more than Richelieu did.

He was hated because he had a vast network of spies which constituted a virtual secret police, and this network of spies was so effective that he gained access to intelligence that he had no other way of knowing. There are in fact several instances of Richelieu obtaining secret documents, which even today modern historians have no idea how he got them

He was hated because during his time as Chief Minister, there was a pretty much endless war, and it was believed, both by Protestants and Catholics, that it was not right for a cleric to be responsible for so much bloodshed.

He was hated because during his time as chief minister, he gained a reputation as an executioner, there were a number of high profile, public executions of people accused (usually for good reason I must add) to be guilty of treason. In this he was probably no worse than any other European ruler of the time, but again the fact that he was a cleric was scandalous to many,

During Richelieu's lifetime, there were in fact several thwarted assassinations, some by foreign powers but most were domestic. So, truthfully, he was never popular. His position as chief minister was always precarious. He frequently feuded with the queen, and his relationship with the king was always shaky. He was constantly falling in and out of favor with the king, and as such was offering to resign because he feared being fired (and likely being executed shortly after.)

It is noteworthy that Richelieu's reputation for brutality, ruthlessness and ambition was such that the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 edition) in its article on Richelieu feels the need to attempt to prove that Richelieu held religious beliefs and did not seek the cardinalate solely for political ambition.

Now granted, Richelieu's sins were probably not much worse than any politician of the day. However, the fact that he was a cleric tended to magnify those sins in the eyes of his opponents. What might seem like a comparatively minor peccadillo when committed by a Louis XIV seems much more scandalous and offensive when committed by a cardinal.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 9 years ago

Richelieu is more sympathetic in the actual novel. Dumas story was not as black as white as adaptations like to make it, especially in light of how things come back to bite them in the sequels.

"It's made up of facts, that doesn't make it true"-Spencer Hastings

[–] AutoexecBatman 9 years ago

Dumas was writing for a popular audience that might not have been familiar with a lot of the history he was presenting, and as such, he tends to paint history in very broad brush strokes. The villains, or at the very least, the antagonists, of the Musketeers saga are Richelieu and Milady in the first book, Mazarin and Oliver Cromwell in the second book, and Colbert in the third book.

In fact, all of these men, are well regarded by contemporary history. Richelieu is regarded as the architect of modern France, in his book "Diplomacy", Henry Kissinger calls Richelieu the inventor of modern diplomacy and considers him
one of the greatest statesmen of all time.

Cardinal Mazarin was a peacemaker who found a way to end the 30 Years War, secured victory for the French crown over the Fronde and made peace between England and France by making an alliance with Cromwell.

Cromwell is more controversial than the two previous men, but he is generally regarded as someone who brought order and stability to England after years of civil strife.

And Colbert was in charge of the treasury under Louis XIV and made France prosperous and balanced the budget without taxing the people into bankruptcy the way Richelieu often did.

These 4 men are Dumas' 'villains', but he makes a hero of Charles I and Charles II, neither of whom was particularly remarkable, and he makes a hero of Fouquet, who was rightfully sent to the Bastille for stealing money from the public treasury and plotting against the king.

Dumas likes his heroes and villains and he likes them pure, history be damned.

However, of the 4, the one who comes off the best is undoubtedly Richelieu. Richelieu accepts his defeat at the hands of the Musketeers graciously, respects the 4 musketeers enough to want to recruit them into his own guard, and recognizes that Milady was a loose cannon and the musketeers probably did him a favor by killing her off. He's not that bad a guy really, for the antagonist of the first half of the first novel.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 8 years ago

Oliver Cromwell is not well regarded.
https://youtu.be/pULDgYaZIxk?list=FL75vHmAjjxxgZ61xHMmWNMg
My annoyance is with using him to condemn the English Revolution as a whole, same as people want to condemn the French Revolution because of Robespierre.

Which Novel featured Oliver Cromwell? I know the second is supposed to be set in 1648 when Cromwell didn't have much power yet, and the third ends in 1660 after he died. I'm not as familiar with the specifics of the sequels.

Again I think it's a shame people are accusing Dumas himself of simplifying these issues. The Three Musketeers are discussed here.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnbuiltTrope/Literature

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by @$$Holes"-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

[–] AutoexecBatman 8 years ago

Oliver Cromwell and Cardinal Mazarin are the chief antagonists of the second novel "Twenty Years After", his portraits of these two men are much more negative than his mostly positive portrayal of Richelieu.

In Twenty Years After, Aramis and Athos travel to England to protect Charles I, and when Charles is executed, Athos sets a trapdoor that the king if to fall into so that he can help him escape, the trap door fails and Athos is unable to save him,but right before he is executed, Charles says 'remember' to Athos, which becomes a major plot point in their book when it is revealed what Charles was referring to.

The main plot of the book is that D'Artagnan and Porthos are working for Mazarin, while Mazarin makes empty promises to Charles I to protect him from the Puritans, and then secretly forges an alliance with Cromwell. The musketeers work at cross purposes for most of the novel, with D'Artagnan and Porthos working for Mazarin, while Aramis and Athos work for Charles I.

At the end, D'Artagnan and Porthos switch sides, and they kidnap Mazarin and force him to pardon their treason against the crown, among other concessions.

The entire scenario, that there was a trapdoor on the platform where Charles I was executed, and the musketeers fail to rescue him at the last second, and then kidnap the Cardinal, is frankly absurd, It's a fun adventure story yes, but as history, it is absurdly implausible.

Colbert and Fouquet appear in the third book, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, and Dumas gets them exactly backward. He makes Fouquet into a tragic hero, and Colbert into a villain out to get Fouquet solely out of jealousy.

In real history, Fouquet was a scoundrel, he stole money from the public treasury, and he used the money to buy the port of Belle-Île-en-Mer, which he then heavily fortified with the apparent intent of fleeing to the city for protection in the case that his fraud was found out. Fortifying the port was legally an act of treason. When Fouquet's fraud and treason were discovered, Louis XIV had him arrested and threw him into the Bastille for the rest of his life, which was an act of mercy due to Fouquet's position as a member of the nobility, because the punishment for treason was execution.

So, Dumas' hero was a very bad man. On the other hand his villain, Colbert, is one of the great heroes of French history.

What Dumas wrote is an astonishing act of historical revisionism, roughly equivalent to an author writing a history of the American Revoluion where Benedict Arnold is portrayed as the greatest American patriot, who was framed for treason as a result of a conspiracy by George Washington. It's a terrific adventure story, but as history it is way off the mark.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 8 years ago

Real of Historical Dumas was very nuance din how he wrote his heroes and villains compared to Sue. Dumas was NOT a Royalist which surprise some people. So his willingness to write Royalist characters as Heroes, even during the French Revolution in Le Chavalier de Maison-Rouge, is pretty interesting.

Doesn't Athos himself effectively become a villain during the Man in the Iron Mask?

Edit: I was thinking of Aramis who become head of the Jesuits. And from Wikipedia summery Fouquet is not painted so simplistically, I assure Dumas as a French Republican was not making the Jesuits the good guys. I think it may be often flawed and abridged English translations that often lead people to think the Dumas were more simplistic then they really were.

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by @$$Holes"-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

[–] AutoexecBatman 8 years ago

Doesn't Athos himself effectively become a villain during the Man in the Iron Mask?

I'm sure you mean Aramis. And the way Dumas portrays the Jesuits is another example of how he plays fast and loose with actual history.

It's a fictional tale, so I'm not going to harp on the fact that there was never an 'Aramis' who led the Jesuit order, but the way in which Dumas portrays the election of a new leader, basically the current leader hand picks a successor, couldn't be more wrong.

The Superior General is elected by the priests of the entire order, and his election has to be confirmed by the Pope, it is a process that can take months, not the 15 minutes that it takes Aramis to be elected Superior General.

Also, in order to be the Superior General of the Jesuit order, a priest has to actually BE a Jesuit, the idea that some random priest like Aramis, who is not even a member of the Jesuits, could be elected superior general, is absurd. And the fact that the guy he replaces isn't a Jesuit either, but a Franciscan is even more absurd. The Jesuits would never elect the member of another religious order as their Superior General.

And Dumas plays into popular anti-Jesuit sentiment by making the order secretive and scheming behind the scenes to overthrow the monarchy, are accusations that have been around for centuries, but there's never been any serious evidence of it.

In a sense, Dumas is right, because the Jesuits were indeed loathed by the monarchy and banned from France during the reign of Loius XIV, before being (temporarily) abolished outright by the Pope in 1773. So in making Louis XIV an enemy of the Jesuits in the novel, there's a degree of truth to that.

I think it is clear that Dumas despised the Jesuits, which is why he made them one of the main villains of the story,

Dumas despised the monarchy, and that is why one of the main themes of the entire series is that monarchs tend to be either weak and buffoonish (like the way he portrays Louis XII) or tyrannical, like Louis XIV, and that going into the service of a monarch is something only a fool would do.

D'Artagnan spends his entire life in service to the crown, and at the end of the day, he gets nothing for it, not even a simple 'thank you', and Louis XIV betrays Bragelonne by stealing his woman from him, leading Bragelonne to deliver a blistering speech wherein he predicts that one day, the French will see that kings are untrustworthy and abolish them forever.

In the beginning of the first book, D'Artagnan's father tells him that the king rules by the authority of God, and that God alone can judge a king, and that therefore he should do whatever the king asks of him without question. Athos gives a similar speech to Bragelonne in Twenty Years After, and yet by the end of the series, both D'Artagnan and Bragelonne ends up becoming disenchanted with the monarchy and lose their faith in the idea that king's authority comes from God.

The series is essentially a critique of the concept of monarchy.

Also, there's a reason why, at the end of the story, Aramis is the only one of the original characters from the first novel who is still alive. Dumas is making a subtle critique of his own time. What he is saying is that the world of his own time is corrupt, it is impossible to live as a man of honor and integrity, the world is dominated by scoundrels like Aramis. To survive in this world, it is necessary to be manipulative and scheming and dishonest and dishonorable, like Aramis, good and honorable men like D'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos and Bragelonne lose everything they ever earned and go to their graves, while evil men like Aramis prosper and thrive.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 8 years ago

He vilified the Jesuits but not as cartoonishly as Eugene Sue did.

I think plenty of accusations against the Jesuits are real, but their focus was on propping up the Monarchy and the old order not undermining it.

Sadly people are easily mislead about Dumas real politics because most today only know the first Novel.

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by @$$Holes"-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 8 years ago

If anyone Dumas vilified deserved it it's Oliver Cromwell, he ruined the English Revolution same as Robespierre ruined the French Revolution, attempted Genocide against the Irish and had no respect for Freedom of Religion.

And in modern times i honestly never saw anyone before you claim he's well regarded. As far as I'm concerned he's the original Fascist.

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by @$$Holes"-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

[–] debrecenisrac38 9 years ago

I also hate to burst yours, especially after finding this post years after its creation, but here it goes:

As much as I like the Franco-Belgian culture, the Kingdom of France had an important ally in its fight with the Habsburgs: the Ottoman Empire. My criticism is neither based on Islamophobia or xenophobia, rather on the fact, that the French royalty, for selfish reasons allied itself for centuries with a great power, that did not have the best of Europe at heart ever. Such an action today would be considered treason.

In other words, if you ask people, whose ancestry includes those, who were under the Sultan's thumb, yeah, they don't like the guy very much.

[–] Mithrandir-Olorin33 8 years ago

I kind of doubt Dumas was actually the first, but maybe the first work of fiction using Richelieu as a villain to get a popular English Translation. The intense Anti-Catholic attitudes popularized by the Revolution probably had a lot to do with it.

"I knew it, I'm surrounded by @$$Holes"-Dark Helmet, Spaceballs