Customer Reviews

Cardinal Richelieu: And the Making of France

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Levi divides this book into two parts. The first half is history in the "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue" style that went out years ago. It is a numbing recital of: "in 16xx ABC did this; in 16xx DEF did that; and in 16xx so did GHI". This half of the book is poorly organized. Often Levi is forced to double back 10 to 20 pages in order to pick up something he forgot. Unless you have a good grasp of 17th century France and its history, you will find the wild cascade of unrelated names and places disorienting. Don't waste your time trying to follow the history. Much of it is factually debatable. I must stress: the man simply has his historical facts jumbled and in error.

Levi never even quite seems to figure out when the 30 Years War took place. One of the reasons Richelieu was so destested and hated in his time was his conduct during the 30 Years War. As a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, he made the Protestant Revolution successful in Germany and the lowlands. His support with money and troops against the Catholic Habsburg monarchy of Austria made Protestant success possible. Why did he do that? A) to weaken the Catholic Austrians vis-a-vis France, B) to destroy the populations and wealth of the German states and the lowlands as competitors to France, and C) for the power and glory of France. Levi never even mentions this critical period. It is Richelieu's greatest contribution to French history.

In part two Levi takes up the cultural side. This half of the book abandons the "in 1492" approach for some of the worst academic English you are ever going to meet. The man simply cannot construct a pointed English sentence. I quit counting the number of consecutive 50 to 70 WORD sentences. Subjects and verbs seldom seem to meet, much less agree. Only experts at diagramming sentences need apply.

Levi is clearly not in his home area. Bluntly, anyone who can dismiss Corneille, Pascal, and Descartes is simply not well grounded in this period and its follow up. The lengthy discussion of Jansenism puts Levi into a subject area he clearly does not understand. About all you can say he got right for certain is that Richelieu and the Jansenists were not on good terms.

This book is a quandary. In many respects it is a hagiographic gloss of Richelieu. As a piece of popular history it is barely skin deep. Historical accuracy and much of the religious interpretation is questionable. The political analysis is simplistic and incomplete. (Hopefully, you already understand the relations of the Habsburgs, Dutch, Swedes, Germans, and the Pope. Levi spends a lot of time wandering in the wilderness here.) The quality of writing is pretentious in the second half, and questionable throughout. When finished, you will have done little more than confirmed the preconceptions about Richelieu you brought with you, picked up some odd notions about Louis XIII, and maybe have acquired a smattering of dates.

This is a good work of popular history. As he wrote it, Levi was probably thinking of people like me who know their knowledge of French history in the 17th century is inadequate but don't want to spend months in the library filling in the gaps. The book is full of important figures like Marie de Medici, Anne of Austria, and Gaston of Orleans, but Richelieu and his career are at the center of the whole story. The author is at his best when analyzing Richelieu psychologically and morally, but he seems to value those of his subject's virtues that might place him closer to the Homeric moral universe than to ours. He praises the cardinal for his bravery, tenacity, and ruthlessness rather than looking for signs of compassion, tenderness, or justice. Of course Richelieu was intensely loyal to the king, Louis XIII, but he was equally loyal to his own quest for power, prestige, and possessions, three realms in which he met with overwhelming success. One of the interesting side issues in the book is the king's inability to relate sexually to women and his dalliances with several men, most notably with Cinq-Mars, who betrayed him. Richelieu did his best to protect the king's reputation even in this area. The more important question Levi works with is how Richelieu almost single-handedly changed France from a collection of separate areas, princedoms and duchies, with their various customs, laws, traditions and loyalties, into a modern nation-state under the absolute authority of the monarch. He also did much to promote culture, art, and literature. But he achieved all this at the cost of unendurable suffering among the common people, who were over-taxed, underfed, and who lived in general misery. Naturally, he was generally despised.

I believe that most contemporary folks only know of Cardinal Richelieu from two sources: 1. As the scheming villain of countless "Three Musketeers" films, or 2. As the surprise witness at the parking ticket trial in the famous Monthy Python sketch. Both these portrayals, of course, are incorrect, and the author of this fine work has endeavored mightily to correct any wrong impressions we may have about this justly famous, but reviled, man. Levi's Richelieu was a churchman of true faith and belief who spent his life trying to consolidate the French people and sovereign into a modern nation state, and succeeded, more or less, by the time of his death. It is a fascinating read, marred only by the changing names of some of the players, and a light going over of French history that often leaves the lay reader confused as to what was happening where and by whom. It's worth finishing, though, to give insight into the mind and actions of a man who had a goal, and stayed with it in a single-minded way during his entire career in public service to his king and country.

I agree with another reviewer that a lot of unnecessary wandering in the wilderness makes this book a tiring effort to enjoy, but some of the reviews seem to miss utterly the author's intense perspective which is nothing less than a fervent glance at Richelieu unscourged. Levi's historical take is often speculative, or is it? Perhaps it's more an unsolicited testament of things from the vantage point of those whom many historians have decided, in their churning quest to install an egalitarian privilege, are easily brushed aside, their subject's particular paradigm having been in their view eclipsed.

Richelieu himself, master of detail, would likely find himself more readily in Levi's book than in most textbooks and any number of insufficient biographies. You'll need a comprehensive understanding of the royal houses of Europe and the intricate volleying and snuggling between them to make sense of quite a bit of this book. Nor will you find a wholesale dismissal of the Roman Church's temporal politics here, and rightly so. This, after all, is history, not a fairyland for the democracy besotted. Even an Irish Times review on the back of the book can't help referring to "an allegedly devout mystery..." I suspect there are already too many allegedly brave biographies whose principle recommendation is a tawdry bias.

Levi's book gives an unindicted account of the Cardinal and his world. I'm grateful for that, despite the book's onerous flaws - sometimes incoherent writing, an at times merciless academic posture, and some unnecessary repetition. Four solid stars, but then, I'm a stickler for the real thing.

Unfortunately, what the lay public knows about Cardinal Richelieu lays between the harried pages of Alexander Dumas. In 'The Three Musketeers' and in 'The Man in the Iron Mask' Dumas paints a profile, a one sided antagonist that bears only a miniscule of truth. As he works in history cavalier, beyond the Aristotelian precept, Dumas pere, has left us, alas, a sad legacy concerning our valiant Cardinal. Take it at face value. I don't like Dumas pere. The true brilliance lies in his son, Alexander Dumas fils, who left us the sublime and transparent 'La dame aux camellias', XIXc' legendary succes de scandale (how's that for editorial commnets!) But Anthony Levi gives us now a much more keen view of our brave and brilliant cardinal, who did so much for France. Levi's is no papier mache evil puppet ready to be burned at the whim of some harried author. Anthony Levi thrills in the sagacity with which this personally fragile priest dealt with the constant and turbulant avalanche, that was the seemingly thankless, indirect governing of France. For Richelieu never seemed to take credit (emphasis on seem) The goverment belonging to a flawed Luis XIII and his somewhat monstruous mother Marie de Medici. With them, and later with the exile of Marie, the Cardinal dealt with such wisdom, with such lucidity (and duplicity) with such courage. That he remains an icon in my personal pantheon. All he did was for the better of France. Richelieu is the age of Louis the XIII. I liked this biography a lot. I thought it was well narrated and the characters, the intelligent cardinal, the deviate king, and the ponderous queen mother. Were tackled with verve and true emotion. The du Plessis beginning I found somewhat mirred in unnessesary data. No real man there. Mind, you, I don't mean Victoria Holt, here. Though sometimes not a vital name and not a vital date should better be left out. Actually I was dragged down during du Plessis' ruthless climb, and sometimes beyond, by too many names and numbers. Not a read as silly as Dumas' but a biography not so bent on seeming scholastic. Get to the feeling people. What remains is Cardinal Richelieu grand! luxurious! audacious, ruthless, even murderous when called for. Vindictive, able, filled with nepotism. Able to design, construct, then stear a country; otherwise chaos. The great pater patrie of France. For an excellent sequel to cardinal Richelieu's life, look up Ian Dunlop's absorbing biography 'Louis XIV'

This biography appears to be complete and well-researched but is buried by facts, names, dates, etc. without any sense of character or passion. The book, and the main character, have no pulse, making this an academic exercise in annotated timelines.

I found Anthony Levi's biography on Cardinal Richelieu to be quite readable and informative. The author definitely appears to know his subject well and the complex personality of Richelieu comes out with clarity and understanding. When you write a biography of man like Richelieu, background materials must be included to revealed the extraordinary period that he lived which made Richelieu, such an extraordinary historical personage. While deeply hated by his own people during his lifetime, it would be no discredit if he would be regarded as a national hero today since without Richelieu, there may not be a France as we know it.

Anthony Levi is trying to be fair to the Cardinal, whose reputation has endured hundreds of years of mudslinging. But Levi can't write well (perhaps English isn't his first language?) and nobody edited him well. I've read far worse, so I was eventually able to break through the poor sentence structure and dig out the meaning, but not everyone wants to do that. someone else mentioned that Levi has a hard time placing the Thirty Years War; I have to agree -- I wouldn't know when it was held based on Levi's writing alone. I borrowed it from a public library, and I'm glad -- I certainly wouldn't spend $77 on this book! It's just not worth it. If you can't find it in your local library, and you need it for some reason, get the paperback. You won't be reading this over and over and over for fun.