François Leclerc du Tremblay
Encyclopedia
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
term ("grey eminence") for a powerful advisor or decision-maker who operates secretly or unofficially.
Biography
Leclerc was the eldest son of Jean Leclerc du Tremblay, president of the chamber of requests of the parlement of Paris, and of Marie Motier de Lafayette. As a boy he received a careful classical training, and in 1595 made an extended journey through Italy, returning to take up the career of armsWeapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
. He served at the Siege of Amiens in 1597, and then accompanied a special embassy to London.
In 1599 Baron de Mafflier (by which name he was known at court) renounced the world and entered the Capuchin priory of Orléans
Orléans
-Prehistory and Roman:Cenabum was a Gallic stronghold, one of the principal towns of the Carnutes tribe where the Druids held their annual assembly. It was conquered and destroyed by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, then rebuilt under the Roman Empire...
. He embraced the religious life with great ardour, and became a notable preacher and reformer. In 1606 he aided Antoinette d'Orléans, a nun of Fontevrault, to found the reformed order of the Filles du Calvaire, and wrote a manual of devotion for the nuns. His proselytizing zeal led him to send missionaries throughout the Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
centre.
He entered politics at the Conferences of Loudun, when, as the confidant of the queen and the papal envoy, he opposed the Gallican claims advanced by the parlement, which the princes were upholding, and succeeded in convincing them of the schismatic tendency of Gallicanism
Gallicanism
Gallicanism is the belief that popular civil authority—often represented by the monarchs' authority or the State's authority—over the Catholic Church is comparable to that of the Pope's...
. In 1612 he began those personal relations with Richelieu which have indissolubly joined in history and legend the cardinal and the original éminence grise, relations which research has not altogether made clear. He was so nicknamed for the grey friar's cloak that he wore over his habit, and because eminence is a title deferred upon cardinals.
In 1627 the friar
Friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...
assisted at the siege of La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
. A purely religious reason also made him Richelieu's ally against the Habsburgs. He had a dream of arousing Europe to another crusade against the Turks
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, and believed that the house of Austria was the obstacle to that universal European peace which would make this possible. As Richelieu's agent, therefore, this modern Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit
Peter the Hermit was a priest of Amiens and a key figure during the First Crusade.-Before 1096:According to Anna Comnena, he had attempted to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1096, but was prevented by the Seljuk Turks from reaching his goal and was tortured.Sources differ as to whether he...
maneuvered at the Diet of Regensburg (1630)
Diet of Regensburg (1630)
The Diet of Regensburg was a meeting of the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire which occurred at Regensburg from July to November 1630...
to thwart the aggression of the emperor, and then advised the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus, reconciling himself to the use of Protestant armies by the theory that one poison would counteract another.
Thus the friar became a war minister, and, though maintaining a personal austerity of life, gave himself up to diplomacy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
and politics. He died in 1638, just as the cardinalate was to be conferred upon him. The story that Richelieu visited him when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words, "Courage, Father Joseph, we have won Breisach
Breisach
Breisach is a town with approximately 16,500 inhabitants, situated along the Rhine in the Rhine Valley, in the district Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about halfway between Freiburg and Colmar — 20 kilometres away from each — and about 60 kilometres north of Basel near the...
", is apocryphal.