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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: RAY-RHU |
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RETZ, JEAN FRANCOIS PAUL DE GONDI, CARDINAL DE (1614-1679) , French churchman and agitator, was born at Montmirail in 1614. The family was one of those which had been introduced into France by Catherine de' Medici, but it acquired great estates in Brittany and became connected with the noblest houses of the kingdom. It may be added that Retz himself always spelt his designation " Rais." He was the third son, and according to Tallemant des Reaux was made a knight of Malta on the very day of his birth
short, near-sighted, ugly and exceptionally awkward. Retz, however, despite the little inclination which he felt towards clerical life, entered into the disputes of the Sorbonne with vigour, and when he was scarcely eighteen wrote the remarkable Conjuration de Fiesque, a little historical essay, of which he drew the material from the Italian of Augustino Mascardi, but which is all his own in the negligent vigour of the style and the audacious insinuation, if nothing more, of revolutionary principles. Retz received no preferment of importance during Richelieu's life, and eve's after the minister's death, though he was presented to Louis XIII. and well received, he found a difficulty in attaining the coadjutorship with reversion of the archbishopric of Paris. But almost immediately after the king's death Anne of Austria appointed him to the coveted post on All Saints' Eve, 1643. Retz, who had, according to some accounts, already plotted against Richelieu, set himself to work
capital out of his position. His uncle, who was old, indolent and absurdly proud, had lived in great seclusion; Retz, on the contrary, gradually acquired a very great influence with the populace of the city. This influence he gradually turned against Mazarin. No one had more to do than Retz with the outbreak of the Fronde in October 1648, and his history for the next four years is the history of that confused and, as a rule, much misunderstood movement
envoy
The last seventeen years of Retz's life were passed partly in his diplomatic duties (he was again in Rome at the papal election of 1668), partly at Paris, partly at his estate of Corn-mercy, but latterly at St Mihiel in Lorraine. His debts were enormous, and in 1675 he resolved to make over to his creditors all his income except twenty thousand livres, and, as he said, to " live for " them. This plan he carried out, though he did not succeed in living very long, for he died at Paris on the 24th August 1679. One of the chief
marriage
Retz and La Rochefoucauld, the greatest of the Frondeurs in literary genius, were personal and political enemies, and each has left a portrait of the other. La Rochefoucauld's character of the cardinal is on the whole harsh but scarcely unjust, and one of its sentences formulates, though in a manner which has a certain recoil upon the writer, the great defect of Retz's conduct: " I1 a suscite les plus grands desordres dans 1'etat sans avoir un dessein forme de s'en prevaloir." He would have been less, and certainly less favourably, remembered if it had not been for his Memoirs. They were certainly not written till the last ten years of his life, and they do not go further than the year 1655. They are addressed in the form of narrative to a lady who is not known, though guesses have been made at her identity, some even suggesting Madame de Sevigne herself. In the be-ginning there are some gaps. They display, in a rather irregular style and with some oddities of dialect and phrase, extraordinary narrative skill and a high degree of ability in that special
triumph
drawn
The Memoirs of the cardinal de Retz were first published in a very imperfect condition in 1717 at Nancy. The first satisfactory edition was that which appearod in the twenty-fourth volume of the collection of Michaud and Poujoulat (Paris, 1836). They were then re-edited from the autograph manuscript by Geruzez (Paris, 1844), and by Champollion-Figeac with the Mazarinades, &c. (Paris, 1859). In 1870 a complete edition of the works of Retz was begun by M. A. Feillet in the collection of Grands Ecrivains. The editor dying, this passed into the hands of M. Gourdault and then into those of M. Chantelauze, who had already published studies on the connexion of St Vincent de Paul with the Gondi family, &c. (1882). (G. SA.) End of Article: RETZ, JEAN FRANCOIS PAUL DE GONDI, CARDINAL DE (1614-1679) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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