Cardinal Richelieu

Armand Jean du Plessis became a bishop at twenty-one in 1607 and climbed both church and government ladders - Foreign Secretary in 1616, cardinal in 1622, chief minister in 1624. He held that last post until his death in 1642, consolidating royal power by restraining the nobility and transforming France into a centralized state. He suppressed Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s yet allied with Protestant England and the Dutch Republic to check the Habsburg dynasty during the Thirty Years' War. The Day of the Dupes in 1630 showed his authority still hung on the king's confidence, particularly after a bitter split with Marie de Médici, once his ally. He renovated the Sorbonne, founded the Académie Française, backed Champlain's colonial ventures, and created the Compagnie des Cent-Associés in 1627. When he died Cardinal Mazarin, whose career Richelieu had fostered, took the office.