hemia; and when one
great man, Wallenstein, stood between Austria and ruin, Richelieu sent
his monkish diplomatist, Father Joseph, to the German Assembly of
Electors, and persuaded them to dismiss Wallenstein and to disgrace him.

[Footnote C: History of Civilisation in England, Vol. I. Chap. VIII.]

But the great Frenchman's master-stroke was his treaty with Gustavus
Adolphus. With that keen glance of his, he saw and knew Gustavus while
yet the world knew him not,--while he was battling afar off in the wilds
of Poland. Richelieu's plan was formed at once. He brought about a
treaty between Gustavus and Poland; then he filled Gustavus's mind with
pictures of the wrongs inflicted by Austria on German Protestants,
hinted to him probably of a new realm, filled his treasury, and finally
hurled against Austria the man who destroyed Tilly, who conquered
Wallenstein, who annihilated Austrian supremacy at the Battle of Lueizen,
who, though in his grave, wrenched Protestant rights from Austria at the
Treaty of Westphalia, who pierced the Austrian monarchy with the most
terrible sorrows it ever saw before the time of Napoleon.

To the main objects of Richelieu's policy already given might be added
two subordinate objects.

The first of these was a healthful extension of French territory. In
this Richelieu planned better than the first Napoleon; for, while he did
much to carry France out to her natural boundaries, he kept her always
within them. On the South he added Roussillon, on the East, Alsace, on
the Northeast, Artois.

The second subordinate object of his policy sometimes flashed forth
brilliantly. He was determined that England should never again interfere
on French soil. We have seen him driving the English from La Rochelle
and from the Isle of Rhe; but he went farther. In 1628, on making some
proposals to England, he was repulsed with English haughtiness.
"They shall know," said the Cardinal, "that they cannot despise me."
Straightway one sees protests and revolts of the Presbyterians of
Scotland, and Richelieu's agents in the thickest of them.

And now what was Richelieu's statesmanship in its sum?

I. In the Political Progress of France, his work has already been
sketched as building monarchy and breaking anarchy.

Therefore have men said that he swept away old French liberties. What
old liberties? Richelieu but tore away the decaying, poisonous husks
and rinds which hindered French liberties from their chance a