t life and
growth.

Therefore, also, have men said that Richelieu built up absolutism. The
charge is true and welcome. For, evidently, absolutism was the only
force, in that age, which could destroy the serf-mastering caste. Many a
Polish patriot, as he to-day wanders through the Polish villages, groans
that absolutism was not built to crush that serf-owning aristocracy
which has been the real architect of Poland's ruin. Any one who reads to
much purpose in De Mably, or Guizot, or Henri Martin, knows that this
part of Richelieu's statesmanship was but a masterful continuation of
all great French statesmanship since the twelfth-century league of king
and commons against nobles, and that Richelieu stood in the heirship of
all great French statesmen since Suger. That part of Richelieu's work,
then, was evidently bedded in the great line of Divine Purpose running
through that age and through all ages.

II. In the _Internal Development of France_, Richelieu proved himself a
true builder. The founding of the French Academy and of the Jardin des
Plantes, the building of the College of Plessis, and the rebuilding of
the College of the Sorbonne, are among the monuments of this part of his
statesmanship. His, also, is much of that praise usually lavished on
Louis XIV. for the career opened in the seventeenth century to science,
literature, and art. He was also a reformer, and his zeal was proved,
when, in the fiercest of the La Rochelle struggle, he found time to
institute great reforms not only in the army and navy, but even in the
monasteries.

III. On the _General Progress of Europe_, his work must be judged as
mainly for good. Austria was the chief barrier to European progress, and
that barrier he broke. But a far greater impulse to the general progress
of Europe was given by the idea of Toleration which he thrust into the
methods of European statesmen. He, first of all statesmen in France,
saw, that, in French policy, to use his own words, "A Protestant
Frenchman is better than a Catholic Spaniard"; and he, first of all
statesmen in Europe, saw, that, in European policy, patriotism, must
outweigh bigotry.

IV. His _Faults in Method_ were many. His under-estimate of the
sacredness of human life was one; but that was the fault of his age.
His frequent working by intrigue was another; but that also was a vile
method accepted by his age. The fair questions, then, are,--Did he not
commit the fewest and smallest wrongs possib