#it's pretty amusing to see how the dramatics of marie and richelieu trigger louis xiii in doing what he didn't trust himself to do at first

[histoireettralala]

".. and now that he loved him and was very worthily served, she wanted to have him ruined"- Louis XIII, Richelieu, and Marie de Medici.

The triangular relationship of monarch, mother, and minister, was rife with tension. While Marie's influence was not great enough to label the governing body a triumvirate, she was pushy enough to make decisions both in and out the council very, very difficult. She became jealous of her former protégé, listened to the backbiting criticism of dévots like Marillac and Cardinal Bérulle, and eventually spoke out in council against the cleric who had once dictated her speeches. She pushed and pushed until, in 1629 and 1630, she finally demanded that her son dismiss Richelieu. This placed Louis in precisely the position he sought to avoid: to choose between minister and mother.

Louis did his best to keep his mother content and contained. He made her regent for northern France during his absence at the siege of La Rochelle in 1627-1628, and again during his campaign in Savoy in 1629. When they were separated, he was a faithful correspondent on government and personal matters. From Susa, he wrote of being "right to the last breath of my life your very humble and obedient son." But, except when she insisted on Gaston's marrying in 1626, Louis refused to follow his mother's political recommendations when these differed from his own intuitions.

In the face of Marie's growing jealousy of the bond between her protégé and her son, Louis praised the Cardinal's services: "My Cousin the Cardinal of Richelieu has so worthily served me on this occasion that I cannot say just how much I am satisfied with his care and diligence. They give me hope that the rest of my undertaking will go the same way; and that God, if it pleases him, will continue to favor my designs."

In the winter of 1629-30, Louis mustered his strongest argument, saying that "when he had been not at all inclined toward [Richelieu] she got him to employ him; and now that he loved him and was very worthily served, she wanted to have him ruined." Marie countered in vain "that he could employ him if he wished, but for her part she would never engage his services." Louis insisted on getting the three principals together in a meeting that left all of them in tears. An observer recalled that "the king threw so much passion into this reconciliation that it was achieved the next day." Against her better judgment, Marie agreed to retain Richelieu and his relatives as leading members of her personal household. And so tensions continued.

Ultimately, Louis resolved such tensions as these by striking back. Irritated beyond measure by government problems involving human failures, he lashed out against the immediate wrongdoer and made sweeping cabinet changes that, not trusting his own judgment, he had previously hesitated to undertake.

A. Lloyd Moote - Louis XIII the Just