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On a confidant of Richelieu

[RICHARD, René].
La vie du veritable pere Josef, capucin nommé au cardinalat, contenant l' histoire anecdote du cardinal de Richelieu.

Small woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials, woodcut printer's device on title with the inscription 'Utile Dulci'.

Suivant la copie de Paris. The Hague, Guillaume de Voys, 1705. 12mo. Contemp. sprinkled calf, spine richly gilt in 6 compartments, blind-stamped title, painted edges. Small woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials, woodcut printer's device on title with the inscription 'Utile Dulci'. (12), 462, (6) pp.

Revised edition of the work by the French historian René Richard (1654-1727), Histoire de la vie du P. Joseph du Tremblay, capucin, printed in Paris in 1702, on the life of the Capuchin monk Père Josef. René Richard was teacher of Humanities and Rethorics. He became a priest and a preacher. He was also a royal censor, historiographer and a prior of Regny and Forez. According to Goujet, he had a lot of strange opinions and a difficult character.
Richard rewrote his book, probably because, like the French priest and historian Claude-Pierre Goujet (1697-1767) later said, this wasn't the portrait of Father Josef as he really was, but as he should have been. He left two thirds of the original text intact, but now questioned the goodness of the father, as supposed in his original edition. He also added L'histoire anecdote du cardinal Richelieu, friend and confidant of Father Josef. His intention in this edition was to convey the opposite of what he writes; where he defends Father Josef, he in fact accuses him, and where he portraits him as being innocent, he suggests that he is in fact guilty. Perhaps this style of saying was to disguise his radical change of viewpoint? The text consists of two parts, one about the religious life of monk Josef, one about his political life.
Père Joseph Francois Leclerc Du Tremblay, surnamed L'éminence grise, (1577-1638), enjoyed a good education and travelled in Germany and Italy. In 1599, he became a Capuchin monk, and soon became the confidant of the Cardinal de Richelieu, for whom he took care of a lot of tricky affairs, like the arrest of the queen mother Marie de Médicis, or the violent questionning of doctor Richer. Father Joseph had a big influence on the Cardinal, and wasn't afraid to tell the Cardinal his thoughts, even about the Cardinal himself. To please the Cardinal, people were to please Father Joseph. Father Joseph was supposed to become cardinal, but he died before that could be effectuated.

Good copy with an interesting provenance: the ex-libris of J.W. Six is pasted to the verso of the front cover and the signature of Royaards van den Ham is on the first fly-leaf.

Nouv. Biogr. Gén., 25-26, p. 966-9; idem, 41-42, p. 179-181.

Related Subjects: French History Religion

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