Born of a noble family of Poitou, Armand de Richelieu (1585-1642), at the age of twenty-one had been appointed bishop of the small diocese of Luçon. His eloquence and ability as spokesman for the clergy in the fatuous Estates-General of 1614 attracted the notice of Marie de' Medici, who invited him to court, gave him a seat in the royal council, and secured his nomination as a cardinal of the Roman Church. From 1624 until his death in 1642, Richelieu was the most important man in France. With undoubted loyalty and imperious will, with the most delicate diplomacy and all the blandishments of subtle court intrigue, sometimes with sternest and most merciless cruelty, Richelieu maintained his influence over the king and proceeded to destroy the enemies of the French crown. [Sidenote: Richelieu's Policies] Richelieu's policies were quite simple: (1) To make the royal power supreme in France; (2) to make France predominant in Europe. The first involved the removal of checks upon royal authority and the triumph of absolutism; the second meant a vigorous foreign policy, leading to the humiliation of the rival Habsburgs. In both these policies Richelieu was following the general traditions of the preceding century, essentially those of Henry IV, but to an exaggerated extent and with unparalleled success. Postponing consideration of general European affairs, let us first see what the great cardinal accomplished in France. [Sidenote: Disappearance of Representative Government] First of all, Richelieu disregarded the Estates-General. He was convinced of its futility and unhesitatingly declined to consult it. Gradually the idea became current that the Estates-General was an out- worn, medieval institution, totally unfit for modern purposes, and that official business could best--and therefore properly--be conducted, not by the representatives of the chief social classes in the nation, but by personal appointees of the king. Thus the royal council became the supreme lawmaking and administrative body in the country. Local estates, or parliaments, continued to exist in certain of the most recently acquired provinces of France, such as Brittany, Provence, Burgundy, and Languedoc, but they had little influence except in apportioning taxes: Richelieu tampered with their privileges and vetoed many of their acts. [Sidenote: The Royal Army] The royal prerogative extended not only to matters of taxation and legislation, including the right to levy taxes and to make expenditures for any purpose without public accounting, but it was preserved and enforced by means of a large standing army, which received its pay and its orders exclusively from the crown. To the royal might, as well as to its right, Richelieu contributed. He energetically aided Louis XIII in organizing and equipping what proved to be the best army in Europe.