The effects of his domestic policy were indeed more durable than those of what he most prided himself upon, his foreign policy. He it was, in fact, who founded the French monarchy, such as it existed until near the end of the eighteenth century--a grand, indeed, rather than a happy result. He was a man of penetrating and commanding intellect, who visibly influenced the fortunes of Europe to an extent which few princes or ministers have equalled. Unscrupulous in his purposes, he was no less so in the means by which he effected them. But so long as men are honored, not for their moral excellences, but for the great things which they have done for themselves, or their country, the name of Richelieu will be recollected with respect, as that of one of the most successful statesmen that ever lived. As a patron of letters and of the arts, Richelieu has acquired a reputation almost rivalling that of his statesmanship. His first and earliest success in life had been as a scholar supporting his theses; and, as it is continually observed that great men form very erroneous judgments of their own excellences, he ever prided himself especially in his powers as a penman. [Illustration: A Concert At Richelieu's Palace.] WILLIAM BRADFORD[15] By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS (1589-1657) [Footnote 15: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.] [Illustration: Seal of Massachusetts. [TN]] Greatness is not allied to rank alone, nor is heroism to blood. The noblest of the Pilgrims of Plymouth was sprung from the people. For generations the little farming village of Austerfield, a royal manor of the West Riding of Yorkshire close to the Nottingham line, had known the family of Bradfurth or Bradford as a race of tenant-yeomen who, besides tilling the lands of the Mortons, possessed also a freehold of their own. But no man or woman of the Bradford name had given it prominence or worth until, on March 19, 1589, William Bradford was born in that low-roofed farm-house on the great plain of York. Puritan writers speak of Austerfield as a "profane and irreligious" village in which was to be found "no bible and a careless priest." Whatever the facts, the environments, undoubtedly, were not such as would suggest the making of a leader or the development of a religious nature. But we are assured that, before the age of twelve, the boy William Bradford, brought up in that Austerfield farm-house "in the innocent trade of husbandry," displayed alike a thoughtful temperament and "a pious mind." At sixteen he fell, in some unknown way, under the influence of one of the much-maligned Puritan preachers of Scrooby, a Nottinghamshire village but a few miles from Austerfield. As a result he gave up his farming-life, left his Austerfield home, and in the face of bitter opposition, distrust, censure, and persecution, joined the Puritan church and settlement at Scrooby, established there by William Brewster, the postmaster of Scrooby and a prominent leader in the new sect of