‘The states of Europe enjoy all the advantages of continual negotiation in the measure in which they are conducted with prudence. No one could believe how great these advantages are who has not had experience of them. I confess that it was not till I had had five or six years’ experience of the management of high affairs that I realised this truth, but I am now so firmly persuaded of it that I will boldly say that the service which a regular and unbroken system of diplomacy, conducted both in public and in secret in all countries, even where no immediate fruit can be gathered, is one of the first necessities for the health and welfare of the state. I can say with truth that in my time I have seen the face of affairs in France and in Christendom completely changed because under the authority of his Majesty I have been enabled to practise this principle which till my time had been absolutely neglected by the ministers of this kingdom.’ The Cardinal says further: ‘The light of nature teaches each of us in his private life to maintain relations with his neighbours because as their near presence enables them to injure so it also enables them to do us service, just as the surroundings of a city either hinder or facilitate the approach to it.’ And he adds: ‘The meaner sort of men confine their outlook within the cities where they were born. But those to whom God has given a greater light will neglect no means of improvement whether it come from near or from far.’ The evidence of this great genius demands all the greater consideration because the high services which he rendered to his King by means of negotiation convincingly prove that he speaks the truth. No considerable event occurred in Europe during his ministry in which he did not play a great part, and he was often the principal agent in the great movements of his time. He it was who designed the revolution in Portugal in 1640, by which the legitimate heir to the Crown resumed the throne. He profited by the discontent of the Catalans who rose in revolt in that same year. He did not hesitate to encourage negotiations even with the African Moors. Previously he brought his labours to success in the north by persuading Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, to invade Germany, and thus to deliver her from slavery to the House of Austria which then reigned despotically, dethroning her princes and disposing of their states and their titles to its own court minions. Rumour even attributes the revolution in Bohemia to the action of Cardinal Richelieu. He formed and maintained several leagues; he won for France many great allies who contributed to the success of his high designs, in which the abasement of the prodigious power of the House of Austria was always the chief; and throughout all these designs we can trace the unbroken thread of a well-maintained system of diplomacy, acting as the obedient and capable agent of the great minister himself, whose profound capacity and vast