[Cardinal de RICHELIEU]. Drafts of 6 letters written by a se - Lot 727

Lot 727
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[Cardinal de RICHELIEU]. Drafts of 6 letters written by a se - Lot 727
[Cardinal de RICHELIEU]. Drafts of 6 letters written by a secretary of the cardinal of Richelieu. 16 pp. in-folio. Only one is dated (July 13 (or 23?) 1636). Some corrections and additions. Precious drafts of 6 letters of the cardinal of Richelieu (written by one of his secretaries, who is not Denis Charpentier) to Louis XIII (5) and to "monseigneur le Prince". They are entirely unpublished: they do not appear in the voluminous correspondence of Richelieu in 8 volumes, Lettres, instructions diplomatiques et papiers d'État du Cardinal de Richelieu (Imperial Printing Office, 1853-1877). Let us quote extracts from this letter written after the day of the dupes and the exile of Marie de Médicis. "I pass over to answer the charges that he imposes on me concerning the escape of Madame your mother and that of Monsieur together with his marriage. If Madame wanted to withdraw from France because of some dissatisfaction she had there, I am not the cause. She wanted your majesty to expel me from her service. I was prepared to do so, having your will, Sire, and was only waiting for an express command to obey and to testify to everyone that it was never my ambition that made me wish for the honor of being with your majesty, but only the strong passion that I had to serve her since she had commanded me to do so. It was this command that caused Madame your mother to leave France, and her departure will cause me regret (?) since it prevents me from rendering her the services I had promised and to which I was obliged for all sorts of gratifications I had received from her. As for the marriage of Monseigneur, your majesty's only brother, it is true, Sire, that the particular interests of your majesty and those of your kingdom do not require approval []. The last accusation which has been made against me is that I advised your majesty to break off the marriage of my lord's only brother in order to marry him to one of my relatives. To this, Your Majesty will respond better than I can, and you know very well that if I have ever had so much vanity as to tell him about it, these are the rumors of the people, the thoughts of those who are envious of my happiness, and who could not bear the fact that I have the honor of doing Your Majesty a favor. All the meditation will not prevent me from doing you a very humble service, only I have a very humble prayer to make to you, which is that if you judge me guilty of some crime, I am ready to answer with my head [] ". All the letters are fascinating and of great historical interest: "I give advice to your majesty to assist the King of Sweden in Germany to maintain the war and to keep him away from his states [...]".
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