- François Leclerc du Tremblay
François Leclerc du Tremblay (
4 November 1577 –17 December 1638 ), also known as Père Joseph, was a FrenchCapuchin friar , confidant and agent ofCardinal Richelieu .He was the eldest son of
Jean Leclerc du Tremblay , president of the chamber of requests of theparlement of Paris , and ofMarie Motier de Lafayette . As a boy he received a careful classical training, and in 1595 made an extended journey through Italy, returning to take up the career of arms. He served at theSiege of Amiens in 1597, and then accompanied a specialembassy to London.In 1599 Baron de Mafflier (by which name he was known at court) renounced the world and entered the Capuchin priory of
Orleans . He embraced the religious life with great ardour, and became a notable preacher and reformer. In 1606 he aidedAntoinette d'Orleans , a nun ofFontevrault , to found the reformed order of theFilles du Calvaire , and wrote a manual of devotion for the nuns. His proselytizing zeal led him to send missionaries throughout theHuguenot centre.He entered politics at the
Conferences of Loudun , when, as the confidant of the queen and the papal envoy, he opposed the Gallican claims advanced by the "parlement", which the princes were upholding, and succeeded in convincing them of the schismatic tendency ofGallicanism . In 1612 he began those personal relations with Richelieu which have indissolubly joined in history and legend the cardinal and the original "éminence grise ", relations which research has not altogether made clear. He was so nicknamed for the grey friar's cloak that he wore over his habit, and because eminence is a title deferred upon cardinals.In 1627 the
friar assisted at the siege ofLa Rochelle . A purely religious reason also made him Richelieu's ally against theHabsburgs . He had a dream of arousing Europe to anothercrusade against the Turks, and believed that the house ofAustria was the obstacle to that universal European peace which would make this possible. As Richelieu's agent, therefore, this modernPeter the Hermit maneuvered at theDiet of Regensburg (1630) to thwart the aggression of the emperor, and then advised the intervention ofGustavus Adolphus , reconciling himself to the use of Protestant armies by the theory that one poison would counteract another.Thus the friar became a war minister, and, though maintaining a personal austerity of life, gave himself up to
diplomacy and politics. He died in 1638, just as the cardinalate was to be conferred upon him. The story that Richelieu visited him when on his deathbed and roused the dying man by the words, "Courage, Father Joseph, we have wonBreisach ," is apocryphal."
Grey Eminence " is also the title of a 1941 English language biography of Leclerc byAldous Huxley .External links
* [http://www.bartleby.com/65/jo/Joseph-F.html Article in "The Columbia Encyclopedia"]
References
*1911
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.