woman hurried up from, Poitou, would presently
have died. The question of his survival once
happily settled, the parents decided to fulfil an
expensive social duty by offering, on the occasion
of the christening, a spectacular entertainment to
the King and Court. The street from their house
to the Church of St. Eustache was decorated with
triumphal arches, and the elder Richelieu children,
toddlers in petticoats of velvet and gold, strewed
fresh roses before the distinguished guests; at the
banquet afterwards a streamer over the infant's
brocaded cot confronted the royal party with the
motto Regi Armandus, "Armand for the King."
Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu was thus
officially dedicated in his cradle to the service of
the Crown.

François du Plessis was thirty-seven when his
third son was born. He died five years later, worn
out by the exacting responsibilities of a soldier's life
in time of civil war. His widow, left with five young
children and heavy debts, withdrew to the family
château to bring up her children under the censorius
eye of her mother-in-law. The elder Madame de
Richelieu reckoned the value of human beings in
the quarterings of their coats of arms. Her code
of conduct was strictly baronial; she had compel-
led her son, when he was still a young man, to
jeopardise his career by killing in a duel someone
against whom her noble family had a grudge,
and why she had countenanced his marriage to
the lawyer's daughter, Suzanne de la Porte, is

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