Question 6 - Richilieu

Dumas seems to portray the Cardinal as a villian. Can his acts be justified so that he is portrayed as a hero instead? Did he have good intentions behind his actions?

An interesting question. I'll have to give it thought as I reread Musketeers. I was thinking about Richilieu last night when I was watching Cardinal Wolsey on The Tudors.

#2;
I have read many a book and watched many a movie on Henry VIII and on "The Tudors" is the first time he has made me pant and need to change my underwear!~!

I thought Dumas' portrayal was of a selfish, ambitious, worldly and not at all pious man, which pretty much accords with my impression of the historial Richelieu, though I don't know much about him (or this era). I can't see that he can be viewed as a hero, or as having good intentions (other than for his own advancement), but I do think that Dumas' depicition was somewhat ambiguous, or perhaps just more rounded; he was not entirely evil, just determined to have his own way without any concern for people who were in his path.

I am not sure that he could be portrayed as a hero, but I did not really find him to be a villain either. I guess there was some indication that Milady had some sort of hold on him which he was glad to be free of. He seemed to like the Musketeers and he promoted D'Aragnan. I had thought from seeing a small part of the movie that he would be all bad, but I did not find him so in the book. And I noticed it early on.
--BJ

The thing I picked up on was that the King had no interest whatsoever in governance and that Richelieu did. However self-interested, he stepped into a void that someone else left open for him. He probably wasn't significantly worse ethically than anyone else of that time (or ours) would have been and he was probably better tactically.

#6 Agreed. I think the King needed Richelieu otherwise nothing except hunting and sport would have got done!

I think the main way Dumas portrays Richelieu as a villain is with regards to his relationship with Anne of Austria. We (the readers) are supposed to be on Anne's side as the musketeers are so we see him as a villain because he opposes her. In this respect Richelieu is certainly not very chivalrous.

If I take into consideration the prejudice of the Musketeers, I can see where sme of his actions can be interpreted in a totally different way. So I could see some of his actions as heroic.

I thought I'd take a poll, see the OP.