La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot—Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France

Historian McShea (Apostles of Empire) paints a fine-grained portrait of Cardinal Richelieu’s niece and protégé, Marie de Vignerot (1604–1675). Married at age 16 to a military officer “she barely knew and did not love,” Marie was widowed at 18 and gained “a degree of independence rare for a woman so young.” She initially sought to join a convent of cloistered nuns in Paris, but was dissuaded by her uncle, who was well on his way to becoming one of France’s most feared and powerful men. Drawing on Marie’s letters and other primary sources, McShea portrays a softer, more caring side of Richelieu than most accounts, noting that he encouraged his “self-punishing” niece to grow “more comfortable with an ordinary, worldly life,” and that he “instructed her on how to behave in courtly company.” Before his death in 1642, Richelieu made Marie his “major heiress and administrator of his staggering fortune,” and McShea highlights how the duchess’s religious devotion informed her patronage, including her support for Saint Vincent de Paul and his “intensive service to the poor,” her promotion of women writers and historical accounts of female Catholic saints, and her nurturing of Richelieu’s legacy. Well-researched and accessible, this is an enlightening look at a remarkable woman and a pivotal period in French history. (Mar.)