[Sidenote: The Royal Army]
The royal prerogative extended not only to matters of taxation and
legislation, including the right to levy taxes and to make expenditures
for any purpose without public accounting, but it was preserved and
enforced by means of a large standing army, which received its pay and
its orders exclusively from the crown. To the royal might, as well as
to its right, Richelieu contributed. He energetically aided Louis XIII
in organizing and equipping what proved to be the best army in Europe.
Two factions in the state aroused the cardinal's ire--one the
Huguenots, and the other the nobles--for both threatened the autocracy
which he was bent upon erecting. Both factions suffered defeat and
humiliation at his hands.
Richelieu, though a cardinal of the Roman Church, was more politician
and statesman than ecclesiastic; though living in an age of religious
fanaticism, he was by no means a bigot. As we shall presently see, this
Catholic cardinal actually gave military support to Protestants in
Germany--for political purposes; it was similarly for political
purposes that he attacked the Protestants in France.
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