Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (1584-1642), Chief Minister of France -1624-1642. An expert at Machiavellian Politics and intrigue... " I have made the King (Louis XIII) the most powerful monarch in Europe...while I am the most powerful man in France" Chooses Nationalism over religion during the Thirty Years War when he supported the Protestant factions over the Catholic Hapsburg Alliance. Thus were the major ideological wars of religion replaced by wars for the national interest. The Age of Enlightenment was at hand.
Louis XIII (1601-1643), King of France 1610-1643. A weak king under the constant influence of others, first his mother, Marie de Medici and later the powerful Cardinal- Richelieu.