Richelieu is a classic yet fresh treatment of one of the most central figures in the making of modern Europe, and Belloc tells his story as only Belloc can. Not a sterile, overly footnoted academic dissection of secondary sources, Belloc’s Richelieu is a lively, engaging, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale of an intriguing and ultimately tragic personality. The book directly tackles the central problem of the Cardinal, painting a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the man while offering an objective critique of his policies: policies that did so much to make permanent the rift that split Christendom and which, thanks to Cardinal Richelieu’s efforts among other things, was never to be repaired.