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Maximilien de Bethune, duc de Sully (1559-1641). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922

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Maximilien de Bethune, duc de Sully (1559-1641). The Reader's Biographical Encyclopaedia. 1922 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Hugh Chisholm, et al., eds.  The Reader’s Biographical Encyclopædia.  1922.
17,000 Articles from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th & 12th eds. Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (1559–1641) By Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes (1882–1964) French statesman, born at the château of Rosny near Mantes, on the 13th of December, of a noble family of Flemish descent. His father, François de Béthune, baron de Rosny (1532–1575), was the son of Jean de Béthune, to whom in 1529 his wife Anne de Melun brought as part of her dowry a seigneurie at Rosny-sur-Seine, which later (1601) was made a marquisate. Brought up in the Reformed faith, Maximilien was presented to Henry of Navarre in 1571 and was thenceforth attached to the future king of France. The young baron de Rosny was taken to Paris by his patron and was studying at the college of Bourgogne at the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, from which he escaped by discreetly carrying a book of hours under his arm. He then studied mathematics and history at the court of Henry of Navarre, and on the outbreak of civil war in 1575 he enlisted in the Protestant army. In 1576 he accompanied the duke of Anjou on an expedition into the Netherlands in order to regain the former Rosny estates, but being unsuccessful he attached himself for a time to the prince of Orange. Later rejoining Henry of Navarre in Guienne, he displayed bravery in the field and particular ability as an engineer. In 1583 he was Henry’s special agent in Paris. In 1584 he married Anne de Courtenay, a wealthy heiress, who died, however, in 1589. On the renewal of civil war Rosny again joined Henry of Navarre, and at the battle of Ivry (1590) was seriously wounded. He counselled Henry IV.’s conversion to Roman Catholicism, but steadfastly refused himself to become a Roman Catholic. As soon as Henry’s power was established, the faithful and trusted Rosny received his reward in the shape of numerous estates and dignities. On the death of D’O, the superintendent of finances, in 1594, the king had appointed a finance commission of nine members, to which he added Rosny in 1596. The latter at once made a tour of inspection through the generalities, and introduced some order into the country’s affairs. He was probably made sole superintendent of finances in 1598, although this title does not appear in official documents until the close of 1601. He authorized the free exportation of grain and wine, reduced legal interest from 81/3 to 61/4%, established a special court for the trial of cases of peculation, forbade provincial governors to raise money on their own authority, and otherwise removed many abuses of tax-collecting, abolished several offices, and by his honest, rigorous conduct of the country’s finances was able to save between 1600 and 1610 an average of a million livres a year. His achievements were by no means solely financial. In 1599 he was appointed grand commissioner of highways and public works, superintendent of fortifications and grand master of artillery; in 1602 governor of Mantes and of Jargeau, captain-general of the queen’s gens d’armes and governor of the Bastille; in 1604 governor of Poitou; and in 1606 duke and peer of Sully, ranking next to princes of the blood. He declined the office of constable because he would not become a Roman Catholic. Sully encouraged agriculture, urged the free circulation of produce, promoted stock-raising, forbade the destruction of the forests, drained swamps, built roads and bridges, planned a vast system of canals and actually began the canal of Briare. He strengthened the French military establishment; under his direction Évrard began the construction of a great line of defences on the frontiers. Sully opposed the king’s colonial policy as inconsistent with the French genius, and likewise showed little favour to industrial pursuits, although on the urgent solicitation of the king he established a few silk factories. He fought in company with Henry IV. in Savoy (1600–1601) and negotiated the treaty of peace in 1602; in 1603 he represented Henry at the court of James I. of England; and throughout the reign he helped the king to put down insurrections of the nobles, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. It was Sully, too, who arranged the marriage between Henry IV. and Marie de’ Medici.

1   The political rôle of Sully practically ended with the assassination of Henry IV. on the 14th of May 1610. Although a member of the council of regency, his colleagues were not disposed to brook his domineering leadership, and after a stormy debate he resigned as superintendent of finances on the 26th of January 1611, and retired to private life. The queen-mother gave him 300,000 livres for his services and confirmed him in possession of his estates. He attended the estates-general in 1614, and on the whole was in sympathy with the policy and government of Richelieu. He disavowed the plots at La Rochelle, in 1621, but in the following year was arrested at Moulins, though soon released. The bâton of marshal of France was conferred on him on the 18th of September 1634. The last years of his life were spent chiefly at Villebon, Rosny and Sully. He died at Villebon, on the 22nd of December 1641. By his first wife Sully had one son, Maximilien, marquis de Rosny (1587–1634), who led a life of dissipation and debauchery. By his second wife, Rachel de Cochefilet, widow of the lord of Châteaupers, whom he married in 1592 and who turned Protestant to please him, he had nine children, of whom six died young, and one daughter married in 1605 Henri de Rohan.

2   Sully was not popular. He was hated by most Roman Catholics because he was a Protestant, by most Protestants because he was faithful to the king, and by all because he was a favourite, and selfish, obstinate and rude. He amassed a large personal fortune, and his jealousy of all other ministers and favourites was extravagant. Nevertheless he was an excellent man of business, inexorable in punishing malversation and dishonesty on the part of others, and opposed to the ruinous court expenditure which was the bane of almost all European monarchies in his day. He was gifted with executive ability, with confidence and resolution, with fondness for work, and above all with deep devotion to his master. He was implicitly trusted by Henry IV. and proved himself the most able assistant of the king in dispelling the chaos into which the religious and civil wars had plunged France. To Sully, next to Henry IV., belongs the credit for the happy transformation in France between 1598 and 1610 by which agriculture and commerce were benefited and foreign peace and internal order were maintained.

3   Sully left a curious collection of memoirs written in the second person and bearing the quaint title, Mémoires des sages et royales œconomies d’estat, domestiques, politiques, et militaires de Henry le Grand, l’exemplaire des roys, le prince des vertus, des armes, et des loix, et le père en effet de ses peuples françois; et des servitudes utiles, obissances convenables, et administrations loyales de Maxim. de Béthune, l’un des plus confidens, familiers, et utiles soldats et serviteurs du grand Mars des François: dédiées à la France, à tous les bons soldats, et tons peuples françois. The memoirs are very valuable for the history of the time and as an autobiography of Sully, in spite of the fact that they contain many fictions, such as a mission undertaken by Sully to Queen Elizabeth in 1601, and the famous “Grand Design,” a plan for a Christian republic, which some historians have taken seriously. Two folio volumes of the memoirs were splendidly printed, nominally at Amsterdam, but really under Sully’s own eye, at his château in 1638; two other volumes appeared posthumously in Paris in 1662. The abbé de l’Écluse rewrote the memoirs in ordinary narrative form and edited them in 1745. The best edition of the original is that in J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, Nouvelle collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France (1854), vols. xvi.–xvii. An English translation by Charlotte Lennox appeared in 1756 and was later revised and republished (4 vols., London, 1856).

4   See E. Lavisse, Sully (Paris, 1880); L. Dussieux, Étude biographique sur Sully (Paris, 1887); G. Fagniez, Économie sociale de la France sous Henri IV. (Paris, 1897); B. L. H. Martin, Trois grands ministres, Sully, Richelieu et Colbert (Paris, 1898); E. Lavisse, ed. Histoire de France (Paris, 1905), vol. vi.; P. Robiquet, Histoire municipale de Paris, vol. iii. Histoire de Henri IV. (Paris, 1904); E. Bonnal, L’Économie politique au XVIe siècle: Sully économiste (Paris, 1872); J. Gourdault, Sully et son temps (Tours, 1873); T. Kükelhaus, Der Ursprung des Planes vom ewigen Frieden in den Memoiren des Herzogs von Sully (Berlin, 1892); C. Pfister, “Les ‘Œconomies royales’ de Sully et le grand dessein de Henri IV.” in Revue historique (1894), vols. liv.–lvi.; Desclozeaux, “Gabrielle d’Estrées et Sully” in Revue historique (1887), vol. xxxiii.

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