Richelieu's life. Even after the minister's death, though he was presented to Louis XIII and well received, he found difficulty in attaining the co-adjutorship with reversion of the archbishopric of Paris. But almost immediately after the king's death, Anne of Austria appointed him to the coveted post on All Saints Eve, 1643. Retz, who had, according to some accounts, already plotted against Richelieu, set himself to work to make the utmost political capital out of his position. His uncle had lived in great seclusion; Retz, on the contrary, gradually acquired a very great influence with the populace of the city. This influence he gradually turned against Cardinal Mazarin, which helped lead to the outbreak of the Fronde in October 1648. Of the two parties who joined the Fronde, Retz could only depend on the bourgeoisie of Paris. He had some speculative tendencies in favour of popular liberties, and even perhaps of republicanism, but represented no real political principle, which inevitably weakened his position. When the breakup of the Fronde came he was left in the lurch, having more than once been in no small danger from his own party. However, because of a misapprehension on the part of Pope Innocent X, he had been made cardinal. In 1652, he was arrested and imprisoned, first at Vincennes, then at Nantes; he escaped after two years, and traveled through Europe. He went to Rome more than once, and helped elect Pope Alexander VII. In 1662, Louis XIV received him back into favor, and asked him to formally serve as envoy to Rome several times. For this reconciliation to occur, he resigned his claims to the archbishopric of Paris. He was appointed abbot of St-Denis, and restored to his other benefices with the payment of arrears. Later life The last seventeen years of Retz's life were passed partly in his diplomatic duties (he was again in Rome at the papal conclaves of 1667 and 1669), partly in Paris, partly at his estate of Cornmercy, but mostly at Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine. His debts were enormous, and in 1675 he made over to his creditors all his income except twenty thousand livres. He died at Paris on 24 August 1679. During these last years he corresponded with Madame de Sévigné, a relative by marriage. Writings During the last ten years of his life, Retz wrote his Memoirs, which go up to the year 1655. They