The Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz

A quarter century after his participation in the mid-seventeenth-century Fronde rebellion, the cardinal de Retz undertook the writing of his memoirs, recalling the days when he - then coadjutor-archbishop of Paris - blended ecclesiastical duties with the concerns of an ambitions Frondeur chef de parti. Retz several times slowed his narrative to elaborate on certain events which he helped to shape in attempting to "serve the best interests of the monarchy." The memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz evokes the historical context of these passages, along with an examination of certain narrative procedures Retz employed.