PEER OF PRINCES

PEER OF PRINCES: Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu's Forgotten Protégé is a fascinating, meticulously researched narrative biography that chronicles a unique and consequential life that has been relegated to the shadows of history but now is vibrantly illuminated in all its glory and complexity.

Richelieu served as Chief Minister to King Louis XIII in the 17th century as France was consolidating its supremacy as an unrivaled world power; he commanded authority over military, political, economic and social policy in this growing empire and in the process accumulated a vast fortune. Against all convention, he chose his niece Marie de Vignerot to be his protégé and heir. Passing over her brothers and other promising young men, he groomed her to be his eyes and ears in court and encouraged her to develop a powerful and valuable network in and out of court. As his high-ranking lady-in-waiting, she spied for Richelieu among the nobles and influenced his decisions regarding who to favor with appointments and funding. Richelieu saw that Marie had the intellect, fortitude and strategic brilliance to carry on his work. She did not disappoint. Astutely deploying the influence of her massive inheritance and her connections, she was one of the most formidable players in world affairs, wielding power with a wily and assured touch and also using her clout to establish hospitals, schools and other key institutions to help the poor, and to support the artists and writers who were forging a golden age, all while fending off vicious attempts at character assassination intended to dispose the force of her non-royal reign.
This is the kind of narrative history that readers are hungry for - the life of an amazing woman in an epochal era vividly portrayed, who, if she had been born a man, would be ensconced in our historical memory, but now needs to claim her rightful place - which she will do with this book.

Bronwen McShea is the perfect person to tell this remarkable story. She is an Associate Research Scholar of Princeton University's James Madison Program, has taught at Columbia University and the University of Nebraska, and held research positions with the Institute of European History in Mainz, Germany, and Harvard University's Center for the Study of World Religions and won awards for her work. She completed both her B.A. in Intellectual History and her M.T.S. in the History of Christianity at Harvard University and earned her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History at Yale University.