Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully

Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully (December 13, 1560 – December 22, 1641) was the doughty soldier, French minister, staunch Protestant and faithful right-hand man who enabled Henry IV of France to accomplish so much.

Legacy

Sully left a collection of memoirs written in the second person very valuable for the history of the time and as an autobiography, in spite of the fact that they contain many fictions, such as a mission undertaken by Sully to Queen Elizabeth in 1601. Perhaps among his most famous works was the idea of a Europe comprised of 15 roughly equal States, under the direction of a "Very Christian Council of Europe", charged with resolving differences and disposing of a common army. This famous "Grand Design," a Utopian plan for a Christian republic, is often cited as one of the first grand plans and ancestors for the European Union. Two folio volumes of the memoirs were splendidly printed, nominally at Amsterdam, but really under Sully's own eye, at his chateau in 1638; two other volumes appeared posthumously in Paris in 1662.

Related Topics:
Memoir - Autobiography - Utopia - European Union

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