Grey Eminence
Preliminary Study, Based on Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics (1941) by Aldous Huxley, 50x36, charcoal, June 2017
A zealot speaks to God –
“If, in order to succour thee, I overturn the whole world, it is too little for my wishes;
To quench the fires of my ardour, I must drown me in a sea of blood.”
But this voice is not from some redoubt on the Afghan border.
It is a Christian voice. It is a western voice. It is a voice from the late Renaissance, of the time of Blaise Pascal, René Descartes and Johannes Keplar.
François Leclerc du Tremblay
Portrait engraving (Bibliothèque Nationale de France)
He was Francois Leclerc du Tremblay, otherwise known as Father Joseph of Paris, the Grey Eminence, a deeply pious man of extraordinary abilities, who became, in effect, Cardinal Richelieu’s minister for foreign affairs and spy-master under Louis XIII of France. He is, arguably, an historical archetype of the Dark Lord, for he counseled war; specifically, the prolongation of the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648). He was known in his own time as the harbinger of its consequences - slaughter, famine, cannibalism and pestilence on an enormous scale.
He was an ascetic monk of the Capuchin order of Franciscans, a practitioner, teacher, and proponent of “The Rule of Perfection” by Benet of Canfield, a sophisticated guide to spiritual attainment. This work provided the foundation for other, very different, spiritual luminaries of the Catholic Church in that time, such as St. Vincent de Paul. Aldous Huxley’s study provides a careful and subtle picture of the spiritual context in which Father Joseph lived.
Father Joseph’s moral downfall tragically derived from his great devotion. He wished above all to launch a new crusade to reclaim the Holy Land from the Muslim infidel (Father Joseph’s term). Before this could happen, however, Christendom must have a nation, France, to lead it properly in the light of God. Consequently, Father Joseph devoted himself to the greater glory of France. At this he was spectacularly successful. Although the crusade never materialized, France became the leader of Europe, at the expense of the Holy Roman Empire and a significant portion of the population of northern Europe.
Cardinal Richelieu and Father Joseph constituted a rare and powerful administrative team. It is part of the special resonance of this book that Huxley is able delineate the distinctions between the two, in terms of the historical impact of their actions and decisions (who did what) but more importantly in terms of their quite distinct characters and moral failings.
This fascinating historical study is perhaps more timely today than on its publication in 1941. It has been overshadowed both by events (WW II) and by Huxley’s other work. “Grey Eminence” was written almost twenty years before its companion volume, the better known “Devils of Loudon”, based on events in the same period. It has been largely forgotten, yet it its relevance today should not be overlooked, when religious fanaticism fuels terror, repression, and threatens democratic institutions.