When he was eighteen, he wrote Conjuration de Fiesque, a little historical essay, influenced by the Italian of Agostino Mascardi, and audaciously insinuating revolutionary principles.

Gilles de Rais, a Laval and comrade in arms of Joan of Arc, was executed without an heir, so the barony passed successively to the families of Tournemine, Annebaut and Gondi.

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.

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.

In 1662, Louis XIV received him back into favor, and asked him to formally serve as envoy to Rome several times.

They are addressed in the form of narrative to a lady who is not known, though guesses have been made at her identity, some even suggesting Madame de Sévigné herself.

Besides these memoirs and the youthful essay of the Conjuration de Fiesque, Retz has left diplomatic papers, sermons, Mazarinades and correspondence.

[3] Retz and François de La Rochefoucauld, the greatest of the Frondeurs in literary genius, were personal and political enemies, and each left a portrait of the other.

[3] Perhaps his most famous quotation with respect to modern culture was from Vol 2. of his Memoirs,[5] discussing the unrest in the day, with a philosophical reflection,"Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif..." (There is nothing in the world that does not have its decisive moment...) The full translated passage goes on: "It seemed that everyone was surprised and intoxicated by the smoke of the grape harvest; and you will see scenes at the cost of which the past has been nothing but greenery and pastures.

Henri Cartier-Bresson used this passage as the keynote to his classic work "Images à la Sauvette" which was renamed in English "The Decisive Moment."