He served his uncles of the Phélypeaux family, then more directly Louis XIII, as first clerk in the Foreign Affairs department from 1626 to 1632.

In 1633 and 1634, writing memoirs at Richelieu's request, he developed geopolitical thinking by analyzing the European diplomatic situation.

There, he enlarged his estate, enabling the seigneury to become a viscounty, and completed the “galerie des illustres” begun by his father.

[2] Paul II Ardier's mother's membership of the upwardly mobile Phélypeaux network was the key to his career.

[14] He took a full part in France's foreign policy, drafting dispatches, organizing the work of the office and proposing memoirs on specific issues.

[16] Under the presidency of Gaston d'Orléans, forty-five nobles, prelates and representatives of the sovereign courts met to find solutions to the deficit without creating new taxes.

[24] That same year, 1630, Louis XIII considered Ardier to succeed Charles Le Beauclerc as Secretary of State for War, but Richelieu had another candidate, Jean de Flesselles, who made the mistake of bragging too soon.

[26] In his Mémoire sur les affaires générales de la Chrestienté (April 1633), Ardier analyzes the situation in Europe at the time, in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, focusing on events concerning France.

In his view, it is “on the basis of the past and the present [that] one can judge the future according to what is appropriate for the good of the State”, which corresponds to the concept of historia magistra vitae,[27] which was very widespread at the time.

The end of the Grisons, allies of the King of France, in this valley, to the benefit of the Habsburgs, meant a decline in French influence.

[27] Ardier explains how France could restore its influence in Italy, by forming a league of Northern Italian states against the Habsburgs, which appears to have been a political goal of Louis XIII and Richelieu.

The aim would be to achieve reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants under the aegis of the French king, in order to put an end to Habsburg domination.

[31] In his Mémoire sur l'affaire des Grisons et de la Valteline (October 1634), Ardier takes up the elements already set out in the previous memoir.

He emphasizes the strategic importance of the Valtellina valley for the Habsburgs, since it enabled them to cross the Alps and join their various possessions, from Milan to the Holy Roman Empire.

He advocated action by the King of France to rescue the Grisons, his allies whose domination of Valtellina had been undermined, and restore the situation there to his advantage.

[32] Ardier does not theorize, and follows a completely pragmatic approach in his memoirs, which for Richelieu are supports for French foreign policy.

[37] In the same year, 1634, he was one of the financial backers of the fermiers généraux des gabelles of Thomas Bonneau's company, for the considerable sum of 40,000 livres.

In making these annuity loans, he engaged in financial activities that were less conspicuous and more highly regarded than those of his fatherCh 2.In 1650, at the age of 55, Ardier retired from all official functions, or almost.

Ardier's retirement may be linked to the second disgrace of his relative Léon Bouthillier, but it may also be explained by his desire to live nobly on his lands.

[44] Possession of Beauregard was essential to the Ardier family's strategy of social advancement: it contributed to the father's nobility and gave the son a title.

Paul II Ardier completed this “galerie des illustres” by adding some forty portraits of his contemporaries.

His entrails were buried in Cellettes,[1] while his body, like that of his parents and other family members, was interred in the convent of the Feuillants in the Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris.