Love Quote by Cardinal Richelieu

Egotism this naked is usually a confession; coming from Cardinal Richelieu, it reads more like a power move. “I was excellent” isn’t modest self-regard, it’s the theological-and-political version of a mic drop: excellence as proof of fitness to rule. As Louis XIII’s chief minister and the architect of a stronger French state, Richelieu lived in a world where legitimacy was constantly contested by nobles, foreign courts, and rival clerics. The line grabs authority by skipping the argument and asserting the verdict.

“Everybody loved me” is the slyer claim. Richelieu was famously feared and resented; to say he was loved is either deliberate irony or a Machiavellian reframing of obedience as affection. It’s the kind of statement that reveals how power wants to be perceived: not as coercion, but as consensus. The subtext is propaganda distilled to a single sentence.

“I love myself” doubles down on a trait early modern moralists condemned as pride, yet Richelieu presents it as rational self-knowledge. That pivot matters: he’s redefining virtue around effectiveness, not humility. A clergyman adopting the posture of a statesman signals the era’s uncomfortable marriage of altar and throne.

Then the kicker: “I like bums.” Whether “bums” means vagrants, the lowborn, or mere scoundrels, it’s a final flex of condescension disguised as magnanimity. He can afford to “like” the marginal because he’s untouchable. It’s charity as taste, not obligation - a reminder that in Richelieu’s France, even compassion could be a tool of hierarchy.