Francois de la Rochefoucauld, was an infamous aristocrat who was always scheming, seducing, and fighting. He was equally infamous as a philosopher, a forerunner to Nietzsche with a cynical wit. In this episode, we explore is adventurous life, his dangerous philosophy, and what we can learn from both. 00:00 What is a philosopher? 02:00 A Life of Action and Intrigue 03:00 Introduction 05:03 Early Life and Aristocratic Background 05:40 Political Intrigues and Rebellions 10:15 The Fronde and Its Aftermath 19:00 Literary Achievements and Maxims 22:00 Friendship, Love, and True Virtue 24:00 Strengths, Weaknesses, and Self-Honesty 35:00 Final Thoughts and Reflections ----- Sponsors: Gains In Bulk - Use code Ben for 20% off Austin Lab by Shokworks Speechify - Use code Ben for 15% Speechify Premium
Chapter 1: What is a philosopher?
I want you to think of a philosopher, a generic philosopher, okay? Picture what a philosopher looks like in your mind. What does he look like? How does he act? He's probably old, balding, or at least a little gray, maybe a bit stooped. Perhaps he's a bit more professorial, bearded with glasses and a long nose. And in your mind, what's he doing, this philosopher? He's sitting at a desk, right?
Either reading or writing. Perhaps if you imagined a Greek philosopher, maybe he's sitting on a rock speaking with a crowd of other philosophers. But when we think of philosophy and wisdom and learning, this is what we think of, bald heads and quiet contemplation.
Chapter 2: What adventures did Francois de la Rochefoucauld have?
Which is why I want to talk about someone you've never heard of, Francois de la Rochefoucauld, a famous French writer and philosopher who lived in the 1600s. And that's because Rochefoucauld was not only a man of letters, but a man of action as well.
This is someone who wrote one of the great works of the Western canon, but also literally kidnapped the Queen of France and smuggled her out of the country. His writing and his wit made him the star of the literary salons of Paris, but he also killed people as a cavalryman and was himself both shot and stabbed in battle.
And I think his dual nature is demonstrated quite well by comparing a history that he wrote with what actually happened. He wrote a history of a civil war in which he was involved. And the history is, you know, what you would expect. Serious, solemn, dry, stately.
Chapter 3: What were the political intrigues during Rochefoucauld's time?
One biographer of Rochefoucauld writes that, "...no one would suspect that the historian who affects the gravity of Tacitus was acting all through the events he describes with the levity of a full-blooded and unscrupulous schoolboy." The most amazing instance of this is his grotesque attempt to have his enemy, Cardinal de Retz, murdered at the Palais de Justice.
In the course of a sort of romping fray, he caught Retz's head between the flaps of a folding door and shouted to his friend calling me to come and stab him from behind, but he himself was shoved away and the Cardinal released. La Rochefoucauld admits the escapade without any sign of embarrassment, merely observing that Retz would have done as much by him if he had only had the chance.
Okay, so this philosopher is at least in his early years a sort of brawling gangster who tries to carry out mob hits on his enemies. This is a man who in his lifetime tried multiple times to overthrow the government of France and nearly succeeded. He carried on multiple affairs with extremely high-ranking women. He was an experienced cavalryman.
He's constantly smuggling people in and out of France in these intricate plots that resemble a heist movie. He just lived this wild, interesting, colorful life and used that rich life as the basis for his later career as a philosopher and man of letters.
He was a great soldier, schemer, and courtier, but also a truly great writer, and it is his writing that forms the greatest part of his legacy today. His book Maxims is a series of 504 short aphorisms about people, the way we are, what we do, and why we do it all.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Fronde?
It's one of the great works in the French language and served as a major inspiration to many other philosophers, most notably Friedrich Nietzsche, who used it as a source extensively. So today we are talking about the life of Francois de La Rochefoucauld, both what we can learn from his wild and interesting life, and what we can learn from the philosophy that was born from it.
Welcome to How to Take Over the World.
I'm going to show you how great I am. This was our tiny tower. I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to To absolutely nobody!
Hello, and welcome to How to Take Over the World. This is Ben Wilson. I don't have a long introduction for you today. I'll just say that this episode is based on the excellent work, the Delphi Complete Works of Francois de la Rochefoucauld, which includes translations of all Rochefoucauld's works, including his memoirs, as well as a few 19th century biographies of the man.
And look, if you're listening to this, you're a real fan. I appreciate you. You saw an episode about a guy you've never heard of with a long, complicated name, and you still press play because you trust me. And so I just want to say thank you. I see you. I appreciate you. You're the real fans. And I think you'll be well rewarded for your trust. So, you know, hang in there.
This is going to be an unfamiliar story for the vast majority of people listening, but I think that you're going to get some really great takeaways. I got some really great takeaways and I learned a ton from this. So with that said, let's get into it. This is the life of Francois de la Rochefoucauld. But first, a word from our sponsor, Gains in Bulk.
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Again, that is gainsinbulk.com and use code BEN. Okay, so Francois is born in the early 1600s, 1613 to be exact, into one of the most aristocratic families in all of France. They have like a perfect aristocratic record. They have dukes going way back, extensive land holdings, great reputation. Yeah, they're really well known and very aristocratic.
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Chapter 5: What are Rochefoucauld's literary contributions?
Their dukedom, their territory is in Aquitaine in southwestern France. So he's born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but also metaphorically with a dagger in his left hand. He gets a typical aristocratic education, which at the time means more manners and military training than literature and mathematics. But as soon as he comes of age, he begins intriguing against the French government.
And the cause of this is that the government of France was rapidly changing. So this is the 1600s, and Europe is rapidly coming out of feudalism and really into modernity, into the age of centralized nation-states. The reason for this is gunpowder. Firearms were rapidly replacing knights on horseback as the dominant technology on the battlefield. And as a result, France is changing as well.
France had always been a monarchy, at least going back nearly a thousand years, but it had always been a relatively weak monarchy where the nobility was really in charge. And that's because the nobility were the ones who could field these knights and heavily armed men-at-arms to fight in wars.
Chapter 6: How did Rochefoucauld view friendship and virtue?
So you had all these dukes and marquises and counts who were quite independent and not only influenced the king, but dominated the king oftentimes. In her biography of Rochefoucauld, Mary Shelley writes, in those days, nobles did not plot to become favorites of the king, but rather to rule over him. And that's often the case in kind of this time period in France.
But everything is moving in a completely different direction towards centralized states with large standing armies directly controlled by that state and away from feudal arrangements. Because, you know, if you can field a really large army with a lot of men with muskets, then that's going to be able to beat these armies with knights and men at arms that were kind of the old model.
Chapter 7: What insights can we gain from Rochefoucauld's life?
So the man who is dragging France into modernity, kicking and screaming, is a man known as Cardinal Richelieu. You might have heard of him. He is the bad guy in The Three Musketeers. And so the nobility really hate Richelieu, who was in fact a very intelligent and discerning man who did a lot to modernize France. So the nobility are constantly trying to block and challenge and overthrow him.
And Rochefoucault joins in these intrigues the second he is able to. As soon as he comes of age, he starts. And especially early on, these intrigues are sort of flailing and hopeless. Rochefoucault is thrown into prison at the Bastille for eight days. But the thing you have to know about this guy is that he is a classic swashbuckler, right?
He's daring, he's brave, he's extremely capable, he's handsome, he's intelligent, he's charming. And so even his greatest enemy in later life, in writing a description of him, starts out by saying, quote, there has always been a certain je ne sais quoi in Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld.
And he ends by saying, he might well have passed for the most polished courtier and the finest gentleman in private life, which this age has produced. And the guy who writes this of Rochefoucauld, his name is de Retz. And this is the guy who I mentioned at the beginning that Rochefoucauld kind of shuts him in a door and tries to have someone stab him from behind.
Okay, so Rochefoucauld is so charming and talented that even his enemies, who he has tried to like personally hand-to-hand assassinate, cannot fully resist his charms. So Richelieu, who Rochefoucauld plots against, lets him out of the Bastille after only eight days, and he tries to convert him to the royalist side.
He recognizes this is a talented and potent young man, and he wants to involve him in the future administration of France. And he's basically telling him, hey, don't throw your life away. Stop plotting against me. Come on our side. This is the direction France is going, and you should be involved in it. We'd love to have you involved in it. One of the main people who he plots with
is Anne of Austria, the king's own wife. In fact, Rochefoucauld steals her away from the court because she is in opposition to her husband on a number of different matters and is very much friendly with the old nobility like Rochefoucauld is. He writes of this kind of adventure.
He says, however difficult and perilous this adventure might seem to me, I may say that never in all my life have I enjoyed anything so much.
I was at an age, 24, at which one loves to do extravagant and startling things, and I felt that nothing could be more startling and more extravagant than to snatch at the same time the queen from the king, her husband, and from the cardinal de Richelieu, who was so jealous. OK, like what? What an amazing adventure. You know, he literally he kind of she so she's on his side.
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Chapter 8: What are the final reflections on Rochefoucauld's philosophy?
There is, however, one brief moment when it looks like he might be successful. Richelieu dies and the nobles begin to fancy that, hey, maybe this is our opportunity to restore our power and return things to the way they were before. But an important rule for those of you who are trying to take over the world, things never go back to the way they were, right?
Like things might swing back in your direction in some way, but they can never be just the way they were before. So if you've been listening to How to Take Over the World for a while, you know how important it is to have the best team around you. Great, great performers can give 100 or 1,000x returns on your investment.
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Again, that is Austin, as in the city Austin, Texas, austinlab.ai, and let them know that I sent you. And the problem with trying to make things the way they were before is that the way Cardinal Richelieu did things really works. And so his systems outlive him. Rochefoucauld writes about it this way. This is what he finds in Paris when he arrives after Richelieu's death.
Quote, I arrived at court and found it as submissive to his will after his death as during his life. His relations and his creatures continued to enjoy all the advantages they had gained through him.
and by a turn of fortune of which there are few examples the king who hated him and desired his fall was obliged not only to conceal his sentiments but even to authorize the disposition made by the cardinal in his will of the principal employments and most important places in his kingdom
Most painfully for Rochefoucauld, it's not only the king, but Queen Anne herself, who is now, by and large, in charge. You know, this is his old partner in crime who he's tried to, you know, whisk out of the country. She also goes along with this new regime kind of inspired by Richelieu and the way he was doing things. So her two sons are still too young to rule.
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