Richelieu on the Dike of La Rochelle

This canvas by **Henri-Paul Motte**, painted in 1881 and exhibited at the Salon des artistes français that same year, depicts Cardinal **Richelieu**, clad in armour and cardinal's red, standing alone and impassive on the dike he had built in 1627-1628 to cut off **La Rochelle** from any English maritime relief. A work of nineteenth-century history painting rather than a contemporary record, it did much to shape the popular image of the cardinal as an inflexible minister, mastering by sheer will an engineering feat of unprecedented scale in the face of the enemy. Held at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in La Rochelle, it remains one of the most reproduced depictions of the siege.