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Why did France enter direct war against the Habsburgs in 1635?

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Full-length portrait of Cardinal Richelieu by Philippe de Champaigne, showing him in red clerical robes holding a red book, standing beside a balustrade with a draped curtain behind. — Cardinal Richelieu As both statesman and churchman, Cardinal Richelieu was the acknowledged architect of France's greatness in the 17th century. In 1640, when this full-length portrait was painted (likely by Philippe de Champaigne), he was embroiled in a dispute with the pope and other religious controversies along with many other consequences of expanding French power across Europe. He would die two years later, facing conspiracies against his life and suffering ill health.

France entered into direct war against the Habsburgs in 1635 primarily to counter their political and economic encirclement of France, which threatened the nation's independence of action.12

Cardinal Richelieu, serving as the first minister to Louis XIII, viewed the restoration of the European balance of power as his central foreign policy objective. Throughout the early 1630s, Habsburg military successes and the expansion of their influence in border regions—such as the introduction of imperial garrisons into Lorraine—increasingly pressured France's interests.2

The immediate catalyst for direct intervention was the seizure by Spain in 1635 of the archbishop of Trier, who was under French protection. This act, combined with the broader strategic necessity of preventing the Habsburgs from consolidating control over France's client states, led France to align with Protestant powers and formally enter the Thirty Years’ War.2