3eminence grise is an expression appointing an influencing adviser who remains in the shade of a political personality or other.

This expression was for the first time employed for Joseph François Leclerc of Tremblay says also the Père Joseph (1577 - 1638) to advise occult Richelieu, Prime Minister of Louis XIII. Because he was capuchin, he carried a gray frieze , because he was created cardinal little before his death, and that it was considered as powerful as Richelieu, he was entitled to the title of eminence . He played a determining role in the last phase of the Guerre Thirty Year old, in particular by the intervention of Sweden which he caused.

Several politicians in the history were thus qualified because they exerted considerable responsibilities in the shade for a statesman: colonel House near President Woodrow Wilson, Harry Hopkins near President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jean Garden near Pierre Laval, Marie-France Garaud and Pierre July near Georges Pompidou, then of Jacques Chirac, Alexandr Iakovlev at Mikhaïl Gorbatchev.

At the 15th century, Tanneguy of Châtel, adviser of Charles VII had this role.

At the 18th century, Madam de Pompadour could have had this role with respect to Louis XV if it had remained in the shade.

Most famous of them, at the time contemporary, was certainly Henry Kissinger, adviser of President Richard Nixon, which made it leave the shade by appointing it Secretary of State in 1973.

The 3eminence grise is distinguished from a usual adviser by the influence which he exerts largely beyond his official responsibilities. It is for example:

• St John Philby which negotiates, in the name of Ibn-Séoud, the border between the Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1936/37,
• Jean Jardin which establishes the first contacts with the government of Algiers and the Americans with the agreement of Pierre Laval into 1942/43,
• Harry Hopkins which encourages Roosevelt with a policy of intransigence with respect to Reich to lead to the entry in war of the United States in 1941,
• Egon Bahr which carries out the Ostpolitik of the Chancellor Willy Brandt into 1969/74,
• Marie-France Garaud which obtains the departure of the Prime Minister of President Georges Pompidou, Jacques Chaban-Delmas in 1972,
• Henry Kissinger which carries out beginning with the end the bringing together between the China and the the United States into 1970/71,
• Alexandr Iakovlev which makes become aware with Mikhaïl Gorbatchev of the bankruptcy of the Soviet system into 1986/89 and of the need for the German reunification in 1989.

Sometimes the ambition, or the extreme mediatization of the capacity at the time contemporary, makes leave the 3eminence grise the shade, not always successfully. Thus Henry Kissinger knew the brilliant career which one knows, but Garaud Marie-France could not use its notoriety or its know-how to start a political career.

Generally, the vocation of these characters is to remain in the shade.

See too

• Spin doctor