COLBE'RT, JEAN BAPTISTE, born in 1619, at Rheims, was brought up to business. He was first employed at Lyon, in a com mercial house, and afterwards went to Paris, where he was introduced, about 1618, to Mazarin, who employed him first as an amanuensis, but afterwards made him intendant or steward of his vast fortune. Mazarin appointed him his executor on his death-bed in 1661, and recommended him to the king as a man deserving all his confidence. Louis XIV., on appointing Colbert contrdleur-general des finances, had many conferences with him, which led to the dismissal and imprison ment of Fouquet, the superintendent of the finances, who had assisted in dilapidating the resources of the state to nerve the cupidity of Mazarin. On the trial there was a manifest anxiety on the part of the court and of Colbert to have Fouquet condemned to death, but D'Ormesson, one of the reporting judges, stood firm ; he found much abuse and maladministration, but no proof of peculation. Fouquet was condemned to banishment, and his property was confiscated. Louis XIV. aggravated this sentence into imprisonment for life in the citadel of I'igneroL Colbert advised the king to form a chamber of justice for the liqui dation of the debts of the state. The finances were in a ruinous condition ; out of eighty-four millions which the people paid the treasury received only thirty-two. The farmers of the revenue had iu their hands all the resources of the kingdom; it was calculated that during the last five years they had appropriated to themselves eighty millions. They ware now called to a severe account; and all the forms of inquisitorial process, torture not excluded, were employed to convict them. The result was that Colbert recovered for the king the sources of the public revenue, and reduced the debts of the state by an arbitrary composition, which was in fact a real bankruptcy. Having got rid of the burdens, he next applied himself to simplify and im prove the collection of the revenue. He reduced by two.fifths the tallies, or land and income tax, which was unequally distributed, owing to the exemptions of the privileged classes. Finding this tax unmanageable, Colbert preferred reducing it, to make it. weigh less heavily on the poorer classes. He founded his chief dependence on indirect taxation, or taxes upon consumption, which he raised not less than ten-fold. Besides the octroi, or barrier duty on provisions, of which he appropriated one half to the treasury, and the aides or excise duties on wino and spirits, he imposed a stamp duty upon paper used in commercial and judicial proceedings, a stamp on plate, a duty on paper, a licence duty, and he established the monopoly of tobacco, &c. He also made a new and minute tariff for the custom duties. At his death (1683) the regular revenue of France was 116 millions of livres, of which 23 millions were absorbed by the charges of collection and administration, and the recites or annuities due by the state, leaving 92 millions of net receipt, instead of 32, which he had found when entering office twenty-two years before. (Lemontey, 'Pieces Justificatives.') One-half only of this increase was obtained through additional taxation ; the other half was.the result of better order and economy. Colbert however had to deal with a sovereign, absolute, young, fond of pleasure, of pomp, and of war, seconded by an ambitious and unprincipled minister, Louvois. In the latter years of his administration, Colbert was therefore obliged, despite of his often-expressed aversion to loans, to have recourse to ruinous loans, an increase of the oppressive tailles, the sale of offices and honours, and other extraordinary or war expedients. This took
place during the second war of Louis XIV., which began in 1672, and ended by the peace of Nimeguen, 1678-79.
Colbert's moat strenuous and effective efforts were directed to the encouragement of commerce and manufactures. To accomplish his object, he adopted the only means known at that time, perhaps the only means practicable in his situation, and under such a government as that of Louis XIV., privileges, patents, monopolies, bounties, and honours. He is generally looked upon as the inventor, or at least the great propagator, of the system of the balance of trade. He made numerous regulations to as it was then called, the various branches of national industry. He also forbade the exportation of corn with the view of insuring plenty, but the result was that culti vation declined, and France suffered several severe dearths under his administration. He is accused of having sacrificed agriculture to manufactures, but in fact his principles were erroneous with regard to both. One merchant, more enlightened than the rest, being con sulted by him on the best means of favouring commerce, answered him, "Laissez faire et laissez passer," "let us alone, leave us free and uncontrolled in our transactione, and let goods pass freely,"—advice which Colbert did not understand. In the subsequent century there rose in France another school, opposite to his, which saw in agricul ture alone the real wealth of a etate : these men were called " econo tnistes." Mengotti, in his sensible treatise Colbertismo,' has explained the principles and exposed the errors of both. But what ever may be thought of Colbert's measures, he certainly succeeded in giving a great impulse to French industry ; he roused and directed the national mind towards a new and useful exercise of its faculties : the history of French manufactures may be said to begin with Colbert. Woollens, silk, glass, pottery, leather, and iron manufactures, were either created by him, or greatly enlarged and improved. He founded Quebeo and Cayenne, made new settlements in India and on the coast of Africa, and favoured the colonies of Martinique and St. Domingo. He chartered privileged companies for the East and West Indies. lie turned his attention to internal communications, restored the old roads, constructed new ones, planned and effected the great canal of Languedoc, and projected another in Burgundy. He also established a free port at Maraeille, eent consuls to the Levant, and thus secured to France a considerable part of that valuable trade. He bought Dunkerque and Mardyk, on the coast of Flanders, from Charles II. of England for the sum of five millions of livres (1662). He also founded the dockyards of Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort. When he was made minister of marine, in 1669, in addition to the other departments he held, France had only a few old ships of war rotting in the harbours. Colbert purchased new ones abroad, constructed others at home, and in 1672 France had sixty ships of the lino and forty frigates. But this creation of a navy was extended by the ambition of the king much beyond Colbert's original views, which were chiefly directed to the protection of the merchant trade.