Colbert brought the light of science into the various departments of the administration : his arrangement of the various offices, and the distribution of labour in each, have been highly extolled. He caused the first statistical tables of the population to be made out, and be collected the old charters and historical records of the kingdom. He removed the king's library to better premises, and increased it from 16,000 to 40,000 volumes. At the same time he formed his own extensive and valuable library, the manuscripts of which alone amounted to 14,800 volumes, which his grandson afterwards sold to the king.
He instituted a commission of legislation which framed the various ordoonstreus of civil and criminal proem, of commerce, of the woods and forests, and of marine,snablished in 1670 and the following years, and which with all their imperfections constituted the first code of laws for France, and from which the various legislative commissions appointed by Napoleon drew most of their materials. It was the first reparation of the various branches of legislation, which had till then teen confounded together in the ordonaances issued upon the spur of occasion. He also had • series of laws compiled concerning the negro.s and their masters in the colonies, which was called ' le Code oir: A minister strict, orderly to minuteness, and averse to prodigality, could not well sympathise with Louis XIV. Colbert was ambitious, and strongly attached to his plane, which ho conceived to be for the prosperity and glory of France. In order to captivate the king by meana of one of his favourite tastes, that of building, which in some measure coincided with his own views, be purchased the office of superintendent of the public buildings in 1664. The gardens of the Tuileries, the 116teldes-Invalides, the facade of the Louvre, the triumphal arches of St. Denis and St. Martin, the Boulevards, and some of the quays along the Seine, were erected ender him. He also began the structure of Versailles ; but the king's passion for building, thus stimulated, went far beyond Colbert's intentions, and vast treasures were sunk in a gorgeous and useless work. Colbert insti tuted the Academy of Sciences, and those of Inscriptions and of Arehitect tire. Ile reformed the Academy of Fainting, and established the school at Borne for French artists. He transferred the Acadaraie
Fransaise to the Louvre, and became one of its members. His temper was absolute, like that of his sovereign ; he deprived Mazerai of his pension because be bad written on the legality of taxation, and he laboured to lower the influence of the parliament of Paris. His manners were cold and repulsive ; a poet of the time called him " a man of marble." Slew in conceiving his plans, and cautious in deciding upon their execution, he courted and listened to advice ; but, when once resolved upon, his will know no obstacles either of delicacy, feeling, or commiseration. A clear judgment, an iron will, and an indefatigable labour, supported him through his twenty-two years of administration. At last, seeing his rival Lonvois enjoying the ascend ancy over the king'. mind ; Louis preparing himself for new wars, and maintaining the war-taxes which ought to have been repealed at the peace; grieved also at the incipient persecution of the Protestants, whose commercial and manufacturing industry Colbert fully appre ciated, among whom he bad chosen some of his best subalterns in the administration, and of whose services he was deprived by an edict which excluded the Protestants from financial appointments, Colbert felt all the pangs of disappointment for his ill-appreciated services. Exhausted with labour he fell ill, and shortly after died, on the 6th of September, 1683, at sixty-four years of age. The people, enraged at the taxes, threatened to tear his body to pieces. He was buried in the night, attended by a military escort.
Colbert's first son was made Marquis of Seignelay, and another became Archbishop of Rheims. His brother held also high offices, and wee made Marquis de Croiasy. Colbert built himself a splendid mansion at Sceaux, and he left a fortune of ten millions of livrea, the fruits of his rigid economy and of the liberality of Louis.
(Notice sae Jean Baptiste Colbert in the a'urrea de Lemontey, vol. v., Ps2ces Justijteattya, Paris, ]829; see also hi emoires de Charles Perrault, Colbert's secretary ; and Purl ear lea Zlinistres de Finances, par Montyon. The several Vies and Eloges of Colbert are not worthy of much credit)