Jean Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (29 August 1619 in Reims - 6 September 1683 in Paris) was one of the main ministers of King Louis XIV of France, general controller of finances from 1665 to 1683, Secretary of State for the Maison du Roi and Secretary of State for the Navy from 1669 to 1683.

He entered the king's service on the death of his protector Mazarin and incited Louis XIV to dismiss his rival Nicolas Fouquet. Inspirer and promoter of an interventionist and mercantilist economic policy (later known as Colbertism), he promoted the development of national commerce and industry through the creation of monopolies, state and royal factories. He prepared the Black Code, related to the administration of slavery in the colonies.

Colbert was obviously inspired by the writings of Barthélemy de Laffemas, an economist and adviser to Henry IV: Laffemas had developed in particular the colonial trade and the textile industry, the two sectors to which Colbert was particularly dedicated, with management of public finances, to become in turn the gray eminence of the kingdom.

Biography

Its beginnings

He was the eldest son of Nicolas Colbert and Marie Maytorena and his family was part of the banking in the Champagne region. Although his family claimed descent from Scottish nobles, there is no evidence to prove this, and the invention of noble ancestors was a common practice among commoners. Not much is known about his youth, but it is likely that he attended a Jesuit college. In 1634 he worked with the Lyons banker Mascranny, and later with a Parisian notary, father of Jean Chapelain.

He then went to the service of his cousin, Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Saint-Pouange, first commissioner of the department of war under Louis XIII. In 1640, at the age of 21, his father used her relationships and his fortune to buy him the position of ordinary commissioner of war , commissioner of the Secretary of State for war, François Sublet de Noyers. That position required him to inspect the troops, which gave him a certain notoriety.

In 1645, Saint-Pouange recommended him to Michel Le Tellier, his brother-in-law, who was working as Secretary of State for War, who hired him first as a private secretary and then in 1649 succeeded in having him appointed as counselor to the king. Shortly before, on December 13, 1648, he had married Marie Charron, daughter of a member of the royal council, who provided a dowry of 100,000 pounds. They had four children: Jeanne Marie, Jean-Baptiste (Marquis de Seignelay), Jules Armand (Marquis de Blainville), and Anne Marie.

In 1651, Le Tellier presented him to Cardinal Mazarin who entrusted him with the management of his fortune, one of the most important in the kingdom. Later entrusted with supervising the management of the State Finances, he drafted in October 1659 a memorandum on the embezzlement of the finance superintendent, Nicolas Fouquet. In it he stated that less than half of the taxes collected reached the king.

Having started his career within the Le Tellier clan, Colbert also exercised nepotism and created his own clan, placing his family and friends in key positions. Thus he placed his brother Charles his or his cousin Colbert de Terron. In fact, his family ended up rivaling that of Le Tellier and especially the Secretary of State for War, François Michel Le Tellier de Louvois. In 1657 he bought the barony of Seignelay in the Yonne region and in 1670, the barony of Sceaux, south of Paris. He turned the domain of Sceaux into one of the most beautiful in France thanks to André Le Nôtre, who designed the gardens and Charles Le Brun who was in charge of all the decoration of both the buildings and the park.

Rise to power

Cardinal Mazarin, before he died on March 8, 1661, suggested to the king that he take Colbert into his service. On September 5, 1661, Colbert finally succeeded in disgracing Fouquet: D'Artagnan arrested him in Nantes and Colbert succeeded him at the head of the Finance administration, first as Intendant of Finance and in 1665 as Supervisor General.. His policy consisted in giving economic and financial independence to France, in obtaining a surplus balance of payments, and in increasing the revenue from taxes. He ended the depredation and paid off the state's debt.

He also favored trade, protected science, letters and the arts. In 1663 he founded the Academy of Inscriptions and Fine Letters . He also favored research with the creation of the Academy of Sciences (1666), the Paris Observatory (1667) for which Huygens and Cassini were called, or the Royal Academy of Architecture (1671).

In 1664 he was appointed Superintendent of Royal Buildings and Manufactures. He decided to collect the productions of the bordering states in order to be self-sufficient in what they provided him. He did not hesitate to hire foreign workers to start these manufactures. He frequently used the adjudication of monopolies. He restored the old manufactures and added new ones, especially crystals, tapestries and shoes.

He also directed the artistic production aimed at the reform of the royal palaces, among which the Palace of Versailles stood out. In March 1667 he appointed Gabriel Nicolas de la Reynie as police lieutenant, who became France's first policeman, imposing his authority on gendarmerie and somatenes. The same year, Colbert himself was elected to the French Academy. With a cutting and inarticulate character, always dressed in black, working for the State since five in the morning, Madame de Sévigné nicknamed him "The North."

In 1668 he was appointed secretary of state in the king's household. Convinced of the great importance that trade has in the economy, he managed to get the king to create a State Secretariat for the Navy in 1669, of which he will be the first head. He built a war fleet of 276 ships.

He developed the infrastructures favoring commercial exchanges: canals and royal routes, among others. He planted the Landes forest for shipbuilding. He ordered the roads repaired, made many new ones, and linked the Mediterranean with the Atlantic through the Languedoc canal.

He paved and illuminated Paris, embellished the city with quays, public squares, triumphal gates (in Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin); he ordered the colonnade of the Louvre and the Tuileries garden to be made.