power. Born at Reims on the 29th of August, 1619, Colbert was
educated by the Jesuits, and at the early age of nineteen
entered the War Office, in which department Le Tellier, a
connection of his family by marriage, filled the post of
Under-Secretary of State. From the first Colbert distinguished
himself by his abnormal powers of work, by his extraordinary
zeal in the public service, and by an equal devotion to his
own interests. His Jesuit training showed fruit in his
dealings with all those who, like Le Tellier or Mazarin, could
be of use to him on his road to power, whilst the old
tradition of his Scotch blood is favoured by a certain
'dourness' of character which rendered him in general
difficult of access. His marvellous strength of brain,
seconded by rare powers of endurance, enabled him to work
habitually fourteen hours a day to enter into every detail of
every branch of the administration, whilst at the same time he
never lost sight of that noble project of universal reform
which he had conceived, and which embraced both Church and
State. ... Qualified in every way for the work of
administration, absolutely indifferent to popularity, Colbert
seemed destined by nature to lead the final charge against the
surviving forces of the feudal system. After the troubles of
the Fronde had died away and the death of Mazarin had left
Louis XIV. a king in deed as well as in name, these forces of
the past were personified by Fouquet, and the duel between
Fouquet and Colbert was the dramatic close of a struggle
predestined to end in the complete triumph of absolutism. The
magnificent and brilliant Fouquet, who for years past had
taken advantage of his position as 'Surintendant des Finances'
to lavish the resources of the State on his private pleasures,
was plainly marked out as the object of Colbert's hostility.
... On the losing side were ranged all the spendthrift princes
and facile beauties of the Court, all the greedy recipients of
Fouquet's ostentatious bounties. He had reckoned that the
greatest names in France would be compromised by his fall, and
that by their danger his own safety was assured. He had
reckoned without Colbert; he had reckoned without that power
which had been steadily growing throughout all vicissitudes of
fate during the last two generations, and which was now
centred in the King. No stranger turn of fortune can be
pictured than that which, on the threshold of the modern era,
linked the nobles of France in their last struggle for
independence with the fortunes of a rapacious and fraudulent
financier, nor can anything be more suggestive of the
character of the coming epoch than the sight of this last
battle fought, not in the field of arms, but before a court of
law. To Colbert, the fall of Fouquet was but the necessary
preliminary to that reform of every branch of the
administration which had been ripening in his mind ever since
he had entered the public service. To bring the financial
situation into order, it was necessary first to call Fouquet
to account. ... The fall of the chief offender, Fouquet,
having been brought about, it was easy to force all those who
had been guilty of similar malversations on a minor scale to
run the gauntlet of the High Commission. Restitution and
confiscation became the order of the day, and when the Chamber
of Justice was finally dissolved in 1669, far beyond any
advantage which might be reckoned to the Treasury from these
sources was the gain to the nation in the general sense of
security and confidence. It was felt that the days of
wholesale dishonesty and embezzlement were at an end. ...
Colbert went forward from this moment without hesitation,
devoting his whole energies to the gigantic task of re-shaping
the whole internal economy of France. ... Backed by despotic
power, his achievements in these directions have to an
incredible extent determined the destinies of modern industry,
and have given origin to the whole system of modern
administration, not only in France, but throughout Europe.
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In the teeth of a lavish expenditure which he was utterly
unable to check, once and again did Colbert succeed in
establishing a financial equilibrium when the fortunes of
France seemed desperate. ... He aimed ... at the fostering of
home production by an elaborate system of protection, whilst
at the same time the markets of other countries were to be
forced open and flooded with French goods. Any attempt on the
part of a weaker power to imitate his own policy, such for
instance as that made in the papal states by Alexander VII.
and Clement IX., was instantly repressed with a high hand. ...
His leading idea was to lower all export dues on national
produce and manufactures, and, whilst diminishing import
duties on such raw materials as were required for French
manufactures, to raise them until they became prohibitive on
all foreign goods.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1664-1667 (FRANCE).
The success of the tariff of 1664 misled Colbert. That tariff
was a splendidly statesmanlike attempt to put an end to the
conflict and confusion of the duties, dues, and customs then
existing in the different provinces and ports of France, and
it was in effect a tariff calculated for purely fiscal
purposes. Far other were the considerations embodied in the
tariff of 1667, which led to the Dutch and English wars, and
which, having been enacted in the supposed interests of home
industry, eventually stimulated production in other countries.
... If, however, the industrial policy of Colbert cannot be
said to have realised his expectations, since it neither
brought about a great increase in the number of home
manufactures nor succeeded in securing a larger share of
foreign trade, there is not a doubt that, in spite even of the
disastrous wars which it provoked, it powerfully contributed,
on the whole, to place France in the front rank as a
commercial nation. ... The pitiless and despotic Louvois, who
had succeeded his father, Colbert's old patron Le Tellier, as
Secretary of State for War, played on the imperious vanity of
King Louis, and engaged him in wars big and little, which in
most cases wanted even the shade of a pretext. ... All the
zeal of the great Minister's strict economy could only stay
for a while the sure approach of national distress. ... When
Colbert died, on 6th September, 1683, the misery of France,
exhausted by oppressive taxation, and depopulated by armies
kept constantly on foot, cried out against the Minister who,
rather than fall from power, had lent himself to measures
which he heartily condemned. For the moment men forgot how
numerous were the benefits which he had conferred ... and
remembered only the harshness with which he had dealt justice
and stinted mercy. Yet order reigned where, before his advent,
all had been corruption and confusion; the navy of France had
been created, her colonies fostered, her forests saved from
destruction; justice and the authority of the law had been
carried into the darkest corners of the land; religious
toleration, socially if not politically, had been advocated;
whilst the encroachments of the Church had been more or less
steadfastly opposed. To the material prosperity of the
nation--even after we have made all possible deductions for
the evils arising from an exaggerated system of protection--an
immense and enduring impulse had been given; and although it
is true that, with the death of Colbert, many parts of his
splendid scheme fell to the ground, yet it must be confessed
that the spirit in which it was originated and improved still
animates France."
_Lady Dilke,
France under Colbert
(Fortnightly Rev., February, 1886)._
ALSO IN:
_H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, chapters 1-7._
See, also, TAILLE AND GABELLE.
FRANCE: A. D. 1662.
The purchase of Dunkirk from Charles II.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1662.
FRANCE: A. D. 1663-1674.
New France made a Royal Province.
The French West India Company.
See CANADA: A. D. 1663-1674.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664.
Aid given to Austria against the Turks.
The victory of St. Gothard.
See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1666.
War with the piratical Barbary States.
The Jijeli expedition.
Treaties with Tunis and Algiers.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
FRANCE: A. D. 1664-1690.
The building of Versailles.
See VERSAILLES.
FRANCE: A. D. 1665.
The Great Days of Auvergne.
"We must read the curious account of the Great Days of
Auvergne, written by Fléchier in his youth, if we would form
an idea of the barbarism in which certain provinces of France
were still plunged, in the midst of the brilliant civilization
of the 17th century, and would know how a large number of
those seigniors, who showed themselves so gallant and tender
in the boudoirs of Paris, lived on their estates, in the midst
of their subjects: we might imagine ourselves in the midst of
feudalism. A moment bewildered by the hammer of the great
demolisher [Richelieu], which had battered down so many
Chateaux, the mountain squires of Auvergne, Limousin, Marche
and Forez had resumed their habits under the feeble government
of Mazarin. Protected by their remoteness from Paris and the
parliament, and by the nature of the country they inhabited,
they intimidated or gained over the subaltern judges, and
committed with impunity every species of violence and
exaction. A single feature will enable us to comprehend the
state of these provinces. There were still, in the remoter
parts of Auvergne, seigniors who claimed to use the wedding
right (droit de jambage), or, at the least, to sell exemption
from this right at a high price to bridegrooms. Serfhood of
the glebe still existed in some districts. August 31, 1665, a
royal declaration, for which ample and noble reasons were
given, ordered the holding of a jurisdiction or court
'commonly called the Great Days,' in the city of Clermont, for
Auvergne, Bourbonnais, Nivernais, Forez, Beaujolais, Lyonnais,
Combrailles, Marche, and Berry. A president of parliament, a
master of requests, sixteen councillors, an attorney-general,
and a deputy procurator-general, were designated to hold these
extraordinary assizes. Their powers were almost absolute. They
were to judge without appeal all civil and criminal cases, to
punish the 'abuses and delinquencies of officers of the said
districts,' to reform bad usages, as well in the style of
procedure as in the preparation and expedition of trials, and
to try all criminal cases first. It was enjoined on bailiffs,
seneschals, their lieutenants and all other judges, to give
constant information of all kinds of crimes, in order to
prepare matter for the Great Days. A second declaration
ordered that a posse should be put into the houses of the
contumacious, that the chateaux where the least resistance was
made to the law should be razed; and forbade, under penalty of
death, the contumacious to be received or assisted.
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The publication of the royal edicts, and the prompt arrival of
Messieurs of the Great Days at Clermont, produced an
extraordinary commotion in all those regions. The people
welcomed the Parisian magistrates as liberators, and a
remarkable monument of their joy has been preserved, the
popular song or Christmas hymn of the Great Days. Terror, on
the contrary, hovered over the châteaux; a multitude of
noblemen left the province, and France, or concealed
themselves in the mountains; others endeavored to conciliate
their peasants. ... The Great Days at least did with vigor
what it was their mission to do: neither dignities, nor
titles, nor high connections preserved the guilty. ... The
Court of Great Days was not content with punishing evil; it
undertook to prevent its return by wise regulations: first,
against the abuses of seigniorial courts; second, against the
vexations of seigniors on account of feudal service due them;
third, concerning the mode and abbreviation of trials; and
lastly, concerning the reformation of the clergy, who had no
less need of being reformed than the nobility. The Great Days
were brought to a close after three months of assizes (end of
October, 1665--end of January, 1666), and their recollection
was consecrated by a medal."
_H. Martin,
History of France: The Age of Louis XIV:,
volume 1, chapter 2._
FRANCE: A. D.1665-1670.
The East India Company.
See INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743.
FRANCE: A. D. 1666.
Alliance with Holland against England.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666.
FRANCE: A. D. 1667.
The War of the Queen's Rights.
Conquests in the Spanish Netherlands.
See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1667.
FRANCE: A. D. 1668.
The king's conquests in Flanders checked by the Triple
Alliance.
See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.
FRANCE: A. D. 1670.
The secret treaty of Dover.
The buying of the English king.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.
FRANCE: A. D. 1672-1678.
War with Holland and the Austro-Spanish Coalition.
See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1672-1714;
and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674,
and 1674-1678.
FRANCE: A. D. 1673-1682.
Discovery and exploration of the Mississippi
by Marquette and La Salle.
Possession taken of Louisiana.
See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673, and 1669-1687.
FRANCE: A. D. 1678-1679.
The Peace of Nimeguen.
See NIMEGUEN. PEACE OF.
FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.
Complete absorption of Les Trois-Evêchés and Alsace.
Assumption of entire sovereignty by Louis XIV.
Encroachments of the Chambers of Reannexation.
The seizure of Strasburg.
"The Lorraine Trois-Evêchés, recovered by France from the Holy
Roman Empire, had remained in an equivocal position, as to
public law, during nearly a century, between their old and new
ties: the treaty of Westphalia had cut the knot by the formal
renunciation of the Empire to all rights over these countries;
difficulties nevertheless still subsisted relative to the
fiefs and the pendencies of Trois-Evêchés possessed by members
of the Empire. Alsace, in its turn, from the treaty of
Westphalia to the peace of Nimeguen, had offered analogous and
still greater difficulties, this province of Teutonic tongue
not having accepted the annexation to France as easily as the
Walloon province of Trois-Evêchés, and the treaty of
Westphalia presenting two contradictory clauses, one of which
ceded to France all the rights of the Emperor and the Empire,
and the other of which reserved the 'immediateness' of the
lords and the ten cities of the prefecture of Alsace towards
the Empire. ...
See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.
At last, on the complaints carried to the Germanic Diet by the
ten Alsacian cities, joined by the German feudatories of
Trois-Evêchés, Louis, who was then very conciliatory towards
the Diet, consented to take for arbiters the King of Sweden
and some princes and towns of Germany (1665). The arbitration
was protracted for more than six years. In the beginning of
1672, the arbiters rendered an ambiguous decision which
decided nothing and satisfied no one. War with Holland broke
out meanwhile and changed all the relations of France with
Germany. ... Louis XIV. disarmed or took military occupation
of the ten cities and silenced all opposition. ... In the
conferences of Nimeguen, the representatives of the Emperor
and the Empire endeavored to return to the 'immediateness,'
but the King would not listen to a renewal of the arbitration,
and declared all debate superfluous. 'Not only,' said the
French plenipotentiaries, 'ought the King to exercise, as in
fact he does exercise, sovereign domain over the ten cities,
but he might also extend it over Strasburg, for the treaty of
Münster furnishes to this city no special title guaranteeing
its independence better than that of the other cities.' It was
the first time that Louis had disclosed this bold claim,
resting on an inaccurate assertion. The Imperialists,
terrified, yielded as regarded the ten cities, and Alsace was
not called in question in the treaty of Nimeguen. Only the
Imperialists protested, by a separate act, against the
conclusions which might be drawn from this omission. The ten
cities submitted and took to the King an oath of fidelity,
without reservation towards the Empire; their submission was
celebrated by a medal bearing the device: 'Alsatia in
provinciam reducta' (1680). The treaty of Nimeguen was
followed by divers measures destined to win the Alsacian
population. ... This wise policy bore its fruits, and Alsace,
tranquillized, gave no more cause of anxiety to the French
government. France was thenceforth complete mistress of the
possessions which had been ceded to her by the Empire; this
was only the first part of the work; the point in question now
was, to complete these possessions by joining to them their
natural appendages which the Empire had not alienated. The
boundaries of Lower Alsace and the Messin district were ill
defined, encroached upon, entangled, on the Rhine, on the
Sarre, and in the Vosges, by the fiefs of a host of petty
princes and German nobles. This could not be called a
frontier. Besides, in the very heart of Alsace, the great city
of Strasburg preserved its independence towards France and its
connection with the Empire. A pacific method was invented to
proceed to aggrandizements which it would seem could only be
demanded by arms; a pacific method, provided that France could
count on the weakness and irresolution of her neighbors; this
was to investigate and revendicate everything which, by any
title and at any epoch whatsoever, had been dependent on
Alsace and Trois-Evêchés.
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We may comprehend whither this would lead, thanks to the
complications of the feudal epoch; and it was not even
designed to stop at the feudal system, but to go back to the
times of the Frankish kings! Chambers of 'reannexation' were
therefore instituted, in 1679, in the Parliament of Metz, and
in the sovereign council of Alsace, with a mission which their
title sufficiently indicated. ... Among the nobles summoned,
figured the Elector of Treves, for Oberstein, Falkenburg,
etc.; the Landgrave of Hesse, for divers fiefs; the Elector
Palatine, for Seltz and the canton situated between the Lauter
and the Keich (Hogenbach, Germersheim, etc.); another prince
palatine for the county of Veldentz: the Bishop of Speyer, for
a part of his bishopric; the city of Strasburg, for the
domains which it possessed beyond the Rhine (Wasselonne and
Marlenheim); lastly, the King of Sweden, for the duchy of
Deux-Ponts or Zweibrücken, a territory of considerable extent
and of irregular form, which intersected the cis-Rhenish
Palatinate. ... By divers decrees rendered in March, August,
and October, 1680, the sovereign council of Alsace adjudged to
the King the sovereignty of all the Alsacian seigniories. The
nobles and inhabitants were summoned to swear fidelity to the
King, and the nobles were required to recognize the sovereign
council as judge in last resort. The chamber of Metz acted on
a still larger scale than the chamber of Breisach. April 12,
1680, it united to Trois-Evêchés more than 80 fiefs, the
Lorraine marquisate of Pont-à-Mousson, the principality of
Salm, the counties of Saarbourg and Veldentz, the seigniories
of Sarrebourg, Bitche, Homburg, etc. The foundation of the new
town of Sarre-Louis and the fortification of Bitche
consolidated this new frontier; and not only was the course of
the Sarre secured to France, but France, crossing the Sarre,
encroached deeply on the Palatinate and the Electorate of
Treves, posted herself on the Nahe and the Blies, and threw,
as an advance-guard, on a peninsula of the Moselle, the
fortress of Mont-Royal, half-way from Treves to Coblentz, on
the territories of the county of Veldentz. The parliament of
Franche-Comté, newly French as it was, zealously followed the
example of the two neighboring courts. There was also a
frontier to round towards the Jura. ... The Duke of Würtemberg
was required to swear allegiance to the King for his county of
Montbéliard. ... The acquisitions made were trifling compared
with those which remained to be made. He [Louis XIV.] was not
sure of the Rhine, not sure of Alsace, so long as he had not
Strasburg, the great city always ready to throw upon the
French bank of the river the armies of the Empire. France had
long aimed at this conquest. As soon as she possessed Metz she
had dreamed of Strasburg. ... Though the King and Louvois had
prevented Créqui from besieging the place during the war, it
was because they counted on surprising it after peace. This
great enterprise was most ably manœuvred." The members of the
regency of the city were gained over, one by one. "The
Imperial troops had evacuated the city pursuant to the treaty
of Nimeguen; the magistrates dismissed 1,200 Swiss which the
city had in its pay; then, on the threatening demands of the
French, they demolished anew Fort Kehl, which they had rebuilt
since its destruction by Créqui. When the fruit seemed ripe,
Louis stretched out his hand to gather it. In the latter part
of September, 1681, the garrisons of Lorraine, Franche-Comté,
and Alsace put themselves in motion. ... The 28th, 35,000 men
were found assembled before the city; Baron de Montclar, who
commanded this army, informed the magistrates that 'the
sovereign chamber of Breisach having adjudged to the king the
sovereignty of all Alsace, of which Strasburg was a member,
his Majesty desired that they should recognize him as their
sovereign lord, and receive a garrison." On the 30th the
capitulation of the city was signed; on the 23d of October the
King entered Strasburg in person and was received as its
sovereign.
_H. Martin,
History of France: Age of Louis XIV.,
volume 1, chapter 7._
FRANCE: A. D. 1680.
Imprisonment of the "Man in the Iron Mask."
See IRON MASK.
FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1684.
Threatening relations with the Turks.
War with the Barbary States.
Destructive bombardment of Algiers.
See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1664-1684.
FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.
Climax of the persecution of the Huguenots.
The Dragonnades.
The revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The great exodus of French Protestants and the consequent
national loss.
"Love and war suspended for a considerable time" the ambition
of the king to extinguish heresy in his dominions and
establish uniformity of religious worship; "but when Louis
became satiated at once with glory and pleasure, and when
Madame de Maintenon, the Duke de Beauvilliers, the Duke de
Montausier, Bossuet, the Archbishop of Rheims, the Chancellor
Letellier, and all the religious portion of the court, began
to direct his now unoccupied and scrupulous mind to the
interests of religion, Louis XIV. returned to his plans with
renewed ardor. From bribery they proceeded to compulsion.
Missionaries, escorted by dragoons, spread themselves at the
instigation of Bossuet, and even of Fénelon, over the western,
southern and eastern provinces, and particularly in those
districts throughout which Protestantism, more firmly rooted
among a more tenacious people, had as yet resisted all
attempts at conversion by preaching. ... Children from above
seven years of age were authorized to abjure legally the
religion of their fathers. The houses of those parents who
refused to deliver up their sons and daughters were invaded
and laid under contributions by the royal troops. The
expropriation of their homes, and the tearing asunder of
families, compelled the people to fly from persecution. The
king, uneasy at this growing depopulation, pronounced the
punishment of the galleys against those who sought liberty in
flight; he also ordered the confiscation of all the lands and
houses which were sold by those proprietors who were preparing
to quit the kingdom. ... Very soon the proscription was
organized en masse: all the cavalry in the kingdom, who, on
account of the peace, were unemployed, were placed at the
disposal of the preachers and bishops, to uphold their
missions [known as the dragonnades] with the sabre. ...
Bossuet approved of these persecutions. Religious and
political faith, in his eyes, justified their necessity. His
correspondence is full of evidence, while his actions prove
that he was an accomplice: even his eloquence ... overflowed
with approbation of, and enthusiasm for, these oppressions of
the soul and terrors of heresy."
_A. de Lamartine,
Memoirs of Celebrated Characters,
volume 3: Bossuet._
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