Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) was one of the most important ministers of Louis XIV. Recommended by Cardinal Mazarin, Colbert quickly became one of the young king’s main advisors. In 1665, after playing a role in the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet, he became the Superintendent of Finances. A promoter of royal factories and trade companies, he also influenced both the domestic and foreign policies of the Sun King.
The most illustrious of the great state officials, Colbert not only left his mark during the reign of Louis XIV but also left a lasting impact on French policy, to the point of giving his name to a doctrine: Colbertism, a blend of protectionism and state intervention in the economy.
Summary of Key Achievements
Colbert’s Meteoric Career Under Louis XIV
Born in 1619, Colbert was the son of a cloth merchant who had not been particularly successful. He began his career as a minor clerk in the War Office, under Le Tellier. Appointed as a State Councillor in 1649, he became a “domestic” servant of Mazarin, managing the cardinal’s personal accounts and properties. As Mazarin’s trusted man, Colbert rendered great services to him and acted as his agent in Paris when Mazarin had to go into exile during the Fronde uprisings. Though he showed himself to be a zealous servant, Colbert did not forget his own interests; by handling the cardinal’s affairs, he advanced his own and became wealthy, sometimes through unscrupulous means.
However, he was a tireless worker, dedicated to order and method, a bureaucrat with well-organized files, and a serious official, unquestionably devoted to the state. His ambition to restore France’s financial health was driven as much by his fierce jealousy toward Fouquet, a grand and lavish nobleman, as by his sense of duty.
In October 1659, Colbert submitted a devastating indictment of Fouquet’s management to Louis XIV, effectively positioning himself as a candidate for Fouquet’s job. Shortly before his death in 1661, Mazarin specifically recommended Colbert to the young king. Appointed as Financial Intendant (1661), Colbert quietly and patiently built a substantial case against Fouquet’s misdeeds, secretly advising and pressuring the king, which ultimately led to Fouquet’s downfall in September 1661.
In 1664, Colbert was appointed Superintendent of Buildings and Factories, and the following year, he was named Controller-General of Finances (1665). However, unlike Fouquet, Colbert did not wield absolute power, as Louis XIV, determined to rule personally, reserved the right to allocate expenditures. Colbert knew how to maintain his place as an ennobled commoner by giving the king the illusion of being the sole master.
He was a cold bureaucrat, “capable of dark perfidy, violence, and baseness” (Lavisse). The court detested him, but he ignored it. His unconditional loyalty earned him many favors and titles. Alongside his early roles, he accumulated positions as Secretary of State for the King’s Household (1668) and for the Navy (1669). He encroached on the legislative and judicial powers, especially as Séguier aged, becoming Lord and Marquis of Seignelay and, with humorous vanity, referred to “my subjects,” “my vassals,” and “my river.”
He secured positions for his brothers, daughters (who became Duchesses of Chevreuse, Beauvilliers, and Mortemart), sons (one went to the Navy, the other became Archbishop of Rouen), brother-in-law, nephew, and cousins. The only spheres of government that eluded his control were foreign affairs (handled by Lionne) and war (managed by Le Tellier). For a long time, a fierce rivalry for positions and honors raged between the Colbert and Le Tellier factions.
Colbert’s Reforms
Though he may not inspire much sympathy—especially in contrast to his charming victim, Fouquet—Colbert’s greatness as a minister is undeniable. For nearly 25 years, Colbert was responsible for the entire economic and financial life of France. He was one of the greatest ministers of the monarchy and the main architect of Louis XIV’s power.
His reforming actions touched on various areas: finance, economy, commerce, maritime affairs, and intellectual life, all with the constant goal of the king’s wealth and glory, which meant the glory of the state. “We are not in a reign of small things,” he said in 1664. In the grand policies driven by Louis XIV’s ambition, managing expensive wars and diplomacy—not to mention the lavish Versailles court—was an overwhelming task for a finance minister.
Louis XIV, indifferent to administrative matters, did not hesitate to spend beyond the revenues, and Colbert could not eliminate the deficit, which reappeared during the Franco-Dutch War (1672) and never went away. However, from the start, Colbert had taken drastic measures to make the financiers pay. The Chamber of Justice of 1662 managed to recover some funds from the state’s tax farmers. But military needs soon forced Colbert to resort to temporary measures, as his predecessors had done: he created a loan fund (1674), established and sold offices, and increased indirect taxes.
Yet Colbert tackled one of the most critical aspects of the financial problem: tax reform. Given the diversity of the old French regime, still bristling with privileges and liberties, taxation was extremely confusing and varied. To increase the yield of the taille, a tax on commoners, Colbert launched a crackdown on false nobles and fake tax exemptions. In 1680, he created the Ferme Générale, which was responsible for collecting all other taxes. Public accounting was organized and simplified.
However, these measures could only have been fully effective if they had been part of a broader rationalization of the administration. Colbert was frustrated by the variety of administrative systems in the kingdom. To address this, he strengthened the power of the intendants, who, initially simple investigators and administrators, became permanent officials from 1680 onward. He also encouraged Louis XIV to undertake the codification of justice, which was achieved through major ordinances issued between 1667 and 1685 (notably the Civil Ordinance of April 1667, the Criminal Ordinance of 1670, and the Commercial Ordinance of 1673).
The Economy at the Service of the State
Colbert primarily focused on the economy, which was essential for the financial health and political power of the state. His government marked the peak of French mercantilism, a system aptly named “Colbertism.” In reality, Colbert was less of a theorist and more of a practitioner of ideas previously expressed in France by Montchrétien and Laffemas.
Like all European specialists of his time, he believed that a state’s wealth lay primarily in the amount of currency it possessed, and he also believed that the available quantity of precious metals was fixed and that global trade volume was stable. “It is certain,” he wrote, “that to increase the 150 million circulating in public by 20, 30, or 60 million, we must take it from neighboring states.”
Thus, commerce was nothing more than a money war, “a perpetual and peaceful war of minds and industry between all nations.” Since one nation could only enrich itself by impoverishing others, it was necessary to ensure that exports exceeded imports, selling a lot and buying little to build up a large reserve of precious metals in France. The simplest way to achieve this was by imposing heavy tariffs on foreign competitive products and lowering tariffs on domestic goods.
Colbert’s state was resolutely protectionist: the customs tariff of 1664 was intensified by the 1667 tariff, which practically prohibited Dutch and English products (though it had to be abandoned after 1678). His government was also interventionist, constantly involved in and attempting to regulate all aspects of economic life. “All the professions of your subjects must be reduced to those that may be useful,” Colbert wrote to Louis XIV.
The Royal Manufactories
To sell cheaply, Colbert imposed a policy of low wages, but since laborers needed to survive, the state practically sacrificed agriculture by fixing agricultural prices as low as possible (peasants were compensated with protection from excessive taxation). The positive aspect of Colbertism was the strong encouragement of industry, a state-driven investment policy that fostered new enterprises, or “manufactories,” across the country, which quickly increased export volumes.
Colbert understood that France, unlike Spain, which had access to the gold and silver mines of the Americas, could only grow rich through robust industrial and commercial expansion. Large-scale industry was born in France under Colbert, but it was under state control, which imposed detailed regulations. Enjoying royal privileges, the manufactories had monopolies over production and were protected by “manufacture inspectors” tasked with preventing fraud.
Some manufactories were state-run (Gobelins, Beauvais), while others were merely encouraged and privileged. Their establishment was often easy and quick because manufactories frequently employed many small dispersed workshops. To improve internal trade, Colbert created roads and waterways (e.g., the Two Seas Canal, the Orleans Canal), but his main focus was on expanding export commerce.
Colbert made a massive effort in the naval sector, believing that “the prosperity of the merchant marine is the best criterion of the prosperity of foreign trade.” Ports such as Brest, Cherbourg, Rochefort, and Toulon were expanded and developed. Colbert established a council for shipbuilding and organized a powerful navy to protect trade routes and distant trading posts; in 1668, the maritime registry was inaugurated for recruiting naval crews from coastal populations.
Following the models of English and Dutch companies, monopolistic and privileged trading companies were created (French East India Company, 1664; French West India Company, 1664; North Company, 1669; Levant Company, 1670). Finally, Colbertism pushed for colonial expansion, but in this domain, Colbert encountered the incurable indifference of the French public toward distant lands. In 1685, Colbert legislated on the status of slaves in the colonies with the Code Noir (or “Edict on the Police of Slaves”).
In summary, Colbertism was an unprecedented effort to free the French economy from the outdated framework of regional and local diversities and the stagnating guilds. It was the source of long-lasting prosperity in cities such as Amiens, Aubusson, Saint-Étienne, and Elbeuf. However, it also had its downside: agriculture was overly sacrificed; factories soon became stifled by the regulations that had initially stimulated them; the pitfalls of state control, which too often equated the nation’s welfare with state power; and especially the extreme protectionism, which openly aimed to ruin other nations and was a major cause of the incessant wars during Louis XIV’s reign.
Colbert: Patron of Arts and Letters
Colbert applied the same passion for order, unity, and rational regulation to the artistic and intellectual life of the state in his role as superintendent of Buildings, Arts, and Manufactories. As a great patron of royal patronage, he founded the Academy of Inscriptions and Humanities (1663), the Academy of Sciences (1666), and the French Academy in Rome (1666). He reorganized the academies of painting and sculpture (1664), music (1669), and architecture (1671), and was responsible for the establishment of the Paris Observatory. He found in Le Brun the agent of an artistic academicism oriented toward praising the Sun King. His Letters, Instructions, and Memoirs were published by P. Clément (1861).
When Colbert attempted to curb royal spending, he lost favor with the Sun King, and from 1680 onwards, he was gradually replaced by the Marquis de Louvois (François-Michel le Tellier). When Colbert died, exhausted from his work, he left Louis XIV with a kingdom at the height of its power.