Colbert was the father of French commerce, and the creator of the French navy.  He saw that Flanders was enriched by industry, and England and Holland made powerful by a navy, while Spain and Portugal languished and declined with all their mines of gold and silver.  So he built ships of war, and made harbors for them, gave charters to East and West India Companies, planted colonies in India and America, decreed tariffs to protect infant manufactures, gave bounties to all kinds of artisans, encouraged manufacturing industry, and declared war on the whole brood of aristocratic peculators that absorbed the revenues of the kingdom.  He established a better system of accounts, compelled all officers to reside at their posts, and reduced the percentage of the collection of the public money.  In thirteen years he increased the navy from thirty ships to two hundred and seventy-three, one hundred of which were ships of the line.  He prepared a new code of maritime law for the government of the navy, which called out universal admiration.  He dug the canal of Languedoc, which united the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean.  He instituted the Academies of Sciences, of Inscriptions, of Belles Lettres, of Painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture; and founded the School of Oriental languages, the Observatory, and the School of Law.  He gave pensions to Corneille, Racine, Moliere, and other men of genius.  He rewarded artists and invited scholars to France; he repaired roads, built bridges, and directed the attention of the middle classes to the accumulation of capital.  “He recognized the connection of works of industry with the development of genius.  He saw the influence of science in the production of riches; of taste on industry; and the fine arts on manual labor.”  For all these enlightened measures the King had the credit and the glory; and it certainly redounds to his sagacity that he accepted such wise suggestions, although he mistook them for his own.  So to the eyes of Europe Louis at once loomed up as an enlightened monarch; and it would be difficult to rob him of this glory.  He indorsed the economical reforms of his great minister, and rewarded merit in all departments, which he was not slow to see.  The world extolled this enlightened and fortunate young prince, and saw in him a second Solomon, both for wisdom and magnificence.

Another great genius ably assisted Louis as soon as he turned his attention to war,—­the usual employment of ambitious kings,—­and this was Le Tellier, Marquis of Louvois, the great war minister, who laid out the campaigns and directed the movements of such generals as Conde, Turenne, and Luxembourg.  And here again it redounds to the sagacity of Louis that he should select a man for so great a post whom he never personally loved, and who in his gusts of passion would almost insult his master.  Louvois is acknowledged to have been the ablest war minister that France ever had.

Louis reigned peaceably and prosperously for six years before the ambition of being a conqueror and a hero seized him.  At twenty-eight he burned to play the part of Alexander.  Thenceforth the history of his reign chiefly pertains to his gigantic wars,—­some defensive, but mostly offensive, aggressive, and unprovoked.