“I resolved from the first not to have any premier minister,” says Louis XIV. in his Memoires, “and not to leave to another the functions of king whilst I had nothing but the title.  But, on the contrary, I made up my mind to share the execution of my orders amongst several persons, in order to concentrate their authority in my own alone.  I might have cast my eyes upon people of higher consideration than those I selected, but they seemed to me competent to execute, under me, the matters with which I purposed to intrust them.  I did not think it was to my interest to look for men of higher standing, because, as I wanted above all things to establish my own reputation, it was important that the public should know, from the rank of those of whom I made use, that I had no intention of sharing my authority with them, and that they themselves, knowing what they were, should not conceive higher hopes than I wished to give them.”

It has been said already that the court governed France in the reign of Louis XIV.; and what was, in fact, the court?  The men who lived about the king, depending on, his favor, the source or arbiter of their fortunes.  The great lords served in the army, with lustre, when they bore the name of Conde, Turenne, or Luxembourg; but they never had any place amongst the king’s confidential servants.  “Luck, in spite of us, has as much to do as wisdom—­and more—­with the choice of our ministers,” he says in his Memoires, “and, in respect of what wisdom may have to do therewith, genius is far more effectual than counsel.”  It was their genius which made the fortunes and the power of Louis XIV.’s two great ministers, Colbert and Louvois.

In advance, and on the faith of Cardinal Mazarin, the king knew the worth of Colbert.  “I had all possible confidence in him,” says he, “because I knew that he had a great deal of application, intelligence, and probity.”  Rough, reserved, taciturn, indefatigable in work, passionately devoted to the cause of order, public welfare, and the peaceable aggrandizement of France, Colbert, on becoming the comptroller of finance in 1661, brought to the service of the state superior views, consummate experience, and indomitable perseverance.  The position of affairs required no fewer virtues.  “Disorder reigned everywhere,” says the king; “on casting over the various portions of my kingdom not eyes of indifference, but the eyes of a master, I was sensibly affected not to see a single one which did not deserve and did not press to be taken in hand.  The destitution of the lower orders was extreme, and the finances, which give movement and activity to all this great framework of the monarchy, were entirely exhausted and in such plight that there was scarcely any resource to be seen; the affluent, to be seen only amongst official people, on the one hand cloaked all their malversations by divers kinds of artifices, and uncloaked them on the other by their insolent and audacious extravagance, as if they were afraid to leave me in ignorance of them.”