Jean-Baptiste Colbert

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (August 29, 1619 – September 6, 1683) served as the French minister of finance for 22 years under King Louis XIV. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy; although - historians note - since Louis spent so much money (on luxury and wars) France actually became increasingly impoverished. Colbert worked to create a favourable balance of trade and increase France's colonial holdings. Historians of mercantilism consider Colbert a key figure.

Ships

Colbert achieved a lasting legacy in his establishment of the French royal navy, which owed all to him, for the king thought only of military exploits on land. For naval use, Colbert reconstructed the works and arsenal of Toulon, founded the port and arsenal of Rochefort, and the naval schools of Rochefort, Dieppe and Saint-Malo. He fortified, with some assistance from Vauban (who, however, belonged to the party of his rival Louvois), among other ports those of Calais, Dunkirk, Brest and Le Havre. To supply the navy with recruits he invented his famous system of classes, by which each seaman, according to his assigned class, gave six months service every three or four or five years. For three months after his term of service he would receive half-pay; the government promised pensions; and, in short, Colbert took every opportunity to make the navy popular. One method, however, gained the navy recruits on a very different principle. Letters exist written by Colbert to the judges requiring them to sentence to the oar as many criminals as possible, including all those condemned to death; and the convict once chained to the bench, the expiration of his sentence seldom saw his release. Mendicants also, whom the authorities had not convicted of any crime, contraband dealers, those who had participated in insurrections, and others immeasurably superior to the criminal class, nay, innocent men -- Turkish, Russian and African slaves, and poor Iroquois Indians, whom the colonists of Québec entrapped by order -- all became pressed into that terrible service. These means filled the benches of the galleys, and Colbert took no thought of the long unrelieved agony borne by those who filled them.

Related Topics:
Toulon - Rochefort - Dieppe - Saint-Malo - Vauban - Louvois - Calais - Dunkirk - Brest - Le Havre - Slave - Iroquois - Québec - Galley

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Nor did Colbert forget the mercantile marine. He gave encouragement to the building of ships in France by allowing a premium on those built at home, and by imposing a duty on those brought from abroad; and just as the law forbade French workmen to emigrate, so it forbade French seamen, on pain of death, to serve foreigners.

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