[Died, 1693.]
Brother of the great Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was Finance Minister of
Louis XIV. Edouard was a lieutenant-general in the army, and a member of
the government.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Desjardins, a Dutch sculptor, born at
Breda, 1640, who died at Paris, in 1694. Desjardins attained to
eminence and became principal of the Académie in Paris. The original
is inscribed--“E. C. Marquis de Colbert, Surintendant des batimens du
Roy, agé de LXIIII. ans.”]
267*. JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT. _Statesman and Financier._
[Born at Reims, in France, 1619. Died in Paris, 1683. Aged 64.]
It has been said that Louis XIV. would never have been so great a King
had not Colbert been so great a financier. And there is warrant for the
remark. His soul was absorbed in the work of glorifying France, and he
carried out his patriotic object by re-establishing order in the
finances of the country, from which he contended all material prosperity
flows--by a reconstruction of the whole commercial system--by adorning
the capital with great public works, and by a general encouragement of
art and literature. Some authors assert that Colbert was the son of a
draper. His mind was that of the most enlightened statesman. In early
life, Mazarin had been his patron, and when the Cardinal died, he
bequeathed his friend to the King as the best legacy he could leave him,
and he appointed him his own executor. France prospered under his hand,
which suffered no fatigue from inordinate exertion, and which
ruled,---if occasionally with a rod of iron,--with a success that has
left some of its effects visible even at the present day. He died spent
with service, having lived through intrigues and rivalries.
[This bust, which is to come, is from a marble in the Louvre, by
Michel Anguier, who died in 1686. He was the artist who executed the
sculptures of the Triumphal Arch at Paris, called the Porte St. Denis.
The costume is the court dress, with a mantle over, which is the Order
of the Holy Spirit, and the Cordon. At Versailles there is a bust also
from the life, by Coysevox, who did the kneeling statue on his tomb in
the church of St. Eustace, a copy of which is there also.]