French minister of state, superintendent of the Building industries, general inspector of Finances, Secretary of State in charge of the House of the king, Colbert was, until its death, the most important Minister for the first part of the reign of Louis XIV. It showed an activity overflowing, accumulating multiple attributions and covering several fields with him only, since the interior matters and the economy until the navy and with arts.

But the king, who wished to control his kingdom and not only there to reign, never gave up with his minister as much of being able that Louis XIII had been able to do it with Richelieu. Colbert was thus not a minister the Almighty, nor even a “principal minister” like had been to it Richelieu and Mazarin, even if it were, after the king, the main character of the Council of State (“the Council of in top”).

Colbert resulted from a family of important clothiers and drapers rémois, family already last with the service of monarchy, since his/her father, Nicolas Colbert de Vandières, was State Counsellor. Jean-Baptiste Colbert entered the offices of the secretariat of State of the War since 1640, became State Counsellor in 1649 thanks to the support of the minister Tellier, passed then to the service of Mazarin, of which he became the intendant in 1651; it was the cardinal who recommended it to the king as being “very-faithful”. After having informed the Fouquet file, which made it possible to Louis XIV to make condemn his superintendent, Colbert dealt with the public purses in 1661; it did not obtain the load of superintendent that Louis XIV removed in order to show his will to direct in person the business of his kingdom.

During more than twenty years, Colbert was the true administrator of the interior matters of France. Its capacity for work and its methodical spirit enabled him to assume the loads of minister of state (1661), of superintendent of the Building industries of the king and Arts (1664) in particular in charge of the work management of the castle of Versailles, large treasurer of the orders of the king and of general inspector of Finances (1665), of Secretary of State of the House of the king (1668) and the Navy (1669). It bought moreover the load of large Master of the mines of France in 1669.

Continuing the work of control of the kingdom by the State started to the XVI ^E century and amplified under Richelieu and Mazarin, it promulgated many codes and ordinances, the such code of National Forestry Commission in 1669, or that of the navy in 1681; it was also him which prepared the black Code, promulgated after its death, which regulated the methods of the draft of the African slaves. To determine the orientations of its policy, it was based on received information of the agents of the king; in 1663, in a preoccupation with a unification, it set up for its subordinates an Instruction for the Masters of the requests, police chiefs separated in the provinces, intended to enable him to partly evaluate in a “statistical” way the characteristics of the provinces of the kingdom and waitings of the subjects.

The system check of Finances became the principal station of monarchy under Louis XIV, once that of superintendent of Finances removed. In this essential place, Colbert held the power at the same time on finances of the kingdom and the royal police force. It could cleanse finances by redistributing the tax of which it required a better accountancy. It equipped the country with an important fleet of war, which passed from a dozen vessels to its taking up the duties to approximately a hundred and eighty to its death, created various arsenals, in particular those of Rochefort and Brest, and founded the system of the maritime inscription.

Its principal effort related to the economy: it applied a protectionist policy and of intervention of the State intended to increase the interior richness. To achieve this goal, it created more than four hundred manufactures, first steps of big industry. It supported the companies with monopoly and simplified the interior customs.

On the end of his life, its policy had a certain number of problems due to the animosity which Louvois carried to him, with the reduction in the royal favor, but especially with competition anglo-Dutchwoman, the expensive warlike companies of Louis XIV and with the hostility that the economic agents expressed to him: refusal of controls and the monopolies on the part of the craftsmen and the tradesmen, disinterest for the outside investments of the middle-class of business, refusal of the nobility to engage in the great industrial and commercial operations. He was opposed to the king even sometimes, in particular reproaching him the expenditure engaged for Versailles, which swelled as from 1670.

Its administrative and economic activity, which aimed very whole the glory of the king, was supplemented by a cultural true policy. Colbert developed and rationalized the academic phenomenon created by Richelieu. It regulated the meetings of the French Academy (it created the attendance fees), founded the Academy of the inscriptions (1663), which met at his place, organized the Academies of Science (1666), music (1669) and architecture (1671), supported the publication of the Newspaper of the scientists (1665), made build the Observatory of Paris, enriches considerably the Library by the king between 1666 and 1682, multiplying by three the number of volumes. It narrowly controlled the artists and the writers, by a system of pensions managed by two staunch collaborators, Charles Perrault and Chapelain. It was finally in the beginning various great work, like, in Paris, the doubling of the Course-the-Queen by the Fields-Elysées.

Arrived at the highest loads of the State, Colbert attempted to support his/her parents and friends, creating the principal clan - with that, competitor, as of Tellier-Louvois - monarchy louis-quatorzienne. His/her Seignelay son was Secretary of State of the Navy ; his/her Croissy brother, Secretary of State of the Foreign affairs; its nephew Charles-Joachim Colbert de Croissy, bishop of Montpellier. It made name his cousin Jean Colbert de Terron general police chief in 1661, then, in 1666, general intendant of the naval armies of the West. Colbert did not scorn the gratifications of the king; even if he is regarded as a model minister, concerned of the interest of his sovereign, he did not give up his personal enrichment - with a least degree, however, that Richelieu or Mazarin.

Three of the six sons of Colbert were killed in military operations, two at the time of the war of the League of Augsburg and one at the time of the war of succession of Spain.