Jean-Baptiste Colbert worked to develop the domestic economy by raising tariffs and encouraging major public works projects, as well as to ensure that the French East India Company had access to foreign markets, so that they could always obtain coffee, cotton, dyewoods, fur, pepper, and sugar.
24 Facts About Jean-Baptiste Colbert
2.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert acted to create a favorable balance of trade and increase colonial holdings.
3.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert issued more than 150 edicts to regulate the guilds.
4.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert spent some time as an inspector of troops, eventually becoming the personal secretary of Le Tellier.
5.
In 1647, through unknown means, Jean-Baptiste Colbert acquired the confiscated goods of an uncle, Pussort.
6.
In 1652 Jean-Baptiste Colbert was asked to manage the affairs of the Cardinal while he was away.
7.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert's earliest recorded attempt at tax reform came in the form of a memoire to Mazarin, showing that less than half of the taxes paid by the people reached the King.
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Alexander Hamilton 8.
In 1661, Mazarin died and Jean-Baptiste Colbert "made sure of the King's favor" by revealing the location of some of Mazarin's hidden wealth.
9.
In short, Jean-Baptiste Colbert acquired power in every department except that of war.
10.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert repudiated some of the public loans and reduced the interest rate on others.
11.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert achieved a reputation for improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy.
12.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert did wisely consult the interests of internal commerce.
13.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert possessed a remarkably fine private library, which he delighted to fill with valuable manuscripts from every part of Europe and the Near East where France had placed a consul.
14.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert employed Pierre de Carcavi and Etienne Baluze as librarians.
15.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert's grandson sold the manuscript collection in 1732 to the Bibliotheque Royale.
16.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert reorganised the Academy of Painting and Sculpture which Mazarin had established.
17.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert himself became a member of the Academie francaise; and proposed one very characteristic rule with the intention of expediting the great Dictionary, in which he had a great interest: no one could count as present at any meeting unless he arrived before the hour of commencement and remained till the hour for leaving.
18.
In 1673 Jean-Baptiste Colbert presided over the first exhibition of the works of living painters; and he enriched the Louvre with hundreds of pictures and statues.
19.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert gave many pensions to men of letters, among whom we find Moliere, Corneille, Racine, Boileau, P D Huet and Antoine Varillas ; and even foreigners, as Huygens, Carlo Roberto Dati the Dellacruscan.
20.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert concluded that rising early and retiring late would be the ideal combination.
21.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was reduced to eating moist bread dipped in chicken broth for his meals.
22.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert played a subordinate role in the struggle between the king and the papacy as to the royal rights over vacant bishoprics, and he seems to have sympathised with the proposal that suggested seizing part of the wealth of the clergy.
23.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert showed himself at first unwilling to interfere with heresy, for he realised the commercial value of the Huguenots, who were well represented among the merchant classes; but when the king resolved to make all France Roman Catholic and revoked the Edict of Nantes, he followed him and urged his subordinates to do all that they could to promote conversions.
24.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert's policies inspired those of Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary of the United States.