The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Secret State Intelligence System

4. Royal Accountability

c h a p t e r 4 Royal Accountability louis xiv and the golden notebooks I n 1663, Colbert gained the of‹cial title of controller of ‹nances. In this period of peace between 1662 and 1671 Colbert reformed ‹nancial administration, increasing state revenue by more than one-third and managing to keep de‹cits slightly above revenue.1 He began improving revenue through the royal Chambre de Justice, tax reforms , and ‹nancial reorganization of the kingdom. Fouquet had been imprisoned, and the parlements humbled. With income ›owing in, Louis could focus on pleasure, culture, building, and his absolutist, administrative reforms. His powers consolidated in his superministry, Colbert set out on his own projects, building his personal library along with that of the king, and founding his royal academies. With a great part of the resources of France under his control, Colbert was one of the most powerful ‹gures in the world. He organized the building of Versailles, as well as France’s industrial, colonial, and architectural projects.2 It was a period of achievement for both Louis and Colbert, who worked in concert .3 Louis gave broad policy goals; Colbert would work out their mechanics and then Louis would go over the administrative and political blueprints. It was an opportunity for the young king to learn from his skilled accountant and minister. It was also the moment in which Louis and Colbert worked to transform the culture of statecraft, making archival and managerial cultures from accounting central to kingship. 50 Colbert was Louis’s most important con‹dant and the keeper of his secrets. Indeed, he helped Louis write two major sections of the Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin (1665). Louis entrusted his minister with raising Mlle de Blois and the count de Vermandois—his bastard children by Louise de La Vallière—in his own house, caring for them when they were sick.4 In 1667, when Louise ›ed to a convent in jealousy and fear over Louis’s infatuation with Mme de Montespan, Colbert was the go-between, sent to bring her back to Versailles. Colbert also looked after the royal family, and mediated between Louis and his extravagant brother, Philippe d’Orléans.5 He was careful to take care of personal business for Louis, just as he had done for Mazarin. Thus he became indispensable at all levels. Colbert literally kept an agenda that “set the king’s days.”6 A nonchalant note from Louis to Colbert in 1661 illustrates how his services combined the of‹cial and the personal: As I believe there is nothing pressing today, I will not do any work. Bring the papers we were to discuss this evening to tomorrow’s council of ‹nance, so I can ‹nish up what needs to be done before Mass. The Queen doesn’t want the ruby box; she has nothing that ‹ts it. If anything urgent comes up, let me know. LOUIS7 In his Mémoires for the Instruction of the Dauphin, Louis stated that he would rule without a prime minister.8 Yet Colbert’s status partially contradicts this claim, as does the fact that he helped write the Mémoires. Louis noted to the Dauphin that his undertakings had been so grand that he had not been able to do everything himself. “I was personally often relieved in this work by Colbert, whom I entrusted with examining things that required too much discussion and into which I would not have had time to go.”9 Colbert did not make ‹nal policy, and he had to share power with the foreign minister, Hugues de Lionne, and the minister of war, Le Tellier. He was, nonetheless, the leading minister during the ‹rst two decades—arguably the most glorious—of Louis’s reign. Louis made policy decisions, but he did so with Colbert’s advice. How could he do otherwise? It was Colbert who received all the reports of the intendants and managed much of the workings of the state. Louis could not master ‹nancial and other complex policy without a guide through the labyrinth of his medieval administration and the new instiRoyal Accountability 51 tutions created by his forebears. Thus Colbert emerged as Louis’s teacher in the workings of ‹nance and government. Colbert created, in essence, what was an ongoing course in administration and information handling for Louis that continued until his death in 1683. Breaking...