e higher
order, Colbert and Louvois; several of good capacity, such as Seignelay
and Torcy; others incompetent, like Chamillard; he remained as much
master of the administrators of the first rank as if they had been
insignificant clerks; the home government of France, from 1661 to 1715,
is summed up in the king's relations with his ministers.

"I resolved from the first not to have any premier minister," says Louis
XIV. in his Memoires, "and not to leave to another the functions of king
whilst I had nothing but the title. But, on the contrary, I made up my
mind to share the execution of my orders amongst several persons, in
order to concentrate their authority in my own alone. I might have cast
my eyes upon people of higher consideration than those I selected, but
they seemed to me competent to execute, under me, the matters with which
I purposed to intrust them. I did not think it was to my interest to
look for men of higher standing, because, as I wanted above all things to
establish my own reputation, it was important that the public should
know, from the rank of those of whom I made use, that I had no intention
of sharing my authority with them, and that they themselves, knowing what
they were, should not conceive higher hopes than I wished to give them."

It has been said already that the court governed France in the reign of
Louis XIV.; and what was, in fact, the court? The men who lived about
the king, depending on, his favor, the source or arbiter of their
fortunes. The great lords served in the army, with lustre, when they
bore the name of Conde, Turenne, or Luxembourg; but they never had any
place amongst the king's confidential servants. "Luck, in spite of us,
has as much to do as wisdom--and more--with the choice of our ministers,"
he says in his Memoires, "and, in respect of what wisdom may have to do
therewith, genius is far more effectual than counsel." It was their
genius which made the fortunes and the power of Louis XIV.'s two great
ministers, Colbert and Louvois.

In advance, and on the faith of Cardinal Mazarin, the king knew the worth
of Colbert. "I had all possible confidence in him," says he, "because I
knew that he had a great deal of application, intelligence, and probity."
Rough, reserved, taciturn, indefatigable in work, passionately devoted to
the cause of order, public welfare, and the peaceable aggrandizement of
France, Colbert, on becoming the comptroller of finance in 1661, broug