d to
impugn his supreme authority; this was one of the crimes that Louis XIV.
never forgave.

In 1683, at Colbert's death, Vauban was enjoying the royal favor, which
he attributed entirely to Louvois. The latter reigned without any one to
contest his influence with the master. It had been found necessary to
bury Colbert by night to avoid the insults of the people, who imputed to
him the imposts which crushed them. What an unjust and odious mistake of
popular opinion which accused Colbert of the evils which he had fought
against and at the same time suffered under to the last day! All
Colbert's offices, except the navy, fell to Louvois or his creatures.
Claude Lepelletier, a relative of Le Tellier, became comptroller of
finance; he entered the council; M. de Blainville, Colbert's second son,
was obliged to resign in Louvois' favor the superintendence of
buildments, of which the king had previously promised him the reversion.
All business passed into the hands of Louvois. Le Tellier had been
chancellor since 1677; peace still reigned; the all-powerful minister
occupied himself in building Trianon, bringing the River Eure to
Versailles, and establishing unity of religion in France. "The counsel
of constraining the Huguenots by violent means to become Catholics was
given and carried out by the Marquis of Louvois," says an anonymous
letter of the time. "He thought he could manage consciences and control
religion by those harsh measures which, in spite of his wisdom, his
violent nature suggests to him almost in everything." Louvois was the
inventor, of the dragonnades; it was his father, Michael le Tellier, who
put the seals to the revocation of the edict of Nantes; and, a few days
before he died, full of joy at his last work, he piously sang the
canticle of Simeon. Louis XIV. and his ministers believed in good faith
that Protestantism was stamped out. "The king," wrote Madame de
Maintenon, "is very pleased to have put the last touch to the great work
of the reunion of the heretics with the church. Father la Chaise, the
king's confessor, promised that it would not cost a drop of blood, and
M. de Louvois said the same thing." Emigration in mass, the revolt of
the Camisards, and the long-continued punishments, were a painful
surprise for the courtiers accustomed to bend beneath the will of Louis
XIV.; they did not understand that "anybody should obstinately remain of
a religion which was displeasing to the king." T