e, heiress of the
house of Rochchouart. Since this union--the King's work--M. Colbert had
somewhat tended in my favour, and I had reason to count on his good
offices and kindness. I said to him one day that my quarrel with him was
that he did not look after himself, that he ignored all his own worth,
treated himself with no more respect than a mere clerk; that he was the
indispensable man, the right hand of the King, his eye of vigilance in
everything, and the pillar of his business and his finance.

Without being precisely what one would call a modest man, M. Colbert was
calm of mind, and by nature without pose or presumption. He cared
sincerely for the King's glory. He held his tongue on the subject of
great enterprises, but employed much zeal and ability in promoting the
success of good projects and ideas, such as, for instance, our Indies and
Pondicherry.

He had known how to procure, without oppressing any one, the incalculable
sums that had been necessitated, not only by enormous and almost
universal wars, but by all those canals, all those ports in the
Mediterranean or the ocean, that vast creation of vessels, arsenals,
foundries, military houses and hospitals which we had seen springing up
in all parts. He had procured by his application, his careful
calculations, the wherewithal to build innumerable fortresses, aqueducts,
fountains, bridges, the Observatory of Paris, the Royal Hospital of the
Invalides, the chateaus of the Tuileries and of Vincennes, the engine and
chateau of Marly, that prodigious chateau of Versailles, with its Trianon
of marble, which by itself might have served as a habitation for the
richest monarchs of the Orient.

He had founded the wonderful glass factories, and those of the Gobelins;
he had raised, as though by a magic ring, the Royal Library over the
gardens and galleries of Mazarin; and foreigners asked one another, in
their surprise, what they must admire most in that monument, the interior
pomp of the edifice or its rich collection of books, coins, and
manuscripts.

To all these works, more than sufficient to immortalise twenty ministers,
M. Colbert was adding at this moment the huge 'salpetriere' of Paris and
the colonnades of the Louvre. Ruthless death came to seize him in the
midst of these occupations, so noble, useful, and glorious.

The great Colbert, worn out with fatigue, watching, and constraint, left
the King, his wife, his children, his honours, his well-earne