ich resisted all improvements. And other parts
of Colbert's schemes deserve still less equivocal condemnation. By his
firm maintenance of the corporation system, each industry remained in
the hands of certain privileged bourgeois; in this way, too, improvement
was greatly discouraged; while to the lower classes opportunities of
advancement were closed. With regard to international commerce Colbert
was equally unfortunate in not being in advance of his age; the tariffs
he published were protective to an extreme. The interests of internal
commerce were, however, wisely consulted. Unable to abolish the duties
on the passage of goods from province to province, he did what he could
to induce the provinces to equalize them. The roads and canals were
improved. The great canal of Languedoc was planned and constructed by
Pierre Paul Riquet (1604-1680) under his patronage. To encourage trade
with the Levant, Senegal, Guinea and other places, privileges were
granted to companies; but, like the more important East India Company,
all were unsuccessful. The chief cause of this failure, as well as of
the failure of the colonies, on which he bestowed so much watchful care,
was the narrowness and rigidity of the government regulations.

The greatest and most lasting of Colbert's achievements was the
establishment of the French marine. The royal navy owed all to him, for
the king thought only of military exploits. For its use, Colbert
reconstructed the works and arsenal of Toulon, founded the port and
arsenal of Rochefort, and the naval schools of Rochefort, Dieppe and
Saint-Malo, and fortified, with some assistance from Vauban (who,
however, belonged to the party of his rival Louvois), among other ports
those of Calais, Dunkirk, Brest and Havre. To supply it with recruits
he invented his famous system of classes, by which each seaman,
according to the class in which he was placed, gave six months' service
every three or four or five years. For three months after his term of
service he was to receive half-pay; pensions were promised; and, in
short, everything was done to make the navy popular. There was one
department, however, that was supplied with men on a very different
principle. Letters exist written by Colbert to the judges requiring them
to sentence to the oar as many criminals as possible, including all
those who had been condemned to death; and the convict once chained to
the bench, the expiration of his sentence was seldom allo