Page:History of the French in India.djvu/33

THE GENIUS OF COLBERT. 11 wars of the Fronde and its contests with Spain, were chap. not favourable to commercial enterprise. Mazarin, however, died in 1661. His successor, Colbert, was lOQi, one of those men who stamp their name on the age in which they live. Colbert was one of the glories of France. Born in the middle rank of life, the son of a merchant, himself educated as a banker, and having, in that capacity, been charged with the management of the affairs of Cardinal Mazarin, he had gained so entirely the confidence of that Minister, that, on his dying bed, the Cardinal recommended him to his master as a man of immense capacity, strict fidelity, and un- wearied application. Colbert succeeded him, first only as Controller of Finances, but not long after he was invested with the entire administration of the country. Under his guiding hand, France quickly assumed in Europe a position such as she had never before held. Her finances, commerce, industry, agriculture, art, all felt the impulse of his strong will and firm direction. Colbert made the French navy. In a few years after his accession to power, France possessed a hundred vessels of war, and there were 60,000 sailors inscribed on the rolls. He created the naval ports of Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort; he bought Dunkirk from the English, and he commenced Cherbourg ; and " binding together industry, commerce, and the marine in one common future, he founded French colonies to assure outlets to industry and commerce, and an employment of the navy in time of peace." Colbert had been neither blind nor indifferent to the great advantages which had accrued to the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English from their possessions in India, and he made it one of his greatest objects to en- courage the formation of a grand Company, somewhat on the English model, to open out a regular traffic with that country. He held out to it promises of the strongest support of the administration. He offered it