14

The French navy

The Languedoc canal. [1661-83 construction of canals and the improvement of roads. The idea of the chief among these enterprises, the famous Canal of Languedoc, which joined the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay, was no new one, though the actual project suggested to Colbert was due to Pierre-Paul Riquet, who was employed in the administration of the gabelle. Colbert eagerly adopted the proposal, and at first thought of making a canal capable of carrying ships of war; but he had to be satisfied with a more modest scheme. The difficulties, financial and engineering, were very great, and towards the end Colbert and Riquet had ceased to be on good terms with each other. The canal was opened in May, 1681, a few months after the death of Riquet. It was, for the times, an extraordinary feat in engineering. The canal was 162 miles long, had 75 locks and was carried over a watershed 830 feet above the sea-level. Colbert was far from resting satisfied with the one great enterprise. He directed the improvement of the waterways throughout France, the making of new canals, and above all the improvement of the roads. Since the time of the Romans there had been no such road-maker in France as he.

But

Colbert's vision of a France, colonial, industrial, and commercial, necessarily included a strong navy. What Richelieu had done in this respect had been undone in the period of Mazarin's domination. Colbert took up the work with more than his usual energy, and here all his great qualities were seen at their best. When he began, the warships of the French navy were, he tells us, only twenty in number; and of these not more than two or three were really serviceable. But by 1671 the number had risen to 196 effective vessels, and by 1677 the figure had risen to 270. Thus Colbert saw the King in a position to realise the object summed up by him in the phrase "se passer des étrangers." The old harbours and arsenals of France were repaired, and new ones created. A fresh life was infused into Toulon, Rochefort, Brest, Le Havre, Dunkirk; and ship-building rapidly developed. He gave as careful a consideration to the question of the crews as to that of the ships themselves; but here the hardness of his nature becomes painfully evident. He forced the maritime population of France into the service with a vigour not less brutal than that of the English press of later days. But the cruelties to which his system could descend are seen at their worst in relation to the galleys. These vessels had been of the greatest service in the naval warfare of the Mediterranean, and Colbert was passionately determined to build and equip them with the greatest possible rapidity. He succeeded in building them, and boasted that the French yards were capable of turning out a galley within the space of twenty-four hours. But the crews gave him endless trouble. The toil of the rowers was so terrible and their treatment so cruel that free men could not be induced in sufficient quantities to undertake the work. The galleys were a common form of punishment for the criminals of France; and the correspondence

1661-83]

The new Academies

15

of Colbert shows him to have urged upon the judges the sentencing of as large a number as possible to the galleys. The vagrants of France were forced wholesale into this living death; and those condemned for a short period were often detained for life. History has few more terrible chapters than that of the barbarous treatment of the French galleyslaves.

We stand amazed at the different subjects which came under the survey of Colbert and at the minute attention which he was able to bestow on them. There is assuredly no French statesman besides him whose energy flows through so many channels until we come to Napoleon. As Minister of Marine the fortifications of France were partly under his control, and, with Vauban, he laboured to make them impregnable. He was interested in the public works of Paris, and hoped to make the King concentrate his architectural ambitions on the Louvre; and he saw with despair that the royal inclination was turned wholly in the direction of Versailles. He protested against the expenses of Versailles with singular frankness, declaring that the new palace "would perhaps afford the King pleasure and amusement but would never increase his glory"; but all was in vain, and his projected improvements for the Louvre were never realised. In order to complete the survey of his manifold activities, we need here only mention that the creation of five new Academies was due to Colbert — the Academy of Inscriptions and Medals; the Academy of Science; the French Academy at Rome; the Academy of Architecture; ✓ the Academy of Music. Though with these royal protection and ministerial direction counted for much and sometimes hindered their free development, they all lived and flourished and were one of the most permanent effects of Colbert's genius. Of the pensions which he accorded to men of science and letters, the first list (1662) contained 60 names-45 French and 15 belonging to foreign countries. It must, however, be allowed that the list, and especially the order of names in it, suggest no very favourable idea of Colbert's literary tastes. His object was in point of fact mainly political, and, by acting as Maecenas under Louis XIV, he intended to control the men of letters and through them to influence public opinion.

In its ideals and its efforts, both political and literary, the age of Louis✔ XIV typifies order and authority. But an enquiry into the actual condition of things reveals a striking contrast to the ideals of the age. The administration of justice was irregular and corrupt. The encroachments of the Crown had broken the independence of feudal justice, but it still subsisted in a most confused, arbitrary and corrupt form. Crimes were amazingly frequent even in the neighbourhood of Paris and were increased by the brutality of the punishments inflicted. The procedure both in civil and criminal cases was uncertain, dilatory, and embarrassed by the rival claims of innumerable feudal Courts as against the royal magistrates and one another. The corruption of the

16 The Code Louis. - The Grands Jours

[1661-83 provincial administration of justice is attested by innumerable complaints; and the rich and powerful among French criminals enjoyed a large measure of impunity. All that was best in Louis XIV and in the traditions of the French Crown fought against this state of things, and here also Colbert was the chief agent and stimulus to the royal will. A series of ordinances, of which the chief were the ordonnance civile (1667), the ordonnance criminelle (1670), the ordonnance sur les eaux et forêts and the édit sur le commerce (1673) defined the procedure in various departments and controlled the legal system of France, until the Code Louis was replaced, a century and a half later, by the Code Napoléon. The general tendency and the general result of these ordinances was excellent; but in some points they stereotyped odious practices, and Colbert defended at every point the cause of monarchy rather than humanity The use of torture was prescribed; counsel was denied to the accused in criminal cases; the treatment of bankrupts was severe in the extreme. But it was not enough to declare the royal authority by ordinance, it was also to be demonstrated in action. A royal commission under the presidency of the Sieur de Novion was sent down to Clermonten-Auvergne in 1665 to repress disturbances there and assert the royal power against the presumption of the nobles. Fléchier, afterwards. Bishop of Nîmes, has left us a brilliant and amusing description of the procedure of this commission. The chief incident was the trial and execution of the Vicomte de La Mothe de Canillac for the killing of a man of humble birth in the prosecution of a private quarrel. The peasantry, when they found the royal authority thrown on their side against their aristocratic oppressors, passed at once from servility to insolence, refused the usual acts of courtesy to the nobles, and would clearly have anticipated the violences of 1789, if the Government had not been strong enough to repress them. What was done in Auvergne was repeated in other parts of France. Novion reported to Louis XIV that a single official could now execute orders, which could not formerly have been carried out without the support of a body of soldiers. If all exaggerations are excluded we still see here the action of the monarchy in its most typical and beneficent aspect. The disorders of Paris and the neighbourhood, which at one time reached an incredible height, were largely remedied by the appointment of La Reynie as Lieutenant of Police.

The first eleven years of Louis XIV's personal government are so much influenced by the ideas of Colbert that the reign of the King and the biography of the Minister are almost identical. But before the end of that period Colbert had found a serious rival. The pacific designs of Colbert were opposed by the plans and influence of Louvois, the Minister of War. Louvois and Colbert were alike in their industry, and in their devotion to the service and glory of their King; but they were alike in nothing else. The causes of their personal hostility have been examined as if there were some secret to be revealed; but, in fact,

1662-83] The rivalry between Louvois and Colbert 17

Louvois crossed Colbert's path at every turn. He urged Louis to spend money on Versailles, while Colbert wanted to make Paris the royal residence; he wanted to spend the revenues of France on military preparations, while Colbert wished to use them for the promotion of colonial and industrial enterprises; in short, he was for war, and Colbert, with one fatal exception, was for peace. The struggle between them: for their master's support was very keen; but it was decided in favour of Louvois. For some years before his death Colbert had suffered from gout, and this decision seems to have overwhelmed him. He died in September, 1683, almost in disgrace. It was the supreme misfortune of France that Louis XIV, with all his great qualities of intelligence and character, had so imperfect a sympathy with Colbert's arms. What might not Colbert have done if he had served a Frederick the Great!

The

The year 1672 and the outbreak of the war with the United Netherlands mark the end of the pacific period of Louis XIV's reign, throughout which Colbert's had been the chief influence over the royal mind. During those first twelve years of the reign the prosperity of France was not unchequered nor her aims always right; but the chief effort of the Government was directed towards commercial and industrial development, the limitation of privilege and the unification of the State. War of Devolution had been only a slight interruption to this progress, but the Dutch quarrel opened a continuous period of war lasting with little real interruption from 1672 to 1713. During this period the internal development of France was of little account. Colbert's influence had much declined even before his death. The King's mind was absorbed by military glory and religious orthodoxy; and these two tendencies were represented in his Court by Louvois and Madame de Maintenon.

Louvois was the son of Le Tellier, of whom mention was made above, and who in 1655 had procured for him the right of succession to his office, in accordance with the dangerous custom which established a sort of heredity in many of the highest positions in the State. In 1662 the King raised Louvois to the position of Secretary of State; and from that date he became one of the chief influences with the King and the rival of Colbert. He was a man exactly suited to win and to retain the favour of Louis XIV. To the rest of the world he was disdainful, arrogant, and violent; but in his dealings with the King he showed himself pliant and servilely deferential. It flattered the pride of the King to see his power over one who submitted to no other authority. Louvois did not, like Colbert, strive to thwart the King's natural disposition. Rather, he impelled him towards the goal to which his natural bent directed him. War, glory, dominion, and self-worship — these were the objects that Louvois held up before the eyes of Louis XIV, and to which he was by nature only too much inclined.

C. M. H. V.

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18

Army administration of Louvois

[1662-91

There are two sides to the work of Louvois, and our judgment on him will vary widely according as he is regarded as an administrator or a statesman. As a statesman he not only urged the King on to those military adventures which brought the "Age of Louis XIV" to so disastrous an end, but he also approved and co-operated in the tragic blunder of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But as an adminis trator and organiser he deserves the very highest praise. He found the French army, famous indeed and victorious, but full of gross corruption and so bound by traditions, usually of feudal origin, that it was far from answering quickly to the wishes of the central Government. Louvois, acting in agreement with the whole tendency of the ideas and policy of Louis XIV, centralised the administration of the army, made the control of the King direct and paramount, and eliminated what remained of aristocratic influence. At the same time he improved its weapons, tightened its discipline, punished abuses and brought its different parts into organic connexion.

The abuses in the army were chiefly due to the power and influence which the nobility still held in the recruiting and organisation of the army. It was the nobles, not the Government, who collected and equipped the troops. They had themselves purchased the posts which they held, and they found various ways of making a profit out of their positions. The chief of these was to make a return of, and consequently to receive pay for, more men than were actually to be found in the ranks. On days of official inspection the gaps were filled up by paid substitutes (passe-volants), whom Louvois strove to suppress by the severest penalties. The scandals and corruptions in the provisioning of the army were also notorious.

Louvois sought to remedy this state of things, chiefly by bringing the army under more direct control of the Government. He was not prepared to revolutionise the whole system; but, by indefatigable attention to detail and by the strictest severity against proved malefactors, he succeeded in abolishing or diminishing the worst evils. The army was still recruited by the nobles; but Louvois appointed inspectors to ensure that the soldiers, for whom the Government paid, really existed, and to repress the licence and indiscipline of the noble officers. The cynical

hardness of Louvois' nature the brutalité that is so often attributed to him here stood France in good stead; and he was excellently served by two inspectors, the famous Martinet for the infantry and de Fourilles for the cavalry.

But Louvois was not satisfied with the enforcement of honesty. Equipment and organisation both underwent important modifications. The bayonet was introduced; the fusil (flint-lock) took the place of the mousquet, which had been discharged by means of a match. The grenadiers were organised into an important force; the status of the engineers and of the infantry was raised; the artillery was brought into