How far did Colbert achieve his economic objectives?

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How far did Colbert achieve his economic objectives?

        During the 17th century, the French economy experienced a prolonged period of stagnation. Colbert, appointed Louis’ controller-general of finances in 1665, only achieved limited success in regards to his economic objectives and failed to reverse this period of economic stagnation. He was however, successful in his primary aim of providing Louis with the funds to do as he wished as his financial polices to increase tax revenue were very successful. Contrasting this success, his objectives in trade and commerce were only partly achieved and he failed to provide the country with long term prosperity.

        In 1671 Colbert received a letter from Louis criticising him for speaking out against the King. Although at face value this criticism may appear to mean that Colbert failed in his primary objective of pleasing the King and providing him with the necessary funds to do as he pleased, this letter is significant in proving the contrary. The letter describes how Loius ‘overwhelmed [Colbert] with benefits’ and had ‘a very friendly feeling towards you [Colbert]’. The fact that Louis had provided Colbert with benefits proves that he had earned the support of the King and was being rewarded for succeeding in his primary objective. The second significant point about the letter to prove Colbert’s success in pleasing the King is the fact that it is a private letter. Although Colbert had spoken out against the King’s judgement in public, Louis respected Colbert so much that he didn’t publicly disgrace his minister like he had done to Fouquet, Colbert’s predecessor, but kept it private in order to protect Colbert’s status at court.. This is very significant as it proves that Colbert had gained an amount of respect and trust from Louis that nearly every other Frenchmen could only dream of having, this is supported by the fact that Colbert kept his office until his death, a clear indicator that Colbert was very successful in achieving his primary economic objective. Colbert’s summary of the King’s finances for the year 1680 is a very valuable source in strongly supporting this claim as well. The summary shows that Louis spent 1,917,413 livres purely on his food and drink account, a further 817,489 livres on his royal stables and over 3 million livres on his personal household, on top of 2,030,092 livres of ready cash for his personal use. Considering that Louis’ total expenditure on the whole of France in this year was 95,964,011, these are significant sums of money which strongly support the claim that Colbert was very successful in providing the King with the money required to live a lavish lifestyle. Similarly historian Tim Blanning describes how Louis ‘appeared in a coat encrusted with 14,000,000 livres-worth of diamonds’. This huge figure is very significant evidence of Colbert’s success, as Louis was able to spend a substantial proportion of France’s annual expenditure on a coat purely to demonstrate his absolutism. It is clear that Colbert completely achieved his primary economic objective of providing his King with the necessary funds to live such an impressive and lavish lifestyle.

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        In order to provide Louis with such a lifestyle, Colbert had to improve the state of the King’s finances by increasing tax revenue. Geoffrery Treasure asserts that ‘There can be no doubt about the magnitude of Colbert’s achievement. During these years, with the doubling of ‘free income’ the crown regained solvency and control’ . This is strong evidence to support the claim that Colbert enjoyed considerable success in increasing tax revenue, or ‘free income’ as described by Treasure. Colbert was extremely successful as he aimed to reduce the tax burden on the peasants and to tap into the wealth of ...

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