The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Died, 1693.] Brother of the great Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was Finance Minister of Louis XIV. Edouard was a lieutenant-general in the army, and a member of the government. [From a marble in the Louvre, by Desjardins, a Dutch sculptor, born at Breda, 1640, who died at Paris, in 1694. Desjardins attained to eminence and became principal of the Académie in Paris. The original is inscribed--“E. C. Marquis de Colbert, Surintendant des batimens du Roy, agé de LXIIII. ans.”] 267*. JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT. _Statesman and Financier._ [Born at Reims, in France, 1619. Died in Paris, 1683. Aged 64.] It has been said that Louis XIV. would never have been so great a King had not Colbert been so great a financier. And there is warrant for the remark. His soul was absorbed in the work of glorifying France, and he carried out his patriotic object by re-establishing order in the finances of the country, from which he contended all material prosperity flows--by a reconstruction of the whole commercial system--by adorning the capital with great public works, and by a general encouragement of art and literature. Some authors assert that Colbert was the son of a draper. His mind was that of the most enlightened statesman. In early life, Mazarin had been his patron, and when the Cardinal died, he bequeathed his friend to the King as the best legacy he could leave him, and he appointed him his own executor. France prospered under his hand, which suffered no fatigue from inordinate exertion, and which ruled,---if occasionally with a rod of iron,--with a success that has left some of its effects visible even at the present day. He died spent with service, having lived through intrigues and rivalries. [This bust, which is to come, is from a marble in the Louvre, by Michel Anguier, who died in 1686. He was the artist who executed the sculptures of the Triumphal Arch at Paris, called the Porte St. Denis. The costume is the court dress, with a mantle over, which is the Order of the Holy Spirit, and the Cordon. At Versailles there is a bust also from the life, by Coysevox, who did the kneeling statue on his tomb in the church of St. Eustace, a copy of which is there also.]