The Surintendant had twice wounded the vanity of his King.  He had presumed to have a more beautiful chateau than his master, and had unluckily fancied the same woman.  Louis revenged himself by burying his rival alive for twenty years.  That Fouquet had plotted rebellion nobody believed.  He was too wise a politician not to know that the French were weary of civil war and could not be tempted to exchange one master for half a dozen military tyrants.  That he had taken the public money for his own use was not denied, even by his friends; and banishment would have been a just punishment, although, perhaps, a harsh one.  For it is hardly fair to judge Fouquet by our modern standard of financial honesty, low as that may be.  We, at least, try to cover up jobs, contracts, and defalcations by professions or appearances.  The difficulty of raising money for the expenses of Government in a state impoverished by years of internal commotions had accustomed public men to strange and irregular expedients, and unscrupulous financiers catch fine fish in troubled waters.  Mazarin openly put thousands of livres into his pocket; the Surintendant imitated him on a smaller scale.  But, if he paid himself liberally for his services, he also showed energy and skill in his attempts to restore order and economy in the administration of the revenue.  After his disgrace money was not much more plenty.  France, it is true, tranquil and secure within her borders, again showed signs of wealth, and was able to pay heavier taxes; but the King wasted them on his wars, his chateaux, and his mistresses, as recklessly as the Surintendant.  He had no misgivings as to his right to spend the people’s money.  From his principle, “L’Etat, c’est moi,” followed the corollary, “The income of the State is mine.”  From 1664 to 1690 one hundred and sixteen millions of livres were laid out in unnecessary hotels, chateaux, and gardens.  His ministers imitated him at a humble distance.  Louvois boasted that he had reached his fourteenth million at Meudon.  “I like,” said Louis, “to have those who manage my affairs skilfully do a good business for themselves.”

Before many years had passed, it was evident that Colbert, with all his energy and his systems, did not make both the financial ends meet any better than the Surintendant.  A merchant of Paris, with whom he consulted, told him,—­“You found the cart upset on one side, and you have upset it on the other.”  Colbert had tried to lighten it by striking eight millions of rentes from the funded debt; but it was too deeply imbedded in the mire; the shoulder of Hercules at the wheel could not have extricated it.  After Colbert was removed, times grew harder.  Long before the King’s death the financial distress was greater than in the wars and days of the Fronde.  Every possible contrivance by which money could be raised was resorted to.  Lotteries were drawn, tontines established, letters of nobility offered for sale at two thousand crowns