orded to have been proposed by him with the intention of expediting
the great Dictionary, in which he was much interested, was that no one
should be accounted present at any meeting unless he arrived before the
hour of commencement and remained till the hour for leaving. In 1673 he
presided over the first exhibition of the works of living painters; and
he enriched the Louvre with hundreds of pictures and statues. He gave
many pensions to men of letters, among whom we find Moliere, Corneille,
Racine, Boileau, P. D. Huet (1630-1721) and Antoine Varillas
(1626-1696), and even foreigners, as Huyghens, Vossius the geographer,
Carlo Dati the Dellacruscan, and Heinsius the great Dutch scholar. There
is evidence to show that by this munificence he hoped to draw out
praises of his sovereign and himself; but this motive certainly is far
from accounting for all the splendid, if in some cases specious,
services that he rendered to literature, science and art.

Indeed to everything that concerned the interests of France Colbert
devoted unsparing thought and toil. Besides all that has been
mentioned, he found time to do something for the better administration
of justice (the codification of ordinances, the diminishing of the
number of judges, the reduction of the expense and length of trials for
the establishment of a superior system of police) and even for the
improvement of the breed of horses and the increase of cattle. As
superintendent of public buildings he enriched Paris with boulevards,
quays and triumphal arches; he relaid the foundation-stone of the
Louvre, and brought Bernin from Rome to be its architect; and he erected
its splendid colonnade upon the plan of Claude Perrault, by whom Bernin
had been replaced. He was not permitted, however, to complete the work,
being compelled to yield to the king's preference for residences outside
Paris, and to devote himself to Marly and Versailles.

Amid all these public labours his private fortune was never neglected.
While he was reforming the finances of the nation, and organizing its
navy, he always found time to direct the management of his smallest
farm. He died extremely rich, and left fine estates all over France. He
had been created marquis de Seignelay, and for his eldest son he
obtained the reversion of the office of minister of marine; his second
son became archbishop of Rouen; and a third son, the marquis d'Ormoy,
became superintendent of buildings.

To carry out his ref