United States or Slovakia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Rabourdin's plan divided the government into three ministries, or departments. He thought that if the France of former days possessed brains strong enough to comprehend in one system both foreign and domestic affairs, the France of to-day was not likely to be without its Mazarin, its Suger, its Sully, its de Choiseul, or its Colbert to direct even vast administrative departments.
"That's true: I myself recollect very well Sir Hugh de Colbert, a very accomplished knight in the castle-yard; but his men were as fine a set of fellows as ever crossed a horse, to look at, but they proved deficient at the moment of trial; they were broken, and fled in a moment, and scarce one of them received a scratch." "Then they hadn't stood the shock of the foeman?" "No; that's certain."
He had long hated Colbert for his success, counting as an affront to himself Colbert's marvellous establishment of a navy which he felt rivalled in importance the army, over which the direction was his own. On finding Colbert's baton in his hand, it was but human to strike with it as much as to direct, and one of his blows fell upon the head of the Gobelins, Lebrun.
The practical expediency of issuing a decree of prohibition was what lay upon his mind. On that point Colbert gave him sensible advice, namely, that a question of practical policy could be better settled by the colonists themselves than by cloistered scholars.
Paul Colbert was very pale, and his eyes were glancing round, searching the deepening shadows of the forest. He made a gesture, warning the boy to speak lower, and his own voice was scarcely above a whisper. "What time to-day did Pressley leave Cedar House? Had he come back when you came away? Tell me again just what he said about telling Philip Alston.
"Monsieur Colbert held my cards for me," replied the superintendent, with a similar bitter laugh. "Ah, now I understand; so, so, a new application for funds?" "Yes, and from the king's own lips. It was impossible to ruin a man with a more charming smile. What do you think of it?" "It is clear that your destruction is the object in view." "That is your opinion?" "Still.
"Is it not, with loss, too?" And Colbert laughed aloud. He was delighted with his own joke. "Still further," added he, "these same Dutch are building for the king, at this moment, six vessels after the model of the best of their name. Destouches Ah! perhaps you don't know Destouches?" "No, monsieur."
Colbert was seized with as much terror as if a gulf had opened beneath his feet. Louis started with admiration, either at the genius or the devotion of Fouquet. "Explain yourself, monsieur," said he. "Nothing more easy, sire; Belle-Isle is one of my estates; I have fortified it at my own expense.
There were such capable men as Colbert and Louvois at the King's side'; there was the great genius of France which manifests itself when and as it will, whatever the regime and there was Madame de Montespan to whose influence not a little of Louis's glory may be ascribed, since the most splendid years of his reign were those between 1668 and 1678 when she was maitresse en titre and more than Queen of France.
The cloth manufactures were dying out, they received encouragement; a Protestant Hollander, Van Robais, attracted over to Abbeville by Colbert, there introduced the making of fine cloths; at Beauvais and in the Gobelins establishment at Paris, under the direction of the great painter Lebrun, the French tapestries soon threw into the shade the reputation of the tapestries of Flanders; Venice had to yield up her secrets and her workmen for the glass manufactories of St.
Word Of The Day