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Updated: May 27, 2025
Agriculture suffered for lack of money and hands; commerce was ruined; the manufactures established by Colbert no longer existed; the population had diminished more than a quarter since the palmy days of the king's reign; Pontchartrain, secretary of finance, was reduced to all sorts of expedients for raising money; he was anxious to rid himself of this heavy burden, and became chancellor in 1699; the king took for his substitute Chamillard, already comptroller of finance, honest and hard-working, incapable and docile; Louis XIV. counted upon the inexhaustible resources of France, and closed his ears to the grievances of the financiers.
Villeroi kept recoiling before the enemy, Marlborough kept advancing; two thirds of Belgium and sixteen strong places were lost, when Louis XIV. sent Chamillard into the Low Countries; it was no longer the time when Louvois made armies spring from the very soil, and when Vauban prepared the defence of Dunkerque. The king recalled Villeroi, showing him to the last unwavering kindness.
The next day Chamillard announced to Cavalier that the king desired to see him, and that he was to keep himself prepared for a summons to court. Two days later, Cavalier received a letter from the minister telling him to be at the palace at four o'clock in the afternoon, and he would place him on the grand staircase, up which the king would pass.
Behind him, two steps lower, came Chamillard, moving and stopping as the king moved and stopped, and answering the questions which His Majesty put to him in a respectful but formal and precise manner. When he had examined him quite at his ease, he turned to Chamillard, pretending he had only just caught sight of the stranger, and asked: "Who is this young gentleman?"
To this there was no possible reply, so the same evening d'Aygaliers set out on his return to Languedoc. Three months later, Chamillard forwarded him an order to leave the kingdom, telling him that he was to receive a pension of four hundred crowns per annum, and enclosing the first quarter in advance.
Cavalier at once wrote to M. de Chamillard to tell him that he had things of importance to communicate to him, and the minister sent a courier of the Cabinet called Lavallee to bring Cavalier to Versailles.
You see I am all ready to leave. I have but waited your return. The war has been decided on and the news needs only to be given out. The King hesitates and wavers; Chamillard is a mere reflection of the royal whim. If we do not attack the Spaniard he will attack us; it is simply a question of whether we want the war at Biloxi or Havana. For my part I would rather see Havana in siege than Biloxi.
He had two ministers of the higher order, Colbert and Louvois; several of good capacity, such as Seignelay and Torcy; others incompetent, like Chamillard; he remained as much master of the administrators of the first rank as if they had been insignificant clerks; the home government of France, from 1661 to 1715, is summed up in the king's relations with his ministers.
He had outgrown his bashfulness and embarrassment in this campaign, and could take his place in company, but re remained at home with me. Had neither the grace nor the vivacity that would have enabled me to collect a society around me, and I seldom saw his brother officers except my brother M. de Solivet, and his great friend M. de Chamillard, who was quite fatherly to me.
"Certainly I am willing; but I fear things have now got so far that there will be great difficulty in calming the general perturbation of mind." "But what can these people want?" asked Chamillard, as if he had just heard them spoken of for the first time, "and by what means can we pacify them?"
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