but in some cases really stupendous. His creation of a navy almost
surpasses belief. In 1661, when he first became free to act, France
possessed only thirty vessels-of-war of all sizes. At the peace of
Nimwegen, in 1678, she had acquired a fleet of one hundred twenty ships,
and in 1683 she had got a fleet of one hundred seventy-six vessels; and
the increase was quite as great in the size and armament of the individual
ships as in their number.

A perfect giant of administration, Colbert found no labor too great for
his energies, and worked with unflagging energy sixteen hours a day for
twenty-two years. It is melancholy to be forced to add that all this toil
was as good as thrown away, and that the strong man went broken-hearted to
the grave, through seeing too clearly that he had labored in vain for an
ungrateful egotist. His great visions of a prosperous France, increasing in
wealth and contentment, were blighted; and he closed his eyes upon scenes
of improvidence and waste more injurious to the country than the financial
robbery which he had combated in his early days. The government was not
plundered as it had been, but itself was exhausting the very springs of
wealth by its impoverishment of the people.

Boisguillebert, writing in 1698, only fifteen years after Colbert's death,
estimated the productive powers of France to have diminished by one-half
in the previous thirty years. It seems, indeed, probable that the almost
magical rapidity and effect of Colbert's early reforms turned Louis XIV's
head, and that he was convinced that it only depended on his good pleasure
to renew them to obtain the same result. He never found, as he never
deserved to find, another Colbert; and he stumbled onward in ever deeper
ruin to his disastrous end.

His first breach of public faith was his attack on the Spanish Netherlands,