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Colbert tried to do too many things, with the result that
his plans repeatedly miscarried. The nobles became more indolent,
wasteful, and pleasure-loving, and the middle class more selfish and
more devoted to their own class interests, while the lot of the
peasantry,--the bulk of the nation,--despite the spasmodic efforts of
the paternal government, steadily grew worse under the unrelieved
burden of taxation. Then, too, the king was extravagant in maintaining
his mistresses, his court, and his favorites. His excessive vanity had
to be appeased by expensive entertainment and show. He preferred the
spectacular but woeful feats of arms to the less pretentious but more
solid triumphs of peace. Indeed, in course of time, Colbert found his
influence with the king waning before that of Louvois, and when he died
it was with the bitter thought that his financial retrenchment had been
in vain, that his husbanded resources were being rapidly dissipated in
foreign war. It was Louis's wars that deprived his reign of true
grandeur and paved the way for future disaster.


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