WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Comptroller-General of Finances under Louis XIV, held almost all of the great offices of state over the course of his career. Considered an accomplished manager, he was responsible for developing trade, industry and the merchant navy, modernising Paris, and backing new advances in the sciences.

Detailed explanation-2: -Jean-Baptiste Colbert (French: [ʒɑ̃. ba. tist kɔl. bɛʁ]; 29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683) was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV.

Detailed explanation-3: -Like his family emblem, the squirrel, and motto, “Quo non ascendet” (What heights will he not scale), Fouquet experienced a rapid social ascent. In 1653, he was named Superintendent of Finance by Cardinal Mazarin, Chief Minister to the young King Louis XIV.

Detailed explanation-4: -The most important minister in the first half of Louis XIV’s reign was Colbert, a former assistant of Mazarin’s. Colbert is remembered above all for his efforts to regulate the French economy.

Detailed explanation-5: -Quite surprisingly, the idea of mercantilism was first described by the French finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Colbert’s idea was a “favorable balance of trade” in which goods were exported for gold, versus an “unfavorable balance of trade” in which gold would flow out of the country.