The Vicomte de Bragelonne · Chapter
Colbert explained
This chapter provides a detailed portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, tracing his rise from a lowly clerk to Mazarin's trusted intendant.
What happens
This chapter provides a detailed portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, tracing his rise from a lowly clerk to Mazarin's trusted intendant. It recounts his early life, his shrewd and tenacious character, and the pivotal anecdote of his delivering and retrieving a compromising letter from Anne of Austria to Mazarin, which earned him the cardinal's respect. The chapter culminates in a tense scene where Colbert reveals to the dying Mazarin his precise knowledge of the cardinal's hidden fortune, including thirteen million livres not officially accounted for.
Themes in this chapter
Power and Ambition
Colbert's relentless rise from a lowly clerk to Mazarin's indispensable intendant exemplifies ambition and the strategic accumulation of power through knowledge and service.
Court Intrigue and Deception
The episode of the queen mother's letter and Colbert's tenacious verification of its return highlights the pervasive deception and careful maneuvering within the court.
Greed and Corruption
Mazarin's hidden fortune and Colbert's precise knowledge of it underscore the theme of greed and the corrupting influence of wealth, especially in the context of the cardinal's deathbed anxieties.
Class and Social Mobility
Colbert's low birth (son of a wine merchant and cloth seller) and his ascent to a position of power reflect the theme of class and the possibility of rising through merit and cunning.
Characters to notice
- Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Portrayed in depth: his physical appearance, lowly birth, early career as a clerk, and his shrewd, tenacious, and morally rigid character. He demonstrates his indispensability to Mazarin by revealing his exact knowledge of the cardinal's hidden wealth.
- Jules Mazarin
The dying cardinal, anxious about his wealth and his soul. He summons Colbert for counsel, is astonished by Colbert's precise accounting of his fortune, and allows him to witness his confession.
- Anne of Austria
Referenced as the queen mother whose compromising letter to Letellier was the object of Colbert's first mission to Mazarin.
- Bernouin
Mazarin's valet, who appears briefly to announce the Théatin father's delay and to disturb the cardinal's conversation with Colbert.
- Brienne
Mentioned as one of the courtiers chatting with Colbert and Bernouin in the corridor during the evening.
- Michel Letellier
Referenced as the secretary of state who employed Colbert and entrusted him with the mission to deliver and retrieve Anne of Austria's letter to Mazarin.
Key passages
“Colbert was not far off. During the whole evening he had remained in one of the corridors, chatting with Bernouin and Brienne, and commenting, with the ordinary skill of people of court, upon the news which developed like air-bubbles upon the water, on the surface of each event.”
Colbert spent the evening in a corridor, discussing court gossip with Bernouin and Brienne, showing his skill at reading the shifting currents of news.
Establishes Colbert as a keen observer of court dynamics, always present and attentive.
“Colbert by degrees crept into court, notwithstanding his lowly birth, for he was the son of a man who sold wine as his father had done, but who afterwards sold cloth, and then silk stuffs.”
Despite being born into a family of merchants, Colbert gradually insinuated himself into the royal court.
Highlights Colbert's social climbing and the theme of class mobility.
“I mean, that besides those forty millions, five hundred and sixty thousand, two hundred livres, nine cents, eight farthings, there are thirteen millions that are not known.”
Colbert reveals to Mazarin that he knows of an additional thirteen million livres beyond the official fortune.
Demonstrates Colbert's secret knowledge and his power over the cardinal, a key moment of tension.
