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“Nobly, madam. I see that you know the history; but as you have probably heard it from your son, his modesty has undoubtedly left you ignorant of that which has most delighted me. I went to M. Guillaume's for a second piece of cloth, and was informed of all the details by the shop-boy. Your admirable child, madam, refused to divide with his master the overcharge on the cloth."

"Excellent, excellent! Quite right, quite right! Oh, my dear, dear boy!" said Madame Colbert with happy pride, embracing Baptiste, who stammered—

"It would not have been honest."

M. Colbert looked upon his son with all a father's delighted approval.

"You are aware, sir,” said he, addressing the banker, “that on account of his conduct, a conduct which makes a father's heart palpitate with joy, my son has been dismissed from M. Guillaume's.”

"I know it, sir; the shop-boy told me so; and on that account I determined to come here, and to ask you, since you have already suffered your child to enter into trade, if it would suit you to place him, honest and honourable as he is, in our banking-house, where, in a larger sphere, he must make his fortune? I tell you, madam, your child will make his fortune."

"God bless you, sir," said Madame Colbert with emotion.

Baptiste, who had hitherto listened in silence, and who now only began to understand M. Cenani's intention, cried suddenly, “If to make a fortune I am to leave my father and mother,ˇI must decline it, sir.”

"But I do not decline it for you, Baptiste," said his father tenderly but seriously; 66 we are very poor, my son; and I should think myself culpable did I bury a mind like yours in the narrow and confined sphere in which I move. Since this gentleman has appreciated you so far as to come to seek you here, he deserves my fullest confidence. I give him to you, sir; I intrust to you the flower of my family. Oh! in that great city whither you are about to take him, watch over him—I will not say like a father, you are too young, but like a brother. And you, Baptiste, go with this gentleman; in all that concerns the business of your calling, listen to his advice, and follow it; but when the principles of integrity, of honour, and of virtue are involved, take counsel but of your own heart.”

Baptiste wept while he listened to his father, but he no longer made any objection; the desire to relieve his parents, and to be useful to his family, soon dried his tears; nevertheless, the adieus were sorrowful.

Baptiste's young heart was wrung at the thought of leaving that home whose every corner recalled to his mind some sport of his childhood, or some fond caress of his parents; whose every article of furniture was connected with some sweet and tender

association. Even down to old Janon there was nothing that did not bring with it a regret.

Soon, however thanks to the natural buoyancy of his age, and also to the change of scene and place-Baptiste felt a new life spring up within him, as he was whirled along in a comfortable carriage, with a young and cheerful companion.

Let us follow him to Paris, my young readers, and see in what manner the little woollen-draper climbed, step by step, to the pinnacle of earthly greatness and glory.

Having arrived in Paris, young Colbert found himself in a new world. All was brilliant and delightful. But though highly interested with all that he saw, he had the good sense to remember that he must, to enjoy what surrounded him, diligently pursue the line of duty chalked out by his kind-hearted employer. With ears and eyes open to all he heard and saw, he still closely adhered to his occupation as a clerk in the banking-house of Messrs Cenani and Mazerani. By this diligence and his general skill he speedily rose in estimation. No accounts baffled his

scrutiny. He mastered the details of his profession while still a youth; and on attaining manhood, he might have been pronounced a thorough financier. The most important duties were now intrusted to him; and at length he obtained the great object of his ambition, the office of traveller for the firm.

It was

The taste for the arts and sciences which he possessed was still more developed in his travels. He made the circuit of all the French provinces; and commerce being his principal study, he was already devising means to render it flourishing. while on these journeys that he formed those great projects, the execution of which, in later years, adorned his ministry. In 1648, when he was about thirty, Saint Pouage, his near relation, placed him with his brother-in-law Letellier, then secretary of state, by whom he was introduced to Cardinal Mazarin, prime minister of Anne of Austria, regent of France during the minority of Louis XIV. At this period commenced the factious intrigues which marked the regency of Anne. Mazarin, who had more penetration into character than any other man of his time, understood and appreciated the young and studious Colbert. begged him of Letellier, who yielded him to him. created him privy-counsellor, and associated him with himself in all public business. Having proved his zeal in the wars of the Fronde in 1649 and 1650, he soon admitted him into his full confidence. At this epoch Mazarin, pursued by public hatred, and an object of distrust and dislike to the highest in the kingdom, was obliged to retire to Cologne. Colbert was about to marry Marie, the daughter of Jacques Charron, Baron de Menars. He remained at Paris as comptroller of the cardinal's household, and the secret agent of his correspondence with the queen regent. He it was who was the bearer of the minister's despatches to that princess, and who received hers in return for the minister. He

He

Mazarin

acquitted himself of this delicate commission in a manner which did equal honour to his head and heart, his prudence being only equalled by his zeal; and when Mazarin returned to France, he enabled him to be useful to his family.

Colbert's father was not forgotten by his son; he was created a baron, and placed in a situation suitable to his abilities. His mother's father, Henri Passort, was made privy-counsellor. The latter afterwards drew up that famous civil code known under the name of the code of 1667. To one of his brothers he gave several appointments; procured a lieutenancy in the regiment of Navarre for the second; caused the third to be appointed director of sea prizes; and for his fourth brother, who was an abbé, he obtained a benefice worth 6000 livres. Thus Colbert, now a great man at court, showed himself not unmindful of his relatives, and these were worthy of his esteem. The following extract from a letter written by Colbert to his patron the cardinal, proves also that he had not obliged one who was ungrateful for his favours:

"I intreat," he says, "that your highness will not think me insensible to the many favours that you have lavished on me and my family, and that, by your permitting a public acknowledgment of them, I may be allowed to offer the only kind of return for them it is in my power to make.”

Colbert, created Marquis de Croissy, continued to give such proofs of rare merit and conscientiousness in all affairs confided to him by the cardinal, that the latter, when dying, said to Louis XIV., “I owe everything to you, sire; but I think that I acquit myself in some degree to your majesty in giving you Colbert."

Louis XIV. appreciated Colbert's merits so highly, that in 1661 he created him comptroller-general of finance. At this era France carried on no regular trade but that of some of its provinces with the capital, and even this trade was confined to the produce of the soil. France was still ignorant of her own resources and the mine of wealth that national industry can open. The principal roads were impassable; Colbert had them repaired, and also opened new ones. The junction of the two seas by which France is bounded had before been proposed under Louis XIII.; Colbert had it put into execution by Riquet. He projected the Canal de Bourgoyne, and established a general insurance office for the benefit of maritime towns. He founded a chamber of commerce, where the most skilful merchants were called upon to discuss the sources of national prosperity; and not trusting to his own judgment, he addressed himself to every European court for information, not merely as to the branches of commerce, but as to the means of making that commerce flourishing. By a skilful stroke of policy he taught the nobility that trade might be engaged in without losing caste. Nantes, St Malo, and Bourdeaux, are still inhabited by merchants who

belong to the noblest families of their respective provinces. At this period the English and Dutch divided between them the empire of the sea. Colbert, who had learned how much power lay in the trade between the two worlds, disputed this empire with them. Dunkirk was in the possession of the English; he redeemed it in 1662 from Charles II. at an expense of five millions. The two India companies were established; a colony was sent out from Rochelle to people Cayenne; a second took possession of Canada, and laid the foundation of Quebec; a third settled in Madagascar; the same month sixty-five large ships sailed from St Malo. The seas were infested by the corsairs of Algiers, of Tunis, and of Tripoli; the French vessels pursued the pirates, and stormed their strongholds, so that they could never afterwards see the French flag without terror. The harbours of Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort, were opened, and those of Havre and Dunkirk fortified. Naval schools were established; and more than a hundred ships of the line, with sixty thousand sailors, commanded by D'Estrée, Tourville, Jean-Bart, and Forbin, gave to the French flag, hitherto unknown upon the seas, a brilliant triumph.

It was this able minister who established glass-works in the Faubourg St Antoine, which article had previously been purchased at Venice at enormous prices. In 1667 he founded, in another part of Paris, the celebrated Gobelin manufactory-an establishment in which was produced the most beautiful tapestries, and which remains till this day as one of the greatest wonders in the French metropolis.

In short, you cannot go a small distance in Paris without finding a trace of the great Colbert. The observatory, the beautiful garden of the Tuilleries, laid out by Le Nôtre, the triumphal arch of St Martin's Gate, that of the Rue St Denis, that benevolent and noble institution, the Hotel of the Invalids, many of the quays and boulevards, and several other things which I forget, attest the genius which shed such brilliancy and glory upon the age of Louis XIV.; and it is only unfortunate that that monarch, by his desire for military conquest, failed to realise for France the solid benefits of Colbert's peaceful policy. Nothing was beyond the range of this great and noble intellect not even agriculture. Remembering the

axiom of Sully, the friend and minister of Henri IV.-" Pasturage and tillage are the two nurses of the state"-he encouraged the breeding of cattle, and rendered land more easy of acquisition.

In the midst of so many labours, the fine arts, the fair dream of his early years, were not forgotten. In 1664 he founded the Academy of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture, and the French Academy at Rome; and was also greatly instrumental in the establishment of the Academy of Science; and that of Inscriptions took its rise from an assembly held in his own house,

for the purpose of furnishing designs and devices for the king's medals.

It was not until the 6th September 1683 that Colbert, who might have said with Corneille, "I owe all my renown to myself," terminated, at the age of sixty-four, a career no less useful than brilliant. He left nine children, six sons and three daughters. His three daughters married the dukes of Chevereux, Aignau, and Mortemar. Such was the end of the illustrious Colbert, once a woollen-draper's apprentice, and whose first step to distinction was an act of honour and honesty.

HAPPY FAMILIES OF ANIMALS.

In walking through London, we may occasionally observe a crowd of persons collected round a large cage, containing a variety of animals usually considered as opposite and irreconcilable in their natures—such as cats, pigeons, mice, guinea-pigs, rabbits, owls, canary birds, and other small creatures. The men who exhibit these collections of animals call them Happy Families, from the perfectly good temper and joyous happiness in which they appear to dwell together.

What is it that produces such a harmony among different natures? Kindness. The animals, individually, are treated with great kindness by their proprietors, and trained, by the prospect of little rewards, to conduct themselves meekly towards each other. By this mode of treatment, birds may be trained to perform very remarkable feats; and we shall mention a case in which a boy was enabled to excite in a strong degree the affections of these animals.

Francesco Michelo was the only son of a carpenter, who resided at Tempio, a town in the island of Sardinia; he had two sisters younger than himself, and had only attained his tenth year, when a fire, which broke out in the house of his father, reduced it to ashes, and consumed the unfortunate carpenter in the ruins. Totally ruined by this frightful event, the whole family were left destitute, and forced to implore the charity of strangers, in order to supply the urgent necessities of each succeeding day.

At length, tired of his vain attempts to support his indigent parent by the extorted kindness of others, and grieved at seeing her and his sisters pining in want before his eyes, necessity and tenderness conspired to urge him to exertion and ingenuity. He made with laths, and with some little difficulty, a cage of considerable dimensions, and furnished it with every requisite for the reception of birds; and when spring returned, he proceeded to the woods in the vicinity of Tempio, and set himself industriously

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