It had been found necessary to bury Colbert by night to avoid the insults of the people, who imputed to him the imposts which crushed them.

What an unjust and odious mistake of popular opinion which accused Colbert of the evils which he had fought against and at the same time suffered under to the last day! All Colbert's offices, except the navy, fell to Louvois or his creatures.
Claude Lepelletier, a relative of Le Tellier, became comptroller of finance; he entered the council; M.de Blainville, Colbert's second son, was obliged to resign in Louvois' favor the superintendence of buildments, of which the king had previously promised him the reversion.
All business passed into the hands of Louvois.

Le Tellier had been chancellor since 1677; peace still reigned; the all-powerful minister occupied himself in building Trianon, bringing the River Eure to Versailles, and establishing unity of religion in France.

"The counsel of constraining the Huguenots by violent means to become Catholics was given and carried out by the Marquis of Louvois," says an anonymous letter of the time.

"He thought he could manage consciences and control religion by those harsh measures which, in spite of his wisdom, his violent nature suggests to him almost in everything." Louvois was the inventor, of the dragonnades; it was his father, Michael le Tellier, who put the seals to the revocation of the edict of Nantes; and, a few days before he died, full of joy at his last work, he piously sang the canticle of Simeon.