He was only very partially successful, without, however, allowing himself to be repelled by the difficulties presented by differences of legislation and customs in the provinces.

"Perhaps," he wrote to the superintendent of Aix, in 1681, "on getting to the bottom of the matter and considering it in detail, you will not discover in it all the impossibilities you have pictured to yourself." Colbert died without having completed his work; the talliages, however, had been reduced by eight millions of livres within the first two years of his administration.

"All the imposts of the kingdom," he writes, in 1662, to the superintendent of Tours, who is complaining of the destitution of the people, "are, as regards the talliages, but about thirty-seven millions, and, for forty or fifty years past, they have always been between forty and fifty millions, except after the peace, when his Majesty reduced them to thirty-two, thirty-three, and thirty-four millions." Peace was of short duration in the reign of Louis XIV., and often so precarious that it did not permit of disarmament.

At the very period when the able minister was trying to make the people feel the importance of the diminution in the talliages, he wrote to the king, "I entreat your Majesty to read these few lines attentively.

I confess to your Majesty that the last time you were graciously pleased to speak to me about the state of the finances, my respect, the boundless desire I have always had to please you and serve you to your satisfaction, without making any difficulty or causing any hitch, and still more your natural eloquence which succeeds in bringing conviction of whatever you please, deprived me of courage to insist and dwell somewhat upon the condition of your finances, for the which I see no other remedy but increase of receipts and decrease of expenses; wherefore, though this is no concern at all of mine, I merely entreat your Majesty to permit me to say that in war as well as in peace you have never consulted your finances for the purpose of determining your expenditure, which is a thing so extraordinary that assuredly there is no example thereof.