Note 216 — BOOK IX[156]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), Comptroller-general of Finance under Louis XIV., increased the prosperity of France in a brilliant manner. At the same time he amassed a private fortune, amounting to some ten millions of francs, and, at his death, the populace, seeing in this fortune a proof of depredation, insulted his coffin.—T.