Powerful contrôleur général (roughly, minister of finance) under King Louis XIV of France. Colbert managed, against the incredible odds of the Sun King's extravagance, to keep some degree of solvency in French state finances.
Colbert believed in the Mercantilist doctrine that the expansion of commerce (and the maintenance of a favorable balance of trade) was the key to State wealth. His policies -- what became known as Colbertisme -- were all geared in this direction. Colbert doted on his charter companies, set up chambers of commerce, redirected capital to export and import-substitution industries, set up a protective system of tariffs and duties, blocked foreigners from trading in French colonies, etc.
By and large, Colbert was not interested in internal commerce which, in his view, did nothing for State wealth. French farmers and small manufacturers were left locked in the stifling embrace of Medieval town crafts and merchant guilds. Restrictions and internal tariffs on the movement of goods and labor between regions remained in place. The incredibly regressive tax system was reinforced; with the privileged landowning gentry and clergy exempt from taxation and the big import-export capitalists coddled with bounties, the burden of taxes fell even heavier upon the luckless French farmers and small town craftsmen. The encouragement of some export industries, notably wine, transformed land-use patterns, leaving some areas of France dangerously close to food-insufficiency.
Like the Duke of Sully before him, Colbert recognized the need for a good internal transportation network, but only because it was necessary to connect the ports to French import-export industries. Colbert revived the hated corvée, the unpaid labor-time owed by peasants to their feudal lords (and now the State) and forced local farmers and their draught-animals to work on road maintenance.
The Colbertiste system created a paradox. It generated a "progressive" external economy while allowing the internal economy to stagnate. Indeed, by the very set-up of the system, the promotion of the former often meant greater burdens for the latter. Eventually, commentators like the Maréchal de Vauban, Claude Jacques Herbert, Pierre le Pesant de Boisguilbert and Vincent de Gournay raised their voices and called for the reform of the system.
It was only during the late Enlightenment period, as bankruptcy loomed and discontent stalked the land, that the question of reform was seriously addressed. Neo-Colbertistes such as Forbonnais and Graslin believed Colbert's policies were, on the whole, correct. All that was required, they argued, was to bring the internal economy into shape by getting rid of some of the crippling Medieval restrictions, rationalizing administration and making the fiscal burden more equitable. Others, notably Quesnay and the Physiocratic clique, believed that Colbert's ideas was entirely wrong-headed and called unequivocally for their complete abandonment. Much of the Colbertiste system was (temporarily) dismantled during Jacques Turgot's brief tenure as controller-general in the 1770s. At the end of the day, the reforms were too little and too late. The tensions created by the Colbertiste paradox -- and the inability (and unwillingness) of Colbert's successors to fix it -- were probably the main cause of the French Revolution of 1789.
Major Works of Colbert
Resources on Condorcet