Not strangely, under such government, the finances of France were at their very lowest ebb. The financial incompetence of Mazarin, coupled with his greed, had left the treasury empty, and when Louis asked Fouquet for money he got for answer, "There is none in the treasury, but ask His Eminence to lend you some, he has plenty." Fortunately for France, Mazarin had introduced into the King's service one of the most eminent financiers who ever lived, Colbert, and it is reported that when dying he said, "I owe your Majesty everything; but by giving you my own intendant, Colbert, I shall repay you." Colbert became Louis's secret adviser, for Fouquet purposely complicated accounts and craftily contrived to tell the King nothing. One of Colbert's first acts was to reveal to the King that Cardinal Mazarin, over and above the great fortune he left openly to his family, had a store of wealth hidden away in various fortresses. Louis promptly laid hands upon it and was in consequence the only rich sovereign of his time in Europe.
In the long period of irresponsible despotism now at hand, the prisons were destined to play a prominent part. No one was safe from arbitrary arrest. The right of personal liberty did not exist. Every one, the highest and the lowest, the most criminal and the most venial offender, might come within the far reaching hands of the King's gaolers. Both the "Wood," as Vincennes was commonly called, and the Bastile, the "castle with the eight towers," were constantly crowded with victims of arbitrary power. It was an interminable procession as we shall presently see.
Let us first describe the procedure in arrest, the reception of prisoners and their daily régime within the great fortress gaol. It has been claimed that the system in force was regulated with the most minute care. As imprisonment might be decreed absolutely and without question, a great responsibility was supposed to weigh upon officials. In the first instance the Bastile was under the immediate control of a minister of state, for a long time a high official. He received an accurate and exact list of all arrests made, and rendered to the King an account of all remaining at the end of each year. The order for arrest was hedged in with all precaution. Each _lettre de cachet_ bore the King's own signature countersigned by a minister, and the governor of the Bastile signed a receipt for the body at the end of the order. In some cases, prisoners of distinction brought their own warrants of arrest; but the court also signed an order to receive them, without which admission would be refused. In due course, when Louis XIV had fully established his police, arrests were made by the _Lieutenant-Criminel_, whose agent approached and touched his intended prisoner with a white wand. A party of archers of the guard followed in support. A carriage was always employed; the first that came to hand being impressed into the King's service. Into this the prisoner mounted with the officer making the arrest by his side. The escort surrounded the carriage and the party marched at a foot's pace through the silent, over-awed crowd. In many cases to avoid gossip, the agent took his prisoner to a place he kept for the purpose, a private house commonly called the _four_ (oven) and the remainder of the journey to the Bastile was made after dark.