Caught out by the abrupt change, Pierre felt he had no option but to dip into the current tax takings in order to pay his debts. The only ones to suffer were the official receivers of taxes, such as Pierre, who had bought their positions dearly when taxes were high, only to see an easy incom gradually eaten away. Streamlining the collection of taxes proved so successful that it was soon possible to bring in general tax cuts. However, as Charles rose, so Pierre was to fall. Colbert also instigated a string of new royal academies of the arts and sciences in addition to the existing Académie Française. The increased receipts were used to fund a series of public works such as long-distance canals, as well as to glorify Paris with the erection of grand buildings, foremost among them Louis XIV’s palaces of the Louvre and Versailles. The immensely able and cultured Colbert set about centralizing power through a sweeping programme of domestic economic development, trade reforms, and colonial expansion, introducing greater efficiency in tax collection in order to pay for it all. He appointed Jean-Baptiste Colbert as his finance minister. Following the death of his boyhood mentor and chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661, Louis XIV - still only twenty-three years old - began to take more direct control of the government. The Perrault brothers’ collective prospects were boosted by political changes, which gradually introduced a more meritocratic approach in state administration.
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