State in 1626, the same year Cardinal Richelieu was designated as grand master of navigation. The two fleets were combined in 1642, then split in 1661. The two fleets were administered by Jean-Baptiste Colbert after 1662, during his tenure as intendant of finance and state minister, then secretary of State in 1669. A secretary of state held responsibility for the navy thereafter, until the French Revolution. The state secretary of the navy was the administrator responsible for the French royal naval fleet and the civilian naval component, the commercial trade fleet. The secretary therefore administered both naval fleets and merchant fleets, the naval bases, the diplomatic consulates, the colonies and the French East India Company. Other departments and bureaux were added to fleet administration over time. archive department, 1669; consulate bureau of Ponant, 1709; colonies bureau, 1710; class bureau, 1711; department for maps and plans, 1720; consulate bureau of the Levant, 1738, which merged in 1743 with the consulate bureau of Ponant under the designation of commerce and consulates bureau. These different bureaux and departments were regrouped in four grand directorates by Marshal Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix in 1786. During the French Revolution, the Flotte du Ponant was renamed the "Atlantic Squadron" (Escadre de l'Atlantique), and then the "Ocean Fleet" (Flotte de l'Océan). External links Hubert Granier, La Pensée Navale Française dans la Première Moitié du XVIIe Siecle (1600-1661) Navy of the Ancien Régime Naval fleets Military units and formations disestablished in 1792