 It did not hold any real political power until 1665, when First Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who had acted upon financial matters since Fouquet's embezzlement charge, was appointed to the office.The term "contrôleur général" in reference to a position of royal accounting and financial oversight had existed in various forms prior to 1547, but the direct predecessor to the 17th century "Controller-General" was created in 1547, with two position-holders whose job was to verify the accounts of the Royal Treasurer ("Trésorier de l'Échiquier"), then the head of the royal financial system.The name of the charge of the controllers came from their account book, or "contre-rôle" (literally "counter-roll", meaning scroll copy), in which they kept their accounts in order to compare them with those of the Royal Treasurer.