He amassed a large personal fortune, and his jealousy of all other ministers and favorites was extravagant. Nevertheless, he was an excellent man of business, inexorable in punishing malversation and dishonesty on the part of others, and opposed to ruinous court expenditures that was the bane of almost all European monarchies in his day. He was gifted with executive ability, with confidence and resolution, with fondness for work, and above all with deep devotion to his master. He was implicitly trusted by Henry IV and proved himself the most able assistant of the king in dispelling the chaos into which the religious and civil wars had plunged France. After Henry IV, Sully was a major driving force behind the happy transformation in France between 1598 and 1610, in which agriculture and commerce benefitted, and peace and internal order were reestablished.