Jean Baptiste Colbert, Marquis of Torcy (14 September 1665 – 2 September 1746), generally called Colbert de Torcy, was a French diplomat, who negotiated some of the most important treaties towards the end of Louis XIV's reign, notably the treaty (1700) that occasioned the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), in which the dying Charles II of Spain named Louis XIV's grandson, Philippe of France, Duke of Anjou, heir to the Spanish throne, eventually founding the line of Bourbons of Spain.

He instituted an académie politique to train young professionals in the equivalent of a foreign service bureaucracy: it did not survive his retirement, but his establishment at Versailles of a centralized diplomatic archive (1710) has been a service to historians.

The aged king, recognizing that Colbert de Torcy had been a de facto secretary of state, named him such in his will, but when Louis died in 1715, his will was broken; the Regent, Philippe, Duke of Orléans deprived Colbert de Torcy of any political power, and he settled into a long retirement, during which he was a member of the unofficial political salon called the Entresol, which formed in the early years of Louis XV's maturity when the abbé Alary, a protégé of Fleury, convened an occasional political discussion group in the entresol of his apartment in Place Vendôme.

There in sociable surroundings, sharing the gossip and news Colbert de Torcy debated contemporary events in a sympathetic circle and like others, doubtless read aloud and elicited comment upon the political writings.

There his magnificent installation among his tapestries, furnishings paintings, Chinese porcelains mounted in gilt-bronze, sculptures and other works of art above all in his cabinet doré, giving onto the salon that was lit from both sides, provided him solace and comfort in a long and productive retirement, in which he completed his Mémoirs pour servir à l'histoire des négotiations depuis le Traité de Riswick jusqu'à la Paix d'Utrecht, published in 1756.