Charles Alexandre de Calonne
Charles Alexandre de Calonne Michel Bouvard de Fourqueux | |
---|---|
Personal details | |
Born | Douai, French Flanders and Hainaut, France | 20 January 1734
Died | 30 October 1802 Paris, Seine, France | (aged 68)
Spouses | Marie Joséphine Marquet
(m. 1766; died 1770)Anne-Rose de Nettine
(m. 1788–1802) |
Children | 1 son |
Alma mater | University of Paris |
Profession | Statesman, parliamentarian |
Signature | |
Charles Alexandre de Calonne (20 January 1734 – 30 October 1802), titled Count of Hannonville in 1759,[1] was a French statesman, best known for being Louis XVI's Controller-General of Finances (minister of finance) in the years leading up to the French revolution.
Calonne attempted repeatedly to pass reforms that lowered government spending and implemented property added value tax among other things, but failed due to popular opposition to his policies from the Parlement and the Assembly of Notables. Realizing that the Parlement of Paris would never agree to reform, Calonne handpicked an Assembly of Notables in 1787 to approve new taxes. When they refused, Calonne's reputation plummeted and he was forced to leave the country.
Origins and rise to prominence
Born in
He owed the position to the
Measures
After taking office, he discovered the nation had debts of 110 million
- Cut government spending
- Revive free trade methods
- Authorize the sale of Church property
- Equalize salt and tobacco taxes
- Establish a universal land value tax[4]
All these measures failed because of the powerlessness of the crown to impose them.[6]
As a last resort, Calonne proposed that the king abolish
Conflict with the Assembly of Notables of Versailles
This suppression of privileges was badly received. Calonne's spendthrift and authoritarian reputation was well known to the parlements, earning him their enmity. Knowing this, he intentionally submitted his reform programme directly to the king and the hand-picked assembly of notables, not to the sovereign courts or parlements, first. Composed of the old regime's social and political elite, however, the assembly of notables balked at the deficit presented to them when they met at Versailles in February 1787, and despite Calonne's plan for reform and his backing from the king, they suspected that the controller-general was in some way responsible for the enormous financial strains.[7] Protests against Calonne erupted, supported by the middle and lower-middle classes, who burnt effigies of Calonne in support of the notable assembly's resistance to tax.[8] On September 14, 1788, after Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes retired, there were riots in Paris on Rue Mélée and the Rue de Grenelle, where more figures of Calonne were burned, along with those of Breteuil and the Duchess de Polignac.[9]
Calonne, angered, printed his reports and so alienated the court. Louis XVI dismissed him on 8 April 1787 and exiled him to
Dismissal and exile
Calonne soon afterwards left for Great Britain, and during his residence there kept up a polemical correspondence with Necker.[2] After being dismissed, Calonne stated, "The King, who assured me a hundred times that he would support me with unshakable firmness, abandoned me, and I succumbed”.[10] He was replaced by Loménie de Brienne, who similarly fared poorly in the political environment.[11]
In 1789, when the
Legacy
Calonne's negative reputation and assumed responsibility for France's financial crisis in the years leading to the Revolution of 1789 have been judged unfair by historians such as Munro Price. During his position as controller-general, he had genuinely tried to make amends for his previous spendthrift policies. As a contemporary writer, Nicolas Chamfort, remarked, Calonne was "applauded when he lit the fire, and condemned when he sounded the alarm." However, economic historians such as Eugene White[14] have stressed the negative role played by Calonne, who continued the restoration of a venal system of financial administration.
His fall had important significance to the fate of the monarchy in France before 1789. The financial strains made apparent through Calonne's attempts at reform revealed the instability of the monarchy as a whole, which up until then had been managed on the basis of traditional
Bibliography
- 1787 - Procès de M. de Calonne, ou Réplique à son libelle
- 1788 Motif de M. de Calonne, pour différer jusqu'à l'assemblée des États-Généraux, la réfutation du nouvel écrit que M. Necker vient de publiér sur l'objet de leur controverse
- 1788 - Réponse à l'écrit de M. Necker, publié en avril 1787, contenant l'examen des comptes de la situation des finances rendus en 1774, 1776, 1781, 1783 & 1787, avec des observations sur les résultats de l'Assemblée des notables. Londres: Impr. de T. Spilsbury
- 1790 - De l'état de la France, présent et a venir
- 1796 - Tableau de l'Europe, jusqu'au commencement de 1796 ; et pensées sur ce qui peut procurer promptement une paix solide. Suivi d'un appendix sur plusieurs questions importantes
Literature
- 1963 - Robert Lacour-Gayet. Calonne. Financier, réformateur, contre-révolutionnaire, 1734-1802. Paris: Hachette
Notes
- ^ John Nichols (April 1795). "The superlatively fine collection of ..." The Gentleman's Magazine. E. Cave.
- ^ a b c d e f public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Calonne, Charles Alexandre de". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 60. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ISBN 9780170243995.
- ^ a b Ford, F: "Europe 1780–1830", page 102. Longman, 2002
- ISBN 0-313-30328-2.
- ^ Crook, M. (2002) Revolutionary France, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ Doyle, William. (1989) The Oxford History of the French Revolution. OUP: Oxford. p. 71.
- ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 5". The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793. Translated by N. F. Dryhurst. New York: Vanguard Printings.
The Exchequer Court of Paris (Cour des Aides), supported by the popular outburst, as well as by the provincial parlements and the Court of Justice, protested against this act of royal power, and, as the agitation was growing, the King was compelled to recall the exiled parlement. This was done on September 9, and evoked fresh demonstrations in Paris, during which the minister Calonne was burnt in effigy.
[permanent dead link] - ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 5". The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793. Translated by N. F. Dryhurst. New York: Vanguard Printings.
Three weeks later, September 14, 1788, when the retirement of Lamoignon became known, the riotings were renewed. The mob rushed to set fire to the houses of the two ministers, Lamoignon and Brienne, as well as to that of Dubois. The troops were called out, and in the Rue Mélée and the Rue de Grenelle there was a horrible slaughter of poor folk who could not defend themselves. Dubois fled from Paris. "The people themselves would execute justice," said Les deux amis de la liberté. Later still, in October 1788, when the parlement that had been banished to Troyes was recalled, "the clerks and the populace" illuminated the Place Dauphine for several evenings in succession. They demanded money from the passersby to expend on fireworks, and forced gentlemen to alight from their carriages to salute the statue of Henri Quatre. Figures representing Calonne, Breteuil and the Duchess de Polignac were burned. It was also proposed to burn the Queen in effigy. These riotous assemblies gradually spread to other quarters, and troops were sent to disperse them. Blood was shed and many were killed and wounded in the Place de la Grèe. Those who were arrested, however, were tried by the parlement judges, who let them off with light penalties.
[permanent dead link] - ^ France 1789, Victory Over History: The French Revolution (Sydney, 2016), "France 1789 - Victory over History". Archived from the original on 2016-06-23. Retrieved 2016-05-25.
- ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 6". The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793. Translated by N. F. Dryhurst. New York: Vanguard Printings.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 31". The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793. Translated by N. F. Dryhurst. New York: Vanguard Printings.
- King of Bohemia in Praguein September 1791: the Krönungsjournal für Prag (Prague, 1791), 203.
- ^ White, Eugene Nelson, (1989), “Was there a Solution to the Ancien Régime’s Financial Dilemma”, Journal of Economic History, 49, 3, pp. 545-568.
External links
Media related to Charles Alexandre de Calonne at Wikimedia Commons