Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville

Who was Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville?

Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville, comte d'Arnouville, seigneur de Garge et de Gonesse, was born in Paris on December 13, 1701, and died on July 12, 1794 in a French Revolutionary prison. He was a French statesman, son of Louis Charles Machault d'Arnouville, lieutenant of police.

In 1721, he was counsel to the Parlement of Paris, in 1728 he was maître des requêtes, and ten years later was made president of the Great Council; although he had opposed the court in the Unigenitus dispute, he was appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743. From this position, through the influence at court of his old friend the marquis d'Argenson, he was called to succeed Philibert Orry as controller-general of the finances in December 1745. On taking office, he found that in the four years of the War of the Austrian Succession the economies of Cardinal Fleury had been exhausted, and he was forced to develop the system of borrowing which was bringing French finances to the verge of bankruptcy.

In 1749, he attempted a reform in the levying of direct taxes, which, if carried out, would have done much to prevent the later Revolutionary movement. He proposed to abolish the old tax of a tenth or tithe, which was evaded by the clergy and most of the nobility, and substituted a tax of one-twentieth that would have been levied on all. The inclusion of the church made this bill popular with the larger public, in addition to the philosophes, the Jansenists, and the Gallicans. However, there were loud remonstrances from bishops and the devout party at Louis XV's court. The clergy stood by their historical privileges, and the outcry of the nobility was virulent, and the proposal was rejected. Despite this, Machault managed to retain his office until July 1754, when he exchanged the controllership for the Naval Ministry.