Jacques Necker

Biography

Jacques Necker was the second wire of Charles Frederic Necker, lawyer with Küstrin, in Poméranie, become citizen of the République of Geneva on January 28th 1726, and of his wife born Jeanne Gautier, girl of the first Gautier syndic.

He undertakes a career in the bank Thellusson and Vernet where he begins like simple clerk in Geneva first of all, then in Paris, where he holds the accounts books. He reveals all his competences when one day he replaces the first clerk in charge of negotiations to the purse at the time of a major operation. He leads it to good term, moving away even from the left instructions, and gets for the house of bank a benefit of 500.000 books. This day it acquires the confidence of the bankers Thellusson and Vernet of which he becomes the associate in 1756 within the bank Thellusson, Vernet and Necker .

In 1762, Georges-Tobie de Thellusson (1728-1776) proposes in Jacques Necker to become his associate for half, after the departure of his/her uncle Isaac Vernet. They create thus bank Thellusson, Necker & Co, which will manage the deposits and accounts - currents of approximately 350 foreign customers, whose majority are engaged in the loans of French monarchy. They quickly make fortune while speculating in the effects of the French Treasury and the English funds at the time of the peace of 1763, of which they were informed in advance, while speculating in corns and while lending to the Treasury. Syndic of the Company of the Indies, he is the craftsman of his rebirth (1764), but its dissolution in 1770 cannot prevent, under the blow of the brutal attacks of its personal enemy, Morellet. On several occasions, in particular in 1772, Necker advances important sums with the royal Treasury, which is worth to him to be noticed by Choiseul and the abbot Terray.

Having judged to have sufficiently made fortune and having other ambitions, in 1772 Jacques Necker yields all his businesses to his/her Louis brother, known under the name of Mr. de Germany, and associated with Girardot, and it is withdrawn. Its bright success as banking enabled him to accumulate in little time a considerable fortune.

The come to power

In 1764, Necker marries a girl of Pasteur, Suzanne Curchod, which will have on him large ascending. Appointed Minister for the Republic from Geneva to Paris (1768), he thinks of devoting himself to the policy, encouraged in that by his wife. After its withdrawal of the businesses, it publishes a Éloge of Colbert (1773), crowned by the French Academy, in which it draws up a portrait of the ideal minister where one can without sorrow recognize it. It is presented in the form of pragmatic, a “marrowy and flexible” spirit, unlike the General inspector of finances, Turgot, standard even of the doctrinary one. Symbol of the economic interventionism of the State, Colbert is moreover the antithesis of Turgot, apostle of the economic liberalism.

A priori , however, nothing predisposes Necker to exert in France of the functions of government: protesting, the access to the Conseil of the king is to him ipso facto closed; it is not informed any of the government and the royal administration, and Court only knows what it could see in its functions of resident of Geneva; finally, hardly reading, he does not know even the French history and his political organization and administrative.

However, a true trend of opinion will occur in favor of Necker. April 19th 1775, it publishes its Essai on the legislation and the trade of grains , in which it denounces the freedom of the trade of the grains, recommended by the Physiocrate S, the first of which Morellet and Turgot. Enormous best-seller, the work appears at the moment when this last must face the Guerre of the flours , violent riots caused by its policy.

The rise of Necker actively constant by is accustomed living room of Mrs. Necker and, more largely, by the philosophical party, whose Necker embraced several of the doctrines: in the Praise of Colbert , he highly criticized the property which he shows, in the line of Rousseau, to be not a natural right but a “law of the men” based on a “treaty of force and constraint”; in the same way, it is by its social role that it justifies the religion, recognizing the need for morals only “to contain the people” and the superiority of Christian morals that because it is “the only one which can persuade with celerity because it moves at the same time as it lights”.

Necker, moreover, is supported near Maurepas, principal adviser of Louis XVI, by the marquis de Pezay, lover of Mrs. de Montbarrey, intimate friend of Mrs. de Maurepas, and by the cousin of the minister, the duchess of Enville.

The first ministry of Necker (1776-1781)

The death in load of the general inspector Clugny de Nuits, who succeeded Turgot, gives to Necker the opportunity to reach the government. Being Protestant, it cannot be named General inspector of finances because this function carries of right the access to the Council. October 22nd 1776, at forty-four years, it is thus named to advise Finances and managing director of the royal Treasury . October 21st, a Main of the requests erased, Louis Gabriel Taboureau of Réaux, was officially appointed general inspector, but in practice, it is Necker which exerts the reality of the capacity. Taboureau of Réaux, after several attempts at resignation, ends besides up leaving on June 29th 1777 without being replaced: for better marking its importance, Necker receives then the title of managing director of Finances .

Arrived at the ministry, Necker engages immediately of important reforms, but in a way much less brutal and precipitated that Turgot. These reforms are at the same time on the administrative level, the social plan and the financial plan.

Administrative reforms

On the administrative level, Necker reinforces the capacity of the system check of finances and officializes it: it removes the six offices of Intendant of finances and the intendants commercial, the 48 general receivers of finances established in the Généralité S and 27 general treasurers and general inspectors of the War and the Navy (November 1778). In the place of these officers irremovable and remunerated on commission are installed revocable employees and perceiving a fixed salary.

It reduces the competence of the general Ferme to the Gabelle, the tobacco, the rights of the drafts and the entries of Paris, and tiny room from 60 to 40 the number of the farmers general. The collection of the duties of assistances raises from now on of a general Régie and that of the domanial rights of a general administration of the fields, directed by administrators with fixed salary.

While reinforcing the capacity of the administration, Necker in parallel endeavors to decrease the arbitrary one. It creates a contentious committee of finances to prepare the stops of finances , which, though presented under cover of stops of the Council, had for a long time ceased being the subject of a collective deliberation and were actually the work of the intendants of finances. The royal declaration of February 13rd 1780 in addition poses the principle which the patents of the sizes could not be any more increased but by letters patent, recorded in Parliament, and either by simple stops of the Council. In the same way, in a spirit of appeasing with respect to the Parliaments, it decides, without going until returning on the principle of the checking of the income declarations of the Twentieth and on that of the mutability of the dimensions, that the checks will take place only every twenty years.

In order to limit the extra-legal power of the Parliaments, just like that of the Intendant S, Necker create provincial assembled of which it exposes the principle in his Mémoire to the King on the establishment of the provincial administrations (1776). With the difference of those which Turgot had imagined, these assemblies rest on the distinction of the three orders. They are competent to distribute and raise the taxes, to direct the construction of the roads and to make to the King representations for good of the province. Four are established, whose two first start at once to function: Berry, High-Guyenne, Dauphine and Bourbonnais.

Necker finally seeks to introduce transparency into the operation of the State. It is in this spirit that it publishes in January 1781 its famous Compte-rendu with the King , in which it details the operation of royal finances, the principles of its administration and the financial position of the country.

Social measures

Necker has an active design of the role of the State in the economic domain and social, which attaches it directly to Colbert. He does not believe that leave-to make it economic can spontaneously create it many citizens. To consolidate the balance of the company, the State must exert its function of assistance fully: “It is with the government, interprets and agent of the social harmony, it is with him to do for this disinherited class all that the order and justice allow. ”

He sets up a commission of the hospitals of Paris and a commission of reform of the prisons. Those provide the foundations of ambitious reforms of these institutions, which receive a beginning of implementation: destruction of the prisons of the Fort-l' Bishop and the Small Châtelet in Paris; construction of a new prison reserved to the prisoners for debts Street of King-of-Sicily; creation end 1778 of the new old people's home of the Saint-Sulpices parishes and Large-Stone, thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Necker.

In 1779, Necker abolishes the Mainmorte in the fields of the King and the fields committed. An edict of 1780 authorizes the hospitals to sell their real goods and invites them to invest their funds in revenues on the King or the states.

Financial measurements

The nomination of Necker to the ministry had been precipitated by the need for financing the war of America, from which the preparations had begun in June 1776. Expensive war, at the same time maritime and terrestrial, on remote theaters of operations, it absorbed as of 1777 150 million extraordinary helps, and it is estimated that it cost on the whole France nearly a billion books.

In financial matters, the policy of Necker holds in few principles. It estimates that the State can borrow as much as it wishes since the ordinary budget is balanced. As it is out of the question to increase the taxes, at the same time by policy and principle, it is necessary to improve the output, in particular by reforming the financial administration, and to reduce the expenditure of it.

For that purpose, measurements taken are more traditional: reduction of the expenditure of the House of the King, revision of the pensions to pursue the office pluralities and the abuses, checks of the income declarations and revision of the subscriptions of the countries of states, which produce an additional income of 1,6 million books.

To finance the effort of war, Necker borrows considerable sums, approximately 530 million books, with high rates because the credit of the State is then with low: it is thus necessary to resort to expensive formulas such as the lottery loan or the loan for life.

The reference

These measurements cause, in the immediate future, the astonishment and admiration: “It is extraordinary, writes the Baron de Besenval, that what did not dare to undertake the most accredited Ministers, the King himself, has just been carried out by an ordinary citizen of Geneva, Mr. Necker, precariously occupying a place whose its religion, its foreign birth and the preventions of the Nation seemed to exclude it. ” The public opinion applauds the miracle of a minister who managed to finance the war without increasing the taxes, with an air of competence which imposes some on those with which such methods could appear not very orthodoxe.

But Necker was also made many enemies: while attacking the general farm, it was put at back the financial world; its provincial assemblies alienated the Parliaments to him; the reduction of the expenditure of the Court, denounced with kindness in the Report with the King of January 1781, also created the many ones and powerful adversaries to him.

At the spring of 1781, a cabal was installation to obtain the head of Necker. The party of the Court, taken along by the brothers of the King, the princes of blood and large lords, agitates the opinion via lampoonists who sift the minister of lampoons whose most virulent, the Lettre of the marquis de Caracciole with Mr. d' Alembert (May 1st, 1781), is undoubtedly due to Calonne, protected from Vergennes and the count d' Artois, which aspires to replace Necker.

At the end of April, the Parlement of Paris refuses to record the edict of creation of a new provincial assembly in Bourbonnais. The creation of these assemblies answered in particular the objective to deprive the Parliaments of part of their extra-legal prerogatives. Necker had exposed it in a handwritten report given confidentially to the King in 1776 whose several copies circulate among the 6 rescencées then; one of them having belonged to the president of the Parliament of Guyenne de Gasq whose natural son Antoine Nicolas Waldec de Lessard, Maître of the requests is the collaborator of Necker. However a lampoon, addressed on April 20th 1781 to six members of the Parliament of Paris, reveals the intentions of the minister by quoting this memory. The members of Parliament break out and push high cries. Convened with the Castle of Marly, the First president of Aligre sees himself intimating by Louis XVI, on a dry tone, to prohibit any discussion of the report of 1778. But, for Necker, it is only about one respite. Louis XVI is shaken by the reversal of the opinion, and Maurepas recommends from now on the reference of the Genevese.

May 16th, Necker, seeking to force the destiny, asks to the King the recording forced of the edict, its entry with the Council and the direction of the markets of the War and the Navy. Three days later, Louis XVI opposes to these three requests a categorical refusal. Necker, broken down, resigns at once (May 19th, 1781). The news causes consternation in Paris: the inhabitants of the capital has a presentiment of themselves with the castle of Saint-Ouen, residence of countryside of Necker, to greet the deposed minister, who can thus measure what remains to him of popularity.

Necker is withdrawn with Saint-Ouen. It remains in Suisse in 1784, to make do work in its Château of Coppet and travels to France in 1785. It publishes a new book, Of the administration of finances , treated complete of finances in three volumes, which appears in 1784 and gains an enormous success.

In 1787, Calonne, in front of the Parliament of notable the, shows Necker to have misled the opinion by publishing false information in its Compte-rendu with the King : according to him the accounts of the year 1781, far from revealing a surplus, as Necker had affirmed, recorded actually a deficit of 50 million. Necker retorted by disputing the figures of Calonne. This answer was worth to him to be exiled out of Paris and was at the origin of a sharp public debate between the two men.

The second ministry of Necker (1788-1789)

After the failure of the Calonne experiment, monarchy is in a state of virtual bankruptcy. Need for finding funds then constrained Louis XVI to point out Necker, which is named managing director of finances the August 25th 1788. Two days later, Necker receives the title of Minister of state which gives him access to the Councils.

This new position, at the same time as the circumstances, enable him to play a political role of foreground. It is him which makes point out the Parliament of Paris, whose members had been exiled. It advances the date of convocation of the General states. It joins together (November 1788) a new Parliament of notable, to rule on the methods of the election of the deputies, in particular the question of the vote per capita or order, which was not sliced, and that of the doubling of the representation of the Tiers state. On this last point, as it was foreseeable, the Parliament of notable decides unfavourably but Necker decides to support the doubling of the third (December 1788) what consolidates its popularity: he from now on is regarded as a “patriotic minister”.

Vis-a-vis a serious corn shortage, Necker repeals the liberal measurements taken by Loménie de Brienne as regards trade of the grains: it prohibits the export of the cereals (September 7th, 1788) as well as the purchase of the grains apart from the markets (November 23rd, 1788); it makes buy grains abroad, grants premiums to the imports and gives to the authorities of police force the capacities necessary to supply the markets (April 22nd 1789).

In financial matters, Necker revokes the suspension of the payments issued by Brienne and uses expédients to join together the 70 million necessary to ensure the payments until the meeting of the General states.

With the opening of the General states, the speech of Necker, centered on the financial questions whereas the deputies at the head have only the question of the vote, is badly accommodated. Necker refuses to attend the royal meeting of June 23rd, 1789 in which Louis XVI fixes the limits of the concessions which it is ready to grant to the deputies of the third state. Being on the point of taking measures of firmness with regard to the National Assembly, King congédie Necker the July 11th 1789 because of its “extreme condescension” with regard to the General states. The minister leaves France at once and joined Brussels (July 13rd) then Basle (July 20th). Once known, this reference is one of the determining causes of the popular rising of the July 14th.

The third ministry of Necker (1789-1790)

As of the July 16th 1789, Louis XVI must be solved to point out Necker. This one then takes to the title of Prime Minister for finances . Quickly, he is opposed to the constituent Assembly, and in particular to Mirabeau. The deputies challenge the financial proposals of Necker, founded on its traditional methods of anticipations and of loans, while Necker is opposed to the financing of the deficit by the emission of Assignat S. Like says it Mirabeau to the King on September 1st 1790: “the current Minister for finances will not undertake to direct, as it owes the being, the great operation of the assignats-currency. It does not return easily from its designs and the resource of the assignats-currency was not conceived by him; it is even given to fight it. It is nothing less than in good intelligence with the National Assembly. It does not control any more the public opinion. One awaited from him miracles and it could not leave a contrary routine to the circumstances”. Under these conditions, it does not remain any more in Necker but to resign, which it does the September 3rd 1790.

After its resignation, Necker is withdrawn in Switzerland with the castle of Coppet, where it continues to write several works. He dies the April 9th 1804.

Works

The writings of Necker were joined together in the complete Œuvres of Mr. Necker published by Mr. the Baron de Staël, his grandson… , Paris, Treuttel and Wurtz, 1820-1821, 15 vol., in-8°.

Answer to the report of Mr. the abbot Morellet on the Company of the Indies , 1769
Praise of Jean-Baptiste Colbert , 1773
On the Legislation and trade of the grains , 1775
Memory with the king on the establishment of the provincial administrations , 1776
Letter with the king , 1777
Report with the king , 1781
Of the Administration of finances of France , 1784,3 vol. in-8°
Correspondence of Mr. Necker with Mr. de Calonne. (January 29th - February 28th, 1787) , 1787
Of the importance of the religious opinions , 1788
Of the natural Morals, followed Happiness of stupid the , 1788
Supplement necessary to the importance of the religious opinions , 1788
On the report with the king in 1781: new explanations , 1788
Report/ratio submitted to the king in his council by the Minister for Finance , 1789
Last councils with the king , 1789
Homage of Mr. Necker to the French nation , 1789
Observations on the foreword of the “Red book” , v. 1790
Opinion relative with the decree of the National Assembly, concerning the titles, names and the armorial bearings , v. 1790
On the administration of Mr. Necker , 1791
Reflections presented to the French nation on the lawsuit brought with Louis XVI , 1792
Of the executive power in the great States , 1792
Of the French revolution , 1796
Course of religious morals , 1800
Last sights of policy and finance, offered to the French Nation , 1802
History of the French revolution, since the Parliament of notable jusques and including the day of the 13 vendémiaire year IV (October 18th, 1795) , 1821

References

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