Jacques Necker

Jacques Necker
Portrait by Joseph Duplessis, c. 1781
Chief Minister of the French Monarch
In office
16 July 1789 – 3 September 1790
MonarchLouis XVI
Preceded byBaron of Breteuil
Succeeded byCount of Montmorin
In office
25 August 1788 – 11 July 1789
MonarchLouis XVI
Preceded byArchbishop de Brienne
Succeeded byBaron of Breteuil
Controller-General of Finances
In office
25 August 1788 – 11 July 1789
MonarchLouis XVI
Preceded byCharles Alexandre de Calonne
Succeeded byJoseph Foullon de Doué
Director-General of the Royal Treasury
In office
29 June 1777 – 19 May 1781
MonarchLouis XVI
Preceded byLouis Gabriel Taboureau des Réaux
Succeeded byJean-François Joly de Fleury
Personal details
Born(1732-09-30)30 September 1732
Geneva, Republic of Geneva
Died9 April 1804(1804-04-09) (aged 71)
Geneva, Léman, France
Spouse
(m. 1764; died 1794)
ChildrenGermaine Necker
Signature

Jacques Necker (IPA: [ʒak nɛkɛʁ]; 30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804) was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent. Necker was a constitutional monarchist, a political economist, and a moralist, who wrote a severe critique of the new principle of equality before the law.[1]

Necker initially held the finance post between July 1777 and 1781.[2] In 1781, he earned widespread recognition for his unprecedented decision to publish the Compte rendu – thus making the country's budget public – "a novelty in an absolute monarchy where the state of finances had always been kept a secret."[3] Necker was dismissed within a few months. By 1788, the inexorable compounding of interest on the national debt brought France to a fiscal crisis.[4] Necker was recalled to royal service. His dismissal on 11 July 1789 was a factor in causing the Storming of the Bastille. Within two days, Necker was recalled by the king and the assembly. Necker entered France in triumph and tried to accelerate the tax reform process. Faced with the opposition of the Constituent Assembly, he resigned in September 1790 to a reaction of general indifference.

  1. ^ Craiutu, Aurelian (19 March 2018). A Voice of Moderation in the Age of Revolutions: Jacques Necker's Reflections on Executive Power in Modern Society (PDF). Ostrum Workshop Spring 2018 Colloquium. p. 6.
  2. ^ Peter Kropotkin (1909). "Chapter 5". The Great French Revolution, 1789–1793. Translated by N.F. Dryhurst. New York: Vanguard Printings.
  3. ^ de Staël, Germaine (2008). "Introduction". In Craiutu, Aurelian (ed.). Considerations on the Principal Events of the French Revolutions. Liberty Fund. pp. viii. ISBN 9780865977327 – via ProQuest Ebook Central.
  4. ^ Sargent, Thomas J.; Velde, Francois R. (June 1995). "Macroeconomic Features of the French Revolution" (PDF). The Journal of Political Economy. 103 (3): 481. doi:10.1086/261992.