Profile Measures suggested Obstacles faced
Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot Made sure a detailed budget was produced regularly His idea of replacing many indirect taxes with a property
1774-76 + took active measures to improve France's financial (land) tax was strongly opposed by those second estate
held physiocratic view that state, making some effective economies inc.: nobles at Court who stood to lose from such a measure.
French economy would work - cuts to royal expenses Did get some minor duties removed but his attempt in 1774
more efficiently + generate - demand that government departments submit to establish free trade in grain, ending the tolls and price
more Crown revenue if their expenses to the Controller-General and controls, was opposed by men with vested interests- his
privileges, regulations, find ways of reducing their spending edict had to be abandoned after the poor harvest of 1774
customs duties + other - the removal or reduction of a number of drove up bread prices + provoked bread-riots ('flour wars’
restrictive controls were pensions (together with encouragement to Louis spring 1775)
replaced by a freer system to be less lavish than his predecessors in 'Six Edicts' of 1776: he expressed desire to abolish privilege,
granting these) to tax all and to grant every man the right to work without
- some reforms of the tax-farming system to restriction.
increase efficiency. - Four of the edicts were concerned with suppressing
He opposed French participation in the American dues and offices; the two met with most opposition
Revolutionary War due to cost were the fifth, which suppressed the guilds (to reduce
- He was unable to prevent some secret deals and their control and increase competition), and the sixth,
volunteers travelling to America which abolished the corvée, in favour of a tax paid by
- Turgot's measures helped to reduce the deficit, landowners -the Paris Parlement presented two
+ enabled him to negotiate a low-interest loan remonstrances.
of 4 per cent with some Dutch bankers in 1776. - the Six Edicts were eventually registered by a lit de
justice in March 1776; by then Turgot had offended a lot
of influential people, incl. Marie-Antoinette whose
favours to protégés he had opposed.
- May 1776 he was ordered to send in his resignation and
the edicts were forgotten.
Jacques Necker Necker continued Turgot's cost-cutting measures Whilst Necker's changes helped to reduce corruption, he hit
1777-81 - by reducing royal household expenses and hard at venality; in so doing his reforms created another
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