Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker (born September 30, 1732 in Geneva , République de Genève, † April 9, 1804 in Geneva, Département Léman ) was a Geneva banker and finance minister under Louis XVI. He was married to the Salonnière Madame Necker and the father of Madame de Staël .
Beginnings
Necker's father Karl Friedrich Necker (1686–1762) from Küstrin in Brandenburg (now Poland ), professor of law , was appointed professor of public law at the Académie de Genève after the publication of some papers on international law and was a citizen of the Republic of Geneva . His mother was Jeanne Gautier (* 1692). The couple had been married since January 7, 1726 and had an older son, Louis Necker, two years before Jacques .
Jacques Necker was sent to Paris in 1747 as an employee of the bank by M. Vernet, a friend of his father's. Soon afterwards he founded the famous bank Thellusson & Necker together with another man from Geneva. Thelluson oversaw the London branch while Necker ran the business in Paris. Both partners became very rich through loans to the Treasury and speculation in grain. In 1763 Necker fell in love with Madame de Verménou, the widow of a French officer. During a visit to Geneva he finally met Suzanne Curchod , the daughter of a pastor from near Lausanne (who had previously been engaged to the historian Edward Gibbon ), brought her to Paris in 1764 and married her. She encouraged her husband to pursue a public career.
Necker became the syndic or director of the French East India Trading Company . After proving his financial management skills there, he defended them in a clever treatise in 1769 against the attacks of André Morellet . Meanwhile Madame Necker entertained the most important enlightened personalities of the political, financial and literary world of Paris in her salon ; her Fridays were just as popular as Madame Geoffrin's Mondays and Madame Helvétius' Tuesdays . In 1773 Necker won the Académie Française Prize for an eulogy for Colbert , and in 1775 he published his Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains , in which he attacked Turgot's free trade policy .
Finance Minister under Louis XVI.
His wife now believed that he could succeed as a great financier, whereupon he gave his share of the bank to his brother Louis. In October 1776 he was by Louis XVI. appointed Minister of Finance of France (contrôleur général des finances) , initially only with the title of Director of the Treasury, and from 29 June 1777 to 19 May 1781 as Director General of Finance, directeur général des finances . He tried to get the finances back on track by distributing the taille (poll tax) more evenly, abolishing the vingtième d'industrie , and setting up monts de piété .
His main financial measure, however, was an attempt to finance the French debt and the introduction of annual pensions under guarantee from the state. The application of the funding measures was too difficult to be done in a short period of time and Necker merely pointed out the guidelines to be followed rather than completing the process. In all of these matters he treated French finances more as a banker than a competent political economist. He did not come close to Turgot , the most famous economist of his time. Politically influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment , the Director-General of Finance did little to avert the looming revolution , and his establishment of provincial assemblies was just a fearful application of Turgot's elaborate plan to reorganize the administration of France. After all, in 1780 he successfully abolished torture .
In 1781 Necker wrote his Compte rendu au roi , a report to the king on state finances. This report was also the first to give the public an insight into government income and expenditure.
Dismissal and exile
Necker was dismissed from office in 1781; his dismissal, however, is less due to his account than to the influence of Marie Antoinette , whose plans in favor of Adrien-Louis de Bonnières he had foiled.
In retirement he occupied himself with literature and with his only child, his daughter Anne Louise Germaine Necker, born in 1766, who married the Ambassador of Sweden in 1786 and became Madame de Staël .
Necker continued to comment on French state affairs and was banished from Paris in 1787 because of his attack on his successor Calonne by means of a lettre de cachet .
French Revolution
The importance that public opinion was to acquire in the French Revolution became apparent as early as 1788. Even under the influence of his wife's literary circle , Necker was considered the only minister who could stop the deficit and was reappointed General Director of Finance in September .
He ended the revolt in the Dauphiné by legalizing the assembly there, and then prepared for the convening of the Estates General . During the first months of 1789 he was considered to be the savior of France. His behavior at the first meeting of the Estates General showed, however, that he viewed them exclusively as an assembly that was only supposed to approve money, not organize reforms. But since the summoning of the Estates General and twice the number of votes for the Third Estate had come about on his recommendation, and since he had allowed the Estates to deliberate and vote together, the court identified him as the trigger of the revolution. On July 11th he was ordered to leave France immediately.
His dismissal contributed greatly to the storming of the Bastille , whereupon the king called him back again. He was received with joy in every city he passed through. He refused to work with Mirabeau or La Fayette . In September he induced the king to accept the suspensive veto, by which he lost his main prerogative. However, in the November 7th decree, he insisted that ministers could not be elected by the assembly. In financial policy, he turned against extreme measures such as the issuance of assignats . His popularity waned, and in September 1790 he resigned without much regret.
Last years
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It was not without difficulties that Necker reached Coppet on Lake Geneva , where he had acquired a castle in 1784. Here he dealt with literature. After the death of his wife in 1794, he lived with his daughter Madame de Staël and his niece Madame Necker de Saussure away from political life. A temporary excitement was caused by the advance of the French armies in 1798 when he burned most of his political papers. Necker died in Coppet in 1804.
Honors
- One of the Hawaiian Islands discovered by Jean-François de La Pérouse was named “ Ile Necker ” in his honor .
Works
- Réponse au mémoire de M. l'abbé Morellet sur la Compagnie des Indes , 1769
- Éloge de Jean-Baptiste Colbert , 1773
- Sur la Législation et le commerce des grains , 1775
- Mémoire au roi sur l'établissement des administrations provinciales , 1776
- Lettre au roi , 1777
- Compte rendu au roi , 1781 ( digitized version )
- De l'Administration des finances de la France , 1784, 3 vol. in-8 ° digitized
- Correspondance de M. Necker avec M. de Calonne. (29 janvier-28 février 1787) , 1787
- De l'importance des opinions religieuses , 1788
- De la Morale naturelle, suivie du Bonheur des sots , 1788
- Supplément nécessaire à l'importance des opinions religieuses , 1788
- Sur le compte rendu au roi en 1781: nouveaux éclaircissements , 1788
- Report fait au roi dans son conseil par le ministre des finances , 1789
- Derniers conseils au roi , 1789
- Hommage de M. Necker à la nation française , 1789
- Observations sur l'avant-propos du «Livre rouge» , v. 1790
- Opinion relativement au décret de l'Assemblée nationale, concernant les titres, les noms et les armoiries , v. 1790
- Sur l'administration de M. Necker , 1791
- Réflexions présentées à la nation française sur le procès intenté à Louis XVI , 1792
- You pouvoir exécutif dans les grands États , 1792
- De la Révolution française , 1796
- Cours de morale religieuse , 1800
- Dernières vues de politique et de finance, offertes à la Nation française , 1802
- Histoire de la Révolution française, depuis l'Assemblée des notables jusques et y compris la journée du 13 vendémiaire an IV (18 octobre 1795) , 1821
Web links
- Editor / GL: Necker, Jacques. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Literature by and about Jacques Necker in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Jacques Necker in the German Digital Library
- Lars Schneider: Necker's biography on historicum.net
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
|
Louis-Gabriel Taboureau des Réaux Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne Joseph François Foullon |
General Finance Director 29 June 1777 to 19. May 1781 August 26, 1788–11. July 1789 July 16, 1789–4. September 1790 |
Jean-François Joly de Fleury Joseph François Foullon Charles Claude Guillaume Lambert |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Necker, Jacques |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Geneva banker and finance minister under Louis XVI. |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 30, 1732 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Geneva |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 9, 1804 |
| Place of death | Coppet |