Joseph François Foullon

Joseph Francois Foullon

Joseph François Foullon (born June 25, 1715 in Saumur , † July 22, 1789 in Paris ) was a French officer, military politician and finance minister. He was one of the first prominent casualties of the French Revolution .

Life

Foullon came from a family of officials. During the Seven Years' War he became General Director of the French Army. Under Marshal Belle-Isle he was promoted to director of the French armed forces. In 1771 he became finance director. Because of his greed and hard-heartedness, Foullon was universally hated. The sentence: "If these crooks have no bread, let them eat hay." As an ardent royalist, he was an opponent of the circle of friends around Louis Philippe d'Orléans .

On July 11, 1789 he rose to succeed Jacques Necker . The appointment of Foullon as finance minister and elevation to Baron de Doué led to violent reactions from the people. Foullon hid on his estate and rumored his alleged death. Nevertheless, he was discovered and taken by revolutionary citizens together with his son-in-law, the artistic director of Paris, Berthier Sauvigny , to Paris to what was then Place de Greve . Jean-Sylvain Bailly and the Marquis de La Fayette tried in vain to intercede for the prisoner. Foullon was beheaded by the angry crowd after three failed hanging attempts due to a broken rope. With a tuft of hay in its mouth, the head was impaled on a pike with which the mob paraded through the streets. At the same time, his son-in-law was killed by hanging from a street lamp.

Literary processing

Charles Dickens described Foullon's life and death in a chapter in A Tale of Two Cities .

predecessor	Office	successor
Jacques Necker	Finance Minister July 11, 1789 - July 16, 1789	Jacques Necker

Individual evidence

1. ^ Meyer's Large Conversational Lexicon. Volume 6, Leipzig 1906, p. 804.
2. ^ Albert Leitzmann: Wilhelm von Humboldt's diaries. Walter de Gruyter, 1968, p. 119 (621 pages).