Vincent Ragot de Beaumont

Vincent Ragot de Beaumont (around 1624 - December 1, 1714 ) was a French clergyman and essayist.

Beaumont, who received his doctorate at the Sorbonne , was, as Abbé and protégé of the Bishop of Alet, Nicolas Pavillon, significantly involved in the negotiations with the Jansenists that led to the Treaty of Paix Clémentine in 1669 , and was close to Antoine Arnauld . He was regarded as learned, but also as contentious and did not avoid any conflict either within the church or, for example, against attacks by nobles.

From 1670 he held high ecclesiastical offices in Tournai as a canon in the cathedral, but also mingled in Flemish local politics with the support of the royal administrator of the newly conquered province and was distinguished by his negotiating skills. But this also aroused the suspicion of Minister Louvois , who was disrupted by the activities of a friend of Arnauld's in the newly conquered province. He also fell out of favor with the Bishop of Tournai Gilbert de Choiseuil (1613-1689), who was against their condemnation in the conflicts within the French church on the attitude to the Jansenists and thus agreed with Beaumont on this point. He lost his offices and his spiritual dignity (he was accused of having secretly married a servant) and was imprisoned.

After Sébastien de Vauban , who had heard of his skills, took him out of prison, he became his close adviser and secretary. In the 1690s he worked out his draft of a royal tithe, which Vauban presented to the king, but was rejected by his ministers. It provided for uniform taxation of one tenth of all income, including those from land ownership and the nobility, which was largely tax-free in France at the time. The draft was published anonymously in 1707, but systematically seized and banned by the police as soon as it was published.

After Vauban's death in the same year, he had to flee.

literature

• Michèle Virol: Un ecclésiastique dans l'ombre du pouvoir sous Louis XIV: Vincent Ragot, abbé de Beaumont (c. 1624–1714), Actes des congrès nationaux des sociétés historiques et scientifiques 2012, pp. 93-101, summary, French
• Michèle Virol: Vauban, PUF 2003