Charles Alexandre de Calonne
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Charles Alexandre, vicomte de Calonne (1734 – October 30, 1802) was a French statesman.
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[edit] Life
[edit] Rise to prominence
Born at Douai of an upper-class family, he entered the legal profession and became successively lawyer to the general council of Artois, procureur to the parlement of Douai, maître des requêtes, intendant of Metz (1768) and of Lille (1774). He seems to have been a man with notable business abilities and an entrepreneurial spirit, while generally unscrupulous in his political actions. In the terrible crisis preceding the French Revolution, when successive ministers tried in vain to replenish the exhausted royal treasury, Calonne was summoned as Controller-General of Finances, an office he assumed on November 3, 1783.
He owed the position to the Comte de Vergennes, who for over three years continued to support him. However, King Louis XVI disliked Calonne, and, according to the Habsburg ambassador, his public image was extremely poor.
[edit] Measures
In taking office he found debts of 113 million livres, debts caused by France's involvement in the American Revolution among other reasons,[1] and no means of paying them. At first he attempted to obtain credit, and to support the government by means of loans so as to maintain public confidence in its solvency. In October 1785 he recoined the gold coinage, and he developed the caisse d'escompte (dealing in cash discounts). Calonne's eventual reform package, which was introduced to the Assembly of Notables consisted of 5 major points: 1) Cut Government Spending 2) Create a revival of free trade methods 3) Authorize the sale of Church property 4) Equalization of salt and tobacco taxes 5) Establish a universal land tax[2]
As all these measures failed, he proposed to the king the suppression of internal customs duties, and argued in favor of the taxation of the property of nobles and clergy. Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques Necker had attempted these reforms, and Calonne attributed their failure to the opposition of the parlements. Therefore, he called an Assemblée des notables in January 1787, to which he presented the deficit in the treasury, and proposed the establishment of a subvention territoriale, which would be levied on all property without distinction.
[edit] Deposition and exile
This suppression of privileges was badly received. Calonne, angered, printed his reports and so alienated the court. Louis XVI dismissed him on April 8, 1787 and exiled him to Lorraine. The joy was general in Paris, where Calonne, accused of wishing to augment the imposts, was known as Monsieur Déficit. In reality his audacious plan of reforms, which Necker took up later, could have probably saved the monarchy had it been supported by the king. Calonne soon afterwards left for Great Britain, and during his residence there kept up a polemical correspondence with Necker.
In 1789, when the Estates-General were about to assemble, he crossed to Flanders in the hope of offering himself for election, but he was forbidden to enter France. In revenge he joined the émigré group at Coblenz, wrote in their favour, and spent nearly all the fortune brought him by his wife, a wealthy widow. In 1802, having again settled in London, he received permission from Napoleon Bonaparte to return to France. He died about a month after his arrival in his native country.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Ford, F: "Europe 1780-1830", page 102. Longman, 2002
- ^ Ford, F: "Europe 1780-1830", page 102. Longman, 2002
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
