Therefore he called for Turgot, to be his Minister of Finance.
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne, a man in the
early sixties, a splendid representative of the fast disappearing
class of landed gentry, had been a successful governor of a
province and was an amateur political economist of great ability.
He did his best. Unfortunately, he could not perform
miracles. As it was impossible to squeeze more taxes out of
the ragged peasants, it was necessary to get the necessary funds
from the nobility and clergy who had never paid a centime.
This made Turgot the best hated man at the court of Versailles.
Furthermore he was obliged to face the enmity of Marie
Antoinette, the queen, who was against everybody who dared
to mention the word ``economy'' within her hearing. Soon
Turgot was called an ``unpractical visionary'' and a ``theoretical-
professor'' and then of course his position became untenable.
In the year 1776 he was forced to resign.
After the ``professor'' there came a man of Practical Business
Sense. He was an industrious Swiss by the name of
Necker who had made himself rich as a grain speculator and
the partner in an international banking house. His ambitious
wife had pushed him into the government service that she
might establish a position for her daughter who afterwards as
the wife of the Swedish minister in Paris, Baron de Stael,
became a famous literary figure of the early nineteenth century.
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