Necker's Compte Rendu au Roi
Jacques Necker published the French royal accounts in 1781 and it was the first time any government had done such a thing. He was a Genevan Protestant banker who had made a fortune in grain speculation and had been brought in as director-general of finances in 1776 — he could not be called controller-general because he was neither French nor Catholic. The war in America had to be paid for, and he chose to do it by borrowing rather than by taxing, on the argument that new taxes were politically impossible and that confidence in the crown's credit was what mattered. Maintaining that confidence required a demonstration that the finances were sound. The Compte rendu au roi, published in February 1781, was a small book with a coloured cover that sold something like 100,000 copies and showed an ordinary surplus of some ten million livres. It achieved this by excluding the extraordinary expenditure of the war and most of the debt service, which is to say it was a statement of the position with the problem left out. It also listed the pensions paid to courtiers, which caused more anger at Versailles than the arithmetic. Necker was forced out three months later. The document's consequences were the opposite of its intention. It made the state's finances a matter of public discussion, established that the accounts could be published, and made the subsequent revelation of an enormous deficit look like a lie by somebody. He was recalled in 1788 with the state effectively bankrupt and dismissed again on 11 July 1789, which is what brought the Paris crowd into the street three days before the Bastille. He came back for a third time and resigned in 1790 to general indifference.
- Year: 1781 CE
- Category: Political
