Jean-Baptiste de Machault, comte d'Arnouville, seigneur de Garge et de Gonesse (

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, 13 December 1701 –

, 12 July 1794), was a French statesman, son of Louis Charles Machault d'Arnouville and lieutenant of police. In 1721, he was counsel to the

Parlement of Paris The ''Parlement'' of Paris () was the oldest ''parlement'' in the Kingdom of France, formed in the 14th century. Parlements were judicial, rather than legislative, bodies and were composed of magistrates. Though not representative bodies in the p ...

; in 1728, he was ''

maître des requêtes A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The occupational titl ...

'', and ten years later, he was made president of the Great Council although he had opposed the court in the

Unigenitus ''Unigenitus'' (named for its Latin opening words ''Unigenitus Dei Filius'', or "Only-begotten Son of God") is an apostolic constitution in the form of a papal bull promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713. It opened the final phase of the Janse ...

dispute, he was appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743. From this position, through the influence at court of his old friend the marquis d'Argenson, he was called to succeed Philibert Orry as

Controller-General of Finances The Controller-General or Comptroller-General of Finances () was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1661 to 1791. It replaced the former position of Superintendent of Finances (''Surintendant des finances''), which was ab ...

in December 1745. On taking office, he found that in the four years of the

War of the Austrian Succession The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict fought between 1740 and 1748, primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italian Peninsula, Italy, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Related conflicts include King Ge ...

the economies of Cardinal Fleury had been exhausted, and he was forced to develop the system of borrowing which was bringing French finances to the verge of bankruptcy. In 1749, he attempted a reform in the levying of direct taxes, which, if carried out, would have done much to prevent the later Revolutionary movement. He proposed to abolish the old tax of a tenth or

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Modern tithes are normally voluntary and paid in money, cash, cheques or v ...

(in French ''dîme''), which was evaded by the clergy and most of the nobility, and substituted a tax of one-twentieth (in French "vingtième") that would have been levied on all. The inclusion of the church made this bill popular with the larger public, in addition to the

Philosophes The were the intellectuals of the 18th-century European Enlightenment.Kishlansky, Mark, ''et al.'' ''A Brief History of Western Civilization: The Unfinished Legacy, volume II: Since 1555.'' (5th ed. 2007). Few were primarily philosophers; rathe ...

, the Jansenists, and the Gallicans. However, there were loud remonstrances from bishops (particularly

Christophe de Beaumont Christophe de Beaumont du Repaire (26 July 1703 – 12 December 1781) was a Kingdom of France, French cleric who belonged to a cadet branch of the Les Adrets and Saint-Quentin branches of the illustrious Dauphin family of Beaumont. He became Bish ...

, the Archbishop of Paris) and the Dévot party at

Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...

's court. The clergy stood by their historical privileges, and the outcry of the nobility was virulent, and the proposal was rejected. Despite this, Machault managed to retain his office until July 1754, when he exchanged the controllership for the Naval Ministry. Foreseeing the disastrous results of the

alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or sovereign state, states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an a ...

with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, he was drawn to oppose more decidedly the schemes of

Madame de Pompadour Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (, ; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour, was a member of the French court. She was the official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and rema ...

, whose personal ill-will he had gained. On 1 February 1757 Louis XV acquiesced in her demand for his removal. Machault retired to his estate at

Arnouville Arnouville () is a commune in the Val-d'Oise department in Île-de-France in northern France. Previously known as Arnouville-lès-Gonesse (, ), the commune was officially renamed to Arnouville on 11 July 2010. Population Education Public pr ...

until the

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

broke out in 1789, when, after a period of hiding, he was apprehended in 1794 at

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

and brought to Paris as a suspect. He was imprisoned in the '' Prison des Madelonnettes'', where he died after a few weeks at the age of ninety-three.

Family

His eldest son, Louis Charles de Machault d'Arnouville (1737–1820), was bishop of Amiens from 1774 until the Revolution. He was one of the most uncompromising

conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

at the

Estates-General of 1789 The Estates General of 1789 () was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). It was the last of the Estates General of the Kingdom ...

, where he voted consistently against every reform. He emigrated in 1791, which provoked the arrest of the members of his family still in France in 1793, when his father and his brothers Charles and Armand were arrested as parents and relatives of an ''émigré''. Upon his return to France in 1802, he resigned his bishopric in order not to be an obstacle to

Concordat of 1801 The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between the First French Republic and the Holy See, signed by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace–Lorraine, ...

, and he retired to the ancestral château of Arnouville, where he died in 1820.

Family

References

Further reading