Jean-François Jolly de Fleury

Jean-François Jolly de Fleury is a French statesman born in Paris the June 7th 1718 and died in Paris the December 12th 1802.

Biography

Resulting from a family of members of Parliament originating in Burgundy (V. Family Jolly de Fleury), Jean-François Jolly de Fleury is Maître of the requests, Intendant of Dijon (1749 - 1761) then to advise State. In 1765, it belongs to the commission of advisers of State charged by Louis XV with preparing the “blow of majesty” against the agitation of the Parliaments; it contributes to the drafting of the “speech of the Scourging” which it is charged to read in front of the joined together rooms of the Parlement of Paris, the March 3rd 1766, in the presence of the King. He is clerk of the Ordre of the Holy Spirit (from September 15th to 16th 1774).

He is chosen by Maurepas to succeed Jacques Necker, he is named general administrator of finances (equivalent of General inspector of finances) by Louis XVI on May 21st 1781. This nomination causes critical sharp at once. One scoffs the irresolute temperament at the new minister, and one is astonished by the choice of a man resulting from a family known for his constant opposition to the Lights. Actually, one awaited especially him that while using of its family supports in the parliamentary mediums, he manages to disarm the opposition of the Parliament of Paris to any financial reform of scale.

Jolly de Fleury puts a term at the experiments of Necker, by removing the provincial assemblies that this one had created. He resorts to dispatch traditional creation and of sale of new offices but, by using its parliamentary credit, takes also courageous and unpopular measures like the increase in the indirect rights (August 1781) and launching of a third Twentieth (July 1782). N the other hand, he concedes at the Parliaments the cancellation of the checks of twentieth and the exemption of the incomes of the offices and the industry of the third twentieth.

He launches new loans, for nearly 273 million books on the whole. In the month of January 1782, it launches for 70 million a loan in life annuities which gains a sharp success. But it fails at a cheap rate launching a second loan of 150 million and gives by three times its resignation (in May and by twice in November 1782), which is refused. To get receipts, it decides the re-establishment of offices removed by Necker, Turgot and the abbot Terray (October 1781).

He also endeavors to reduce the expenditure but is attacked by the extravagant courtiers and ministers, in particular the Secretary of State to the Navy, marquis de Castries and the Secretary of State to the War, marquis de Ségur, who refuse to reduce the expenditure of their departments in spite of the end of the war of America.

To justify itself, Jolly de Fleury reveals the extent of the deficit - 80 million - which the Compte-rendu with the King had dissimulated. But the attacks continue of more beautiful, questioning the veracity of its accounts, or showing it to have created itself this deficit. He resigns the March 29th 1783.

There remains member of the Conseil of the king, of which he is the senior at the time of the Révolution. In this quality, it is indicated by Necker, in November 1788, to take part in work of the second Assemblée of notable the. He does not emigrate under the French revolution but manages to remain in France without being worried. He dies in 1802.

The judgment of the historians, perhaps darkened by the countryside from which it was victim, was severe for Jolly de Fleury, generally depicts like ineffective, reactionary and limited. “Jolly de Fleury, the successor of Necker, pushed until the last limits the narrow-mindedness reactionary. In a note which accompanies its translation by Marc-Aurèle it finds strange that one did not make most useful yet of all the laws: " It had been to order to the men, under the most severe sorrows, to contain in right terminals their natural curiosity and to defend to them to speak and write on things which pass the range of their intelligence." ” (Leon Say, Turgot , 1887). Its administration would undoubtedly deserve to be revalued.

References

External bonds

Note on the site of the committee of history of the ministry for the economy, finances and industry

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