Joseph Marie Terray

The abbot Joseph Marie Terray , commendatory abbot of Molesmes and Troarn, lord of the Mound-Tilly, is a French politician born with Boën the December 9th 1715 and died in Paris the February 18th (or on February 22nd?) 1778, which was General inspector of finances of Louis XV.

Biography

Joseph Marie Terray went down from an easy peasant of Boën - on-Lignon, whose descent had gradually risen: one finds there a butcher, merchants, a farmer of the revenues of a college. His/her uncle, François Terray de Rozières, first doctor of the Palatine princess, grows rich considerably in the Système by Law and an important heritage left him. His/her father, Jean Antoine Terray, were director of gabelles of Lyon. Joseph Marie came from its second marriage.

After having received the Tonsure, Terray was named adviser-clerk with the Parlement of Paris in 1736 and specialized in the businesses of finances, exerting the functions of “rapporteur of the court”: thus one called the magistrate charged to submit to the Parliament the laws to be recorded. It made its entry with the grand' room in 1754. Very little versed in the things of the religion, though rich person abbeys commendataire where it never put the feet, he was even rather libertine. Its manners were highly décriées by its many detractors.

Of high size, but arched, the dye blotches, it was, affirms the abbot of Véri, “ sinister and alarming, a dark figure, the eye hagard. ” a joke of time known as: “ Here is the abbot who laughs; did it arrive misfortune at somebody? ” With that, qualities of a statesman: “ It was a Net spirit, decided, remarkably just, seeing far and large without being lost in the details, while knowing to put order and economy in all. Of energetic and independent nature, he was not man to let itself carry out nor to intimidate With that, hard-working intrepid and very ordered. ” (Michel Antoine) “ Terray went down around six hours the morning to its office; to ten, all was done; it was free and received all those which were presented. ” (Pierre Gaxotte)

In 1756, Terray had been the only adviser of the Parliament not to be resigned. It had sat at the commission established by the general inspector Averdy for the tax reform. He was noticed by Rene Nicolas de Maupeou, which made it name General inspector of finances in December 1769. Terray helped initially its mentor to get rid of Choiseul and its cousin Choiseul-Praslin, leading to the reference of the Prime Minister the December 24th 1770.

Named Minister of state the February 18th 1770, Terray was, after the reference of Choiseul, one of the strong men of the ministry known as “of the Triumvirate”, with Maupeou and of Pivot. It took over temporarily the duties of the secretariat of State the navy until the nomination of Pierre Etienne Bourgeois of Boynes the April 9th 1771.

On its arrival with the system check of finances, Terray had found a dramatic situation and took energetic measures that the opinion qualified “bankruptcy”. To make it possible to ensure the payments of the first days of 1770, it had to hurry to secure short-term loans. It concerned 600 000 pounds the lease of the stations which had just been concluded but yet had not been signed and got liquidities thanks to a new alienation of the indirect taxes in Flanders. In parallel, by a series of stops of the Council of January 1770, Terray reduced the expenditure brutally: it transformed the Tontine S into life annuities, reduced the interest of all the revenues except for those on the Town hall, reduced by 15 to 30% the pensions higher than 600 pounds. An edict taken at the end of January took again to the Masters National Forestry Commission a right of 14 sums of money for book on the product of the wood sales which had been alienated to them formerly for an insufficient amount. Lastly, by a stop of the Council of February 18th, 1770, it suspended the payment of the rescriptions of the general receivers and the tickets of the farmer general. It was a daring measurement because there was in circulation 120 to 150 million books of these values, but neither the Parliament nor the public were moved with excess, because the majority of the titles were between the hands of speculators (Voltaire affirmed however to have lost 200 000 pounds in the operation). To extinguish these effects, Terray sold increases in pledges and finances of offices, launched a loan of 160 million at the rate of 4%, and, benefitting from the suspension of the privilege of the Compagnie of the Indies, released what to regulate the expenditure of the marriage of the Dauphin.

These measurements encountered strong resistances. In a few months, Terray had cut a solid unpopularity in the opinion. However, the means which it had initially employed to restore finances proceeded of the traditional range of the receipts of monarchy. Moreover, the majority had been prepared by its predecessor, Etienne Maynon d' Invault. But after the consecutive reference of the Parliaments to the reform of Maupeou, Terray could engage in an in-depth resequencing of the public purses. It launched out in a tax reform intended to improve the output of the taxes while correcting their iniquity.

By an edict of December 1770, the bases of the levying of the duty known as “of gold marc”, perceived on very new holder of an office before the forwarding of its provisions, were reformed. An edict of February 1771, reformed the right offices, functions and sworn appraisers and movable salesmen of goods. Another edict of February 1771 transformed the annual right of 1/60e of the primitive value of each office (Paulette) into a right of 1% of the value of the office evaluated by its owner. An edict of June 1771 created in each Registrar of mortgages Bailliage or Sénéchaussée of the offices of to facilitate the real changes and to improve the re-entry of the rights of Hypothèque.

An edict of November 1771 perennialized the first Twentieth and extended the second until in 1781 and issued that they would be perceived in accordance with the edict of 1749, i.e. in exact proportion of the fixed incomes, which made it possible the monitoring services to resume their work, that the resistance of the Parliaments had constrained to stop. “ the work launched thanks to the edict of November 1771 was the best ever undertaken to give to the tax an equitable plate and they made the twentieth best imposition of all those of the Old Mode. ” (Michel Antoine)

The same edict of November 1771 had also increased the rights of the farms as well as the rights raised to the profit of the cities and communities. This increase was reflected in the price of the lease of the farms, which came to renewal in 1773. Well prepared and negotiated carefully by the general inspector, the new lease, concluded the January 2nd 1774, produced 152 million is 20 million more than the precedent.

A stop of the Council of February 24th 1773 also reformed the middle-class capitation of Paris. The rents were listed by the intendant of Paris Bertier de Sauvigny and the calculated imposition in a way proportional: these measurements made some pass the product of 850 000 pounds with 1 400 000 pounds.

Bad harvests having caused, in 1770, a crisis of the subsistence, the opinion allotted the cause of it to measurements of liberalization of the trade of the grains taken in 1763 and 1764 by Bertin and Averdy. Although it was itself favorable to the freedom of the trade of the grains, Terray, in a preoccupation with an appeasing, reconsidered these measurements and establishes a new regulation by a stop of the Council of December 23rd, 1770 and letters patent of January 11th, 1771. This regulation was to expose it to the charge to have contributed to the establishment of mythical “a Pacte of famine”.

The financial measurements taken by Terray allowed a spectacular re-establishment of finances of monarchy. But they were worth a very great unpopularity and ignominieuses charges of corrupt practice to him. It was called “vacuum-bracket”, one showed it bankruptcy.

In 1773, Terray, while preserving the system check of finances, was named director and director of the Building industries of His Majesty, Jardins, Arts, Académies, and Manufactures Royal (managing director of the Bâtiments of the King). For this reason, it posed the first stone of the mint in Paris. It also launched the construction of the Grand theater of Bordeaux, work of the architect Victor Louis.

To its advent in 1774, Louis XVI, yielding to the pressure of the opinion, returned Terray. This one died in Paris in February 1778 and was buried in the Holy-Marguerite vault of the church of the Mound-Tilly (Aube), where Falconet carved its monument in 1780.

Residences

the Terray abbot lived in Paris a hotel built for his/her uncle in 1725 n° 101 Rue of Richelieu.
It was then made build a hotel Rue Our-Lady-of-Fields.
In 1754, it bought the Château of the Mound-Tilly which it made rebuild by the architect François Nicolas Lancret.

Family

Pierre Terray, Viscount of Rozières († 1780), brother of the Terray abbot, was public prosecutor close the Cour of the assistances.
the son of Pierre Terray, Antoine Jean Terray (1750 - 1794), was intendant of Montauban then of Lyon.
the farmer general Jacques Paulze was the nephew of the Terray abbot. The girl of this last, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze-Lavoisier (1757 - 1836) married, at the 13 years age, the farmer general and chemist Antoine Lavoisier.

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