[Sidenote: Turgot]
At first, hopes ran high, for Turgot, friend of Voltaire and
contributor to the _Encyclopedia_, was minister of finance (1774-
1776), and reform was in the air. Industry and commerce were to be
unshackled; _laisser-faire_ was to be the order of the day;
finances were to be reformed, and taxes lowered. The clergy and nobles
were no longer to escape taxation; taxes on food were to be abolished;
the peasants were to be freed from forced labor on the roads. But
Turgot only stirred up opposition. The nobles and clergy were not
anxious to be taxed; courtiers resented any reduction of their
pensions; tax-farmers feared the reforming minister; owners of
industrial monopolies were frightened; the peasants misunderstood his
intentions; and riots broke out. Everybody seemed to be relieved when,
in 1776, Turgot was dismissed.
[Sidenote: Necker]
Turgot had been a theorist; his successor was a businessman. Jacques
Necker was well known in Paris as a hard-headed Swiss banker, and
Madame Necker's receptions were attended by the chief personages of the
bourgeois society of Paris.
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