Charles Alexandre de Calonne: Difference between revisions

Calonne's negative reputation and assumed responsibility for France's financial crisis in the years leading to the Revolution of 1789 have been judged unfair by historians such as [[Munro Price]]. During his position as controller-general, he had genuinely tried to make amends for his previous spendthrift policies. As a contemporary writer, [[Nicolas Chamfort]], remarked, Calonne was "applauded when he lit the fire, and condemned when he sounded the alarm." EconomicHowever, economic historians such as Eugene White,<ref>White, Eugene Nelson, (1989), “Was there a Solution to the Ancien Régime’s Financial Dilemma”, Journal of Economic History, 49, 3, pp. 545-568.</ref> have however stressed the negative role played by Calonne, who continued the restoration of a venal system of financial administration.

His fall had important significance to the fate of the monarchy in France before 1789. The financial strains made apparent through Calonne's attempts at reform revealed the instability of the monarchy as a whole, which up until then had been managed on the basis of traditional monarchical absolutism: secretly, hierarchically, without public scrutiny of accounts or consent to taxation. For centuries, the monarchy had controlled fiscal policy on its own terms, and when knowledge of an unmanageable and growing deficit became more widely known, the image was of a failed and, in many ways, corrupt institution. Louis XVI, who had backed Calonne's reform programme wholehearthedly, saw its refusal by the notables and the parliament as a personal failure. Conscientious in his attempts to alleviate the suffering of the French people, the king, it is clear, genuinely hoped to implement an enlightened policy with the help of Calonne. Crushed by this opposition to Calonne's project, the king withdrew to long hours of hunting and larger meals. Many historians see the ensuing months as the beginning of the king's bouts of depression.