Étienne de Silhouette | |
|---|---|
| Controller-General of Finances of France | |
| In office 4 March 1759 – 21 November 1759 | |
| Monarch | Louis XV |
| Preceded by | Jean de Boullonges |
| Succeeded by | Henri Bertin |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1709-07-05)5 July 1709 |
| Died | 20 January 1767(1767-01-20) (aged 57) Bry-sur-Marne, France |
Étienne de Silhouette (5 July 1709 – 20 January 1767) was aFrenchAncien RégimeController-General of Finances underLouis XV.[1]
Sometimes said to be akin to the nextNiccolò Machiavelli, he was born atLimoges where his father Chevalier Arnaud de Silhouette, ofBiarritz orde Zulueta (inBasque), had been posted as a Bourbon administrator.[2]De Silhouette studied finance and economics assiduously and spent a year in London learning about theeconomy of Britain.
He translated into French several works byAlexander Pope,Henry Bolingbroke,William Warburton'sThe Alliance between Church and State, (1736) asDissertations sur l'Union de la Religion, de la Morale, et de la Politique (1742) andBaltasar Gracián'sEl político. ThePrince of Condé's party later used his translations from English to criticize him, butMadame de Pompadour's support and vision saw him awarded with the position of Controller-General on 4 March 1759; this was one of the most extensive administrative positions in the Ancien Régime, albeit a very unstable one. His task was to curb France's spiralling deficit and strengthen the finances for theSeven Years' War against Britain (1754–1763). Public opinion preferred his 72-million-livres public loan to theferme générale, an outsourced tax collection system. He managed to curtail Royal household expenditure, revised state pensions and to encouragefree trade he reduced some ancient taxes whilst establishing new ones in accordance with the vision of a unified French market.
De Silhouette forecast a bleak budget for 1760: income of 286 millionlivres compared to expenses of 503 million livres, including at least 94 million indebt service.[3] In an attempt to restore the kingdom's finances by the English method of taxing the rich and privileged (nobility and church were exempt from taxes in theAncien Régime), de Silhouette devised the "general subvention," i.e., taxes on external signs of wealth (doors and windows, farms, luxury goods, servants, profits). On 26 October, he took thewar measure of ordering the melting down of goldware andsilverware. He was criticized by the nobility includingVoltaire, who thought his measures, though theoretically beneficial, were not suitable for wartime and the French political situation.
On 20 November 1759, after eight months in the position, he left the court and retired toBry-sur-Marne, where he set about improving thebudget. After his death in 1767, his nephew and heirClément de Laage completed his work.
Despite Étienne de Silhouette's short tenure as Treasury Chief, it caused him to become the subject of hostility.[4] His penny-pinching manner led the termà la Silhouette to be applied to things perceived as cheap or austere.[4]
During this period an art form of growing popularity was a shadow profile cut from black paper. It provided a simple and inexpensive alternative for those who could not afford more decorative and expensive forms of portraiture, such as painting or sculpture. Those who considered it cheap attached the word "silhouette" to it. This art-form is still practiced and namedsilhouette cutting, or art, to this day.[5]
Despite his name being applied to the silhouette art form, Étienne de Silhouette ironically has no portraits in existence, not even a silhouette. Although several portraits were created depicting Silhouette, all were oil paintings destroyed during the French Revolution.[6]
