[Henri, Earl of Boulainvilliers]. Mémoire contenant les moyens d’establir le droit d’amortissement des gabelles ; et de convertir le revenu des aydes en droit de Bouchon ; avec les avantages que le Roy, & ses sujets en peuvent retirer. Manuscript in-8°. 3 blank pages, title, 1-148, 2 blank pages, 149-210 pp. and 3 blank pages. Late 18th century dark green morocco, spine with 5 ornate bands, green morocco title-piece, gilt coat of arms on the covers within a triple gilt fillet, gilt roulette on the edges and inner, gilt edges.
Elegant manuscript in a legible handwriting, all with a marge of this famous economic precursor proposing a bold reform of the kingdom’s financial system under Louis XIV.
Although the comte de Boulainvilliers (1658-1722) wrote a great deal, he never had anything printed during his lifetime. Published posthumously in 1727 with five other memoirs under the generic title Mémoires présentés à Mr le duc d’Orléans régent de France, contenant les moyens de rendre ce royaume très puissant et d’augmenter considérablement les revenus du roi et du peuple, our Mémoire was probably sent in 1687 or 1688 to Le Pelletier, Colbert’s successor as Controller General of Finances, thus preceding the Détail de la France by Boisguilbert published in 1695 and the famous Projet d’une dîme royale by Vauban written in 1700 and published in 1707. Therefore, this is the first reform project addressed to Colbert’s successor around the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Boulainvilliers opposed arbitrary taxation, the gabelle and the disarray of public finances, while proposing the transformation of gabelles into a direct tax per head and per class of taxpayers (capitation, which would be established under Pontchartrain in 1695), the setting up of tax administrations, and the reduction or even elimination of customs duties, the introduction of income tax under the name of droit d’amortissement in place of gabelles, the conversion of droits d’aides into droit de bouchon paid by cabaretiers, and the conversion of gabelle employees into merchants, soldiers or ploughmen, or even colonists in the colonies of the Americas.
Independently of the ideas that abound, almost all of them bold for the time, this Mémoire is full of facts, information on prices and costs, figures and enumerations; pubs, officers and servants, dioceses and parishes, heads of families and private fortunes, states and their public revenues, including the revenues of the sovereigns of Europe, are enumerated or evaluated.
Copies with the coat of arms of Louis-Charles de Machault d’Arnouville (1667-1750), member of the Grand Council in 1690, maître des requêtes from 1694 to 1718, then Lieutenant General of Police of Paris until 1720, during which time he was Director of the Librairie, and finally State Councillor ; he was commissioner in charge of the Compagnie des Indes and president of the Bureau du Commerce from 1744 to 1750. He was also head of the Council of Her Royal Highness, Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans, wife of the Regent. His son, Jean-Baptiste de Machault, comte d’Arnouville, will be Controller General of Finances for Louis XV.
See Théophile Ducrocq, Le Mémoire de Boulainvilliers sur le droit d’amortissement des gabelles et la conversion du revenu des aides, antérieur au “Détail” de Boisguillebert et à la “Dîme royale” de Vauban, Poitiers, Tolmer, 1884.
Arms : O.H.R., pl. 2153 ; J. Guigard, Armorial, t. II, p. 333.
A fine copy of a rare manuscript.
3 500 €