Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot

(1727 - 1781)

As comptroller general of finance under Louis XVI, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot abolished restrictions on the sale of grain in France and ended the government’s policy of conscripting peasants to build and maintain roads. His efforts at further reform were blocked by the French elite; at the behest of Marie Antoinette and the chief royal adviser, he resigned in 1776. He died in Paris of gout five years later.