page_title: Michel Goudchaux
section_title: Second Ministry
hierarchical_section_title: Michel Goudchaux / Second Ministry
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Caricature du ministre Michel Goudchaux, par Cham.
context_page_description: Michel Goudchaux was a French banker and politician who was twice Minister of Finance during the French Second Republic. A firm Republican, he refused to accept the government of Napoleon III.
context_section_description: Goudchaux ran unsuccessfully as Republican candidate for the Assembly in April 1848.
  He ran again on 4 June 1848 in a by-election in the department of the Seine and was elected.
  On taking office on 13 June 1848 he was appointed to the Finance Committee of the Assembly.
  He made a major speech in which he proposed lower indirect taxes, free education to workers and limited subsidies to the National Workshops which had been created to provide temporary employment. The June Days Uprising from 24-26 June was crushed by General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac.
  Cavaignac formed a ministry on 28 June 1848 in which Goudchaux was made Minister of Finance.
  Goudchaux immediately proposed to strictly limit the salaries of ministers.
  He proposed decrees on a loan for the Bank of France, repayment of savings bank deposits, treasury bills and other urgent matters.
  He supported tax exemptions and loans to assist businesses, but was against government bail-outs of struggling businesses.
  On 22 July 1848 Goudchaux presented a statement of the financial situation to the Assembly in which he said there would be a deficit of 209 million for that year. 
  The budget could be balanced for 1849, but only by restoring taxes that had been abolished too quickly.
  Goudchaux continued to propose measures to manage finances and participated in constitutional debates.
  Throughout his ministry he was hounded by the representative Creton to provide full details of all financial dealings of the provisional government, where Goudchaux had been Minister of Finance for a few days. 
  When the assembly voted in favor on 24 October 1848, Goudchaux immediately resigned on the grounds that this implied he was not trusted.
  He was in poor health, as he would be for the remainder of his life.
caption: Caricature of Goudchaux by Cham, 1850
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