Joseph Marie Terray Joseph Marie Terray ( December 9 , 1715 , Boën – February 18 , 1778 ) was a Controller - General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV of France , an agent of fiscal reform , cut short by his death . Terray , tonsure d but not a priest , was appointed in 1736 an ecclesiastical counsellor in the Parlement of Paris , where he specialized in financial matters . In 1764 he was made abbot " in commendam " of the rich abbey of Molesme . The support of his uncle , physician in ordinary to the duchess of Orléans , mother of the Regent , eventually rendered him rich , enabling him to set aside his former circumspect style of life and openly seat his mistresses at his table . His genuine capacity attracted the attention of Louis XV ' s chancellor , René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou , who made him controller general in December 1769 . His first big venture was helping Mme du Barry ' s partisans to bring down the minister of foreign affairs , Étienne François , duc de Choiseul the very next year by demonstrating that the government could not afford to go to war with Great Britain . " Intelligent , plain - speaking , hard - working and rich " , Terray spent the next few years stabilizing the finances of the country by repudiating part of the national debt , suspending payments on the interest on government bonds , and levying forced loans . These reforms aroused mass protest among nobles and commoners alike , which forced Maupeou to strip the Parlement s of their political power in 1771 , so that further reforms could be enacted . Terray continued his overhaul of the financial system by reforming the collection of both the " vingtième " ( a five percent tax on income ) and the " capitation " ( head tax ) of Paris and renegotiating more advantageous agreements with the farmers general , the financiers who held the right to collect indirect taxes . These measures were responsible for a large increase in government revenue ; however , he continued to face opposition , particularly over his restriction of free trade of grain , which opponents charged was part of a " Pact of Famine " with Louis XV designed to allow the king to profit from artificially high grain prices . When Louis XV died in May 1774 , his successor Louis XVI bowed to pressure and dismissed both Terray and Maupeou . Terray ' s position enabled him to become a lavish patron of the arts . His rebuilding of his " hôtel " in rue Nôtre - Dame - des - Champs , c . 1769 – 74 , was the last commission of Antoine - Mathieu Le Carpentier ( 1709 – 1773 ) , who did not live to see its completion . The Hôtel Terray , " notable for the good arrangement of its rooms " , later housed the Collège Stanislas and was demolished in 1849 , when the rue Stanislas was extended through its garden , leaving an isolated pavilion . Pairs of paintings he commissioned from Nicolas Bernard Lépicié in 1775 ( an " Interior of a Customs - house " and a " Interior of a Market " ) and from Claude - Joseph Vernet in 1779 , displayed a strong didactic bias reflecting Terray ' s concerns with the economics of commerce , rather than a choice by the artists From the history painter Nicolas - Guy Brenet he commissioned two subjects , equally referent to his official position ; one , " Cincinnatus Made Dictator " was a clear reference to the enlightened despotism under which he operated ; the other made a less open reference to his reputation as a speculator in grain : " The Roman Farmer " , in which Caius Furius Cressinus was wrongly accused of sorcery on account of the abundance of his crops : it had been exhibited at the Salon of 1775 . Not all subjects of his commissions were so severe : from Jean - Jacques Caffiéri he commissioned a pair of table bronzes in 1777 , on " galante " subjects : " Cupid Vanquishing Pan " ( Wallace Collection , London ) and " Friendship Surprised by Love " ( Toledo Museum of Art ) . A small marble " Bartholomew " by Pierre Le Gros the Younger was purchased from the estate of the painter Jean - François de Troy , the head of the French Academy in Rome . Among the rich furnishings of the Hôtel Terray was a secretary desk by Bernard II van Risamburgh . His funeral monument was sculpted by Clodion . After his death the collection was dispersed by his nephew at auction in 1779 .