TURGOT, Αννε Robert Jacques, Baron de l’Aulne, a celebrated philosopher and statesman, was born at Paris on the 10th of May 1727, of a very ancient Norman family. His father was a long time provost of the corporation of merchants, during which he was the object of general admiration on account of his prudent administration. Turgot was the youngest of three brothers, and was destined for the church. He had scarcely attained the age at which reflection commences, when he resolved to sacrifice all temporal advantages to liberty and conscience, and to pursue his ecclesiastical studies without declaring his repugnance to their proposed object. At the age of twenty-three years he took his degree, and in December 1749 was elected prior of the Sorbonne. The time when it was necessary for him to declare that he would not be an ecclesiastic was now arrived. He announced this resolution to his father by letter, showing the motives which induced him to decline the clerical profession. His father consented, and he was appointed master of requests. He prepared himself for this office by particular application to those branches of knowledge which are most connected with its functions and duties, viz. natural philosophy, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, &c. About this period he wrote some articles for the Encyclopédie, which attained great celebrity. Of these the principal are, Etymology, Existence, Expansibility, Fair, and Foundation. He had prepared several others but the persecution against the Encyclopédie induced him to decline further contributions.

In 1761 Turgot was appointed intendant of Limoges, where he gave activity to the society of agriculture; opened a mode of public instruction for female professors of midwifery; procured for the people the attendance of able physicians during the raging of epidemic diseases; established houses of industry, supported by charity (the only species of alms-giving which does not encourage idleness); introduced the cultivation of potatoes into his province, &c. &c. While he proceeded with unremitting activity and zeal in promoting the good of the people over whom he was placed, he meditated projects of a more extensive nature, such as an equal distribution of the taxes, the construction of the roads, the regulation of the militia, the prevention of a scarcity of provision, and the protection of commerce.

On the death of Louis XV. the public voice called Turgot to the first offices of government, as a man who united the experience resulting from habits of business to ail the improvements which study can procure. After being only a short time at the head of the marine department, he was, August 24. 1774, appointed comptroller-general of the finances. During his discharge of this important office, the operations which he carried on are astonishing. He suppressed twenty-three kinds of duties on necessary occupations, useful contracts, or merited compensations. He abolished the corvee, or the labour required from the public for the highways, saving the nation thirty millions of livres annually. He set aside another kind of corvée, which respected the carriage of military stores and baggage. He abated the rigour in the administration of indirect impositions, to the great profit of the contributors, the king, and the financiers; besides effecting many other essential improvements in political economy. At length, however, by the artifices of the courtiers, he was deprived of his offices; and in retirement he devoted himself to the studies which he had cultivated in his youth. He died on the 20th of March 1781. An edition of his works, in 9 vols. 8vo, was commenced in 1808 and completed in 1811. He composed, it is said, the celebrated Latin inscription intended for a picture of Dr Franklin.

Eripuit coelo fulmen, mox sceptra tyrannis.