exhausted royal treasury and was dismissed for
want of success, Calonne was summoned to take the general control of
affairs. He assumed office on the 3rd of November 1783. He owed the
position to Vergennes, who for three years and a half continued to
support him; but the king was not well disposed towards him, and,
according to the testimony of the Austrian ambassador, his reputation
with the public was extremely poor. In taking office he found "600
millions to pay and neither money nor credit." At first he attempted to
develop the latter, and to carry on the government by means of loans in
such a way as to maintain public confidence in its solvency. In October
1785 he recoined the gold coinage, and he developed the _caisse d'
escompte_. But these measures failing, he proposed to the king the
suppression of internal customs, duties and the taxation of the property
of nobles and clergy. Turgot and Necker had attempted these reforms, and
Calonne attributed their failure to the malevolent criticism of the
parlements. Therefore he had an assembly of "notables" called together
in January 1787. Before it he exposed the deficit in the treasury, and
proposed the establishment of a _subvention territoriale_, which should
be levied on all property without distinction. This suppression of
privileges was badly received by the privileged notables. Calonne,
angered, printed his reports and so alienated the court. Louis XVI.
dismissed him on the 8th of April 1787 and exiled him to Lorraine. The
joy was general in Paris, where Calonne, accused of wishing to augment
the imposts, was known as "Monsieur Deficit." In reality his audacious
plan of reforms, which Necker took up later, might have saved the
monarchy had it been firmly seconded by the king. Calonne soon
afterwards passed over to England, and during his residence there kept
up a polemical correspondence with Necker on the finances. In 1789, when
the states-general were about to assemble, he crossed over to Flanders
in the hope of being allowed to offer himself for election, but he was
sternly forbidden to enter France. In revenge he joined the _emigre_
party at Coblenz, wrote in their favour, and expended nearly all the
fortune brought him by his wife, a wealthy widow. In 1802, having again
taken up his abode in London, he received permission from Napoleon to
return to France. He died on the 30th of October 1802, about a month
after his arrival in his native country.

See Ch.