Turgot’s letter to the King, when taking possession of the position of general controller

No bankrupt­cy;

No in­crease of tax­a­tion;

No loans;

No bankrupt­cy, nei­ther avowed, nor masked by forced re­duc­tions.

No in­crease of tax­a­tion: the rea­son is in the si­t­u­a­tion of your peo­ple, and even more in Your Majesty’s heart.

No loans, be­cause any loan al­ways de­creas­es the free in­come; it re­quires at the end of some time ei­ther the bankrupt­cy, or the in­crease of tax­a­tion. In peace time, one should bor­row on­ly to liq­ui­date old debts, or to re­fund other loans made at a more ex­pen­sive rate.

To fill out the­se three points, there is on­ly one way. It is to re­duce the ex­pen­di­ture be­low the rev­enue, and be­low enough to save each year a score of mil­lions, in order to re­fund old debts. Without that, the first blow of gun would force the State to the bankrupt­cy.

It is asked what to cut off, and each Director, in his part, will sup­port that all any par­tic­u­lar ex­pen­di­ture is essen­tial. They can say very good rea­sons; but as there is no rea­son to make what is im­pos­si­ble, it is nec­es­sary that all the­se rea­sons yield to the peremp­to­ry ne­ces­si­ty of econ­o­my.

It is thus of peremp­to­ry ne­ces­si­ty that Your Majesty re­quires all the Directors of all the parts to act in con­cert with the Minister of Finance. It is essen­tial that he can dis­cuss with them in the pres­ence of Your Majesty the de­gree of need of the ex­pen­di­ture sug­gest­ed. It is espe­cial­ly nec­es­sary that when you have, Sire, fixed the level of funds of each de­part­ment, you for­bid the one who is in charge to order any new ex­pen­di­ture with­out hav­ing con­cert­ed be­fore with Finance the means of pro­vid­ing for it. Without that, each de­part­ment would un­der­take debts which would be al­ways debts of Your Majesty, and the Director of Finance could not be an­swer­able for the bal­ance be­tween the ex­pen­di­ture and the rev­enue.

Your Majesty knows that one of the largest ob­sta­cles to the econ­o­my is the mul­ti­ple re­quests He is con­tin­u­ous­ly as­sailed with, un­for­tu­nate­ly au­tho­rized thanks to the too great fa­cil­i­ty of his pre­de­ces­sors to wel­come them.

It is nec­es­sary, Sire, to arm your­self again­st your kind­ness with your kind­ness it­self; to con­sid­er those from whom this money comes you can dis­tribute to your courtiers, and com­pare the mis­ery of those from whom it is some­times re­quired to tear off it by the most rig­or­ous ex­e­cu­tions, with the si­t­u­a­tion of those who have more ti­tles to ob­tain your lib­er­al­i­ties…

I an­tic­i­pat­ed that I will be alone to fight again­st the abus­es of any kind, again­st the ef­forts of those who gain with the­se abus­es, again­st the crowd of the prej­u­dices which are op­posed to any re­form, and which are a so pow­er­ful means in the hands of peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in per­pet­u­at­ing the dis­or­der. I will have to fight even again­st the nat­u­ral kind­ness, the gen­eros­i­ty of Your Majesty and of those who are most dear to Him. I will be even dread­ed, hat­ed, by most of the Court, by all those who re­quest graces. I will be charged of all re­fusals; I will be paint­ed as a hard man be­cause I will have upheld to Your Majesty that He should not en­rich even those that He dears at the ex­pense of the sub­sis­tence of his People. This peo­ple to which I will have sac­ri­ficed my­self is so easy to mis­lead, that per­haps I in­curred its ha­tred by same mea­sure­ments as I will take to de­fend it again­st vex­a­tion. I will be ca­lum­ni­at­ed, per­haps with enough plau­si­bil­i­ty to lose Your Majesty’s con­fi­dence.

I will not re­gret a po­si­tion I had not ex­pect­ed. I am ready to sur­ren­der it to Your Majesty as soon as I can­not hope any more to be use­ful to Him; but his re­gard, the rep­u­ta­tion of in­tegri­ty, the pub­lic benev­o­lence which de­ter­mined his choice in my favour, are dear­er to me than the life, and I take the risk of los­ing them, even not de­serv­ing in my eyes any re­proach.

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

Compiègne, August 24, 1774