Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville

[1] In 1721, he was counsel to the Parlement of Paris, in 1728 he was maître des requêtes, and ten years later was made president of the Great Council; although he had opposed the court in the Unigenitus dispute, he was appointed intendant of Hainaut in 1743.

On taking office, he found that in the four years of the War of the Austrian Succession the economies of Cardinal Fleury had been exhausted, and he was forced to develop the system of borrowing which was bringing French finances to the verge of bankruptcy.

However, there were loud remonstrances from bishops (particularly Christophe de Beaumont, the Archbishop of Paris) and the Dévot party at Louis XV's court.

Foreseeing the disastrous results of the alliance with Austria, he was drawn to oppose more decidedly the schemes of Madame de Pompadour, whose personal ill-will he had gained.

Machault retired to his estate at Arnouville until the Revolution broke out in 1789, when, after a period of hiding, he was apprehended in 1794 at Rouen and brought to Paris as a suspect.