Joseph Marie Terray

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.

[2] His genuine capacity attracted the attention of Louis XV's chancellor, René Nicolas de Maupeou, who made him controller general in December 1769.

His first big venture was helping Mme du Barry's partisans[3] 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",[4] 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.

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.