Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau

[1] The event that led Mirabeau to devote himself to political economy was undoubtedly his work on a manuscript of Richard Cantillon's Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, which he had in his possession as early as 1740.

While in garrison at Bordeaux Mirabeau had made the acquaintance of Montesquieu (1689−1755),[3] and after retiring from the army he wrote his first work, his Testament Politique (1747), which demanded for the prosperity of France a return of the French noblesse to their old position in the Middle Ages.

This work has been often attributed to the influence, and in part even to the pen, of Quesnay, the founder of the economical school of the physiocrats, but was really written before the marquis had made the acquaintance of the physician of Madame de Pompadour.

[1] In 1760 he published his Théorie de l'impot, in which he attacked with all the vehemence of his son the farmers-general of the taxes, who got him imprisoned for eight days at Vincennes, and then exiled to his country estate at Bignon near Nemours.

This trial quite broke the health of the marquis, as well as his fortune; he sold his estate at Bignon, and hired a house at Argenteuil, where he lived quietly till his death.

[1] The marquis's younger brother, Jean Antoine Riquetti, the bailli (d. 1794), served with distinction in the navy, but his brusque manners made success at court impossible.