Turgot’s Unknown Translator: The Réflexions and Adam Smith

129 Pages·1964·3.46 MB·English

by  I. C. Lundberg (auth.)

TURGOT'S UNKNOWN TRANSLATOR
TURGOT'S UNKNOWN
TRANSLATOR
The Rijlexions and Adam Smith
by
c.
I. LUNDBERG
Hunter College of the Ci!)l
University of New York
•
THE HAGUE
MARTINUS NIJHOFF
1964
For F. D. C.
ISBN 978-94-011-8738-1 ISBN 978-94-011-9592-8 (eBook)
DOlIO.I007/978-94-0U-9592-8
Copyright 1964 by Martinus NijhofJ, The Hague, Netherlands
So/tcover reprint o/the hardcover 1st edition 1964
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
vu
Introduction
1
I Translations
8
n Editions
14
m Epigram
19
IV Eulogium
23
v Liaison
33
VI Detached Pieces
43
vn Library
51
vm Comparison
57
IX Capital
65
CONTENTS
x Enigma
74
XI Illumination
85
Notes
!)8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Since the present study is an extension of one that was ongt
nally intended as an appendix to a doctoral dissertation, the
author's first debt is to the scholars who composed her com
mittee in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social
Research in the years 1950-1956, in particular to Dr. Eduard
Heimann for his early encouragement.
First and foremost among the libraries to which an incalculable
obligation is collectively due, the New York Public Library has
consistently been unfailing, and here the Ford Collection was
indispensable to the investigation.
Second place must be shared by the Kress Library of Business
and Economics within the Baker Library, Harvard Graduate
School of Business Administration (with its Vanderblue Collection),
and Columbia University's Special Collections Library (with its
Seligtnan Collection), and their respective heads, Mrs. Dorothea
D. Reeves in Cambridge and Mr. Roland O. Baughman in New
York. To the Firestone Library, Princeton University, to the
New York Society Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the
Vassar College Library, and more especially to the Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C., we are indebted for a rich harvest.
Penultimately, thanks are due for exceptional patience in
awaiting completion of the manuscript to Mr. G. H. Priem and
the publisher.
Our ultimate acknowledgement is to the author of Rejlexions
sur Laformation & La distribution des richesses.
New York, November 1963 I. C. LUNDBERG
VII
REFLEXIONS
SUR.
LA FORMl\TION
E T LA
DISTRIBUTION
DES R ICHESSES.
Par M. TU&aOT.
OJlelltient terris /zunc rantum fora •• " lEn. VI.
M. Dee LXXXVIII.
Title page of the "rare" 1788 edition, distinguished for bearing Turgot's name
and the epigram from the Aeneid
Introduction
The work which we propose to treat of here in translation is
entitled Rijiexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, the
best known of the works of Turgot, the finance minister of Louis
XVI, and an acknowledged precursor of the revolution of 1789.1
For simplicity's sake we shall abridge two brief enough accounts
of the life and work of -
ANNE-RoBERT JACQ.UES TURGOT, MARQ.UIS DE L'AuLNE, born 10 May, 1727, to
a family that passed over into Nonnandy at the time of the Crusades. Saint
Turgot (1045-1115), Abbot of the monastery of Dunelm and bishop of St.
Andrew, was minister to Malcolm III. Anne-Robert's father, Michel-Etienne,
distinguished for many civic improvements, was Prevost of the merchants of
Paris. His brother, Etienne-Franc;ois, a noted commander general of Malta,
founded the Royal Society of Agriculture.
Anne-Robert entered the Sorbonne, and while a Prior there in 1750 delivered
two Discours, in the second of which he foresaw the fate of America, saying,
"The Colonies are like fruits which will not cling to the vine long enough to
ripen." Councillor to the Parlement of Paris, 1752. Master of Requests there,
1753. Intendant of the Generaliti of Limoges, 1761. Minister of Marine, 1774.
Controleur-General of Finance, 1775-1776. Refuted Buffon on his theory of the
earth. Refuted Maupertuis on his theory of languages. Left a Dissertation on the
inconveniencies of paper money, a Letter on Toleration, articles in the Ency
clopedia, and his famous epigram on Franklin,
Eripuit coelo folmen sceptrumque tyrannis 2
(He wrested lightning from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants)
Turgot died in 1781, "among those rare ministers who applied themselves with
courage and disinterestedness to the refonn of oppressive abuses and to the
amelioration of the lot of his people."
The straightforward biographical facts of his life could not have
Introduction
been simpler. Indeed, if a chronicler had only these to guide him,
his account could not possibly be anything but that of a completely
uneventful life. Yet, as has been said, "Turgot, as Lord Acton
said of him, was the 'most profound and thorough reformer of the
eighteenth century.'" 3
Turgot's early advancement conformed ideally to the tenets
laid down by Max Weber for a traditional society: first, he was
too young to be admitted to the Sorbonne; second, he was too young
to be admitted to Parlement and Councillorship. In each case
Sa Majeste was obliged to intervene on his behalf, calling publicly
to mind the great services for which Paris and the Crown were in
debted to his family. 4
Like so many epochal events in a human life, the appointment
to the intendancy of Limoges, which was not the one he would
have preferred, was greeted by Turgot with a total want of elation.
At the time, he was sending Voltaire his subscription to Corneille's
collected works, and the 34-year-old Turgot wrote,
A change has taken place for me and I have the unhappiness to be intendant.
I say unhappiness, because in this world of strife, the only happiness is in living
philosophically, between study and one's friends.5
Voltaire's reply was prophetic only of Turgot. "You will one
day be Controleur-General, but I shall be dead." 6 But he was not:
at the news of Turgot's "fall" he cried out:
Ah! quelle funeste nouvelle j'apprends! 7
The enemies Turgot made in Limoges were concentrated
principally among the lesser nobility, that petite noblesse of whom
Abbe Baudeau 8 once said, "They had grown inured to the worst
injustices; the intendant acted only for their benefit, and the in
tendancy was looked upon as a comfortable inn, where Gentlemen
went to dine and gamble." 9 The trouble was, as Gustave Schelle
stated it, "Turgot was not their man: he did not gamble, he dined
alone, and with polite firmness crushed the abuses of these country
squires." 1 0
Not Turgot, not anyone, could have foreseen that while he was
Intendant of Limoges he would write a little morceau sur les richesses,
nor that the "little piece on wealth" that he would write would
become an international classic.
2
Introduction
Neither Turgot nor anyone could have foreseen, either, that
from his disadvantaged post in the most miserably poor and
famine-scarred province, he would see as few before him had, all
the evils which needed eradication before France could close her
feudal era. Watching him move about the countryside, checking
this, correcting that, recruiting as his county agents the parish
cures (who alone could write); setting up courses in midwifery and
medical clinics; prescribing for epidemics, animal and human;
endeavouring to inculcate new habits in the local paysans so that
when buckwheat and chestnut crops failed they would not starve,
we see him also inspecting other provinces as once he had with
Vincent de Gournay, the intendant of manufactures, and through
out his intendancy writing tirelessly every year to Versailles to
demand redress for an overtaxed population. As Adam Smith
dutifully informed the world of just these heavy duties,
The more severe government of France assesses upon each generality a certain
sum, which the intendant must find as he can. If any province complains of
being assessed too high, it may, in the assessment of the next year, obtain an
abatement. .. But it must pay in the meantime ... 11
The modern solutions Turgot imposed upon long-standing
feudal problems bore the seeds of the whirlwind which was to
engulf him when, as Louis XVI's Minister of Finance, he meticu
lously outlined the enormous antiquity of half a dozen situations
from former times suspended over France like Damascan swords,
and composed more eloquent prose in defence of their abolition
than France would ever again be likely to hear enunciated by
a head of state, in "the famous edicts of Mr. Turgot."
Every year sees the literary accretion mount around the name
ofTurgot, as his countrymen in particular have assayed his worth,
though none since has been able to speak of him as did the Marquis
de Condorcet once, or Pierre-Samuel DuPont, shortly after his
death. As one of his closest disciples, Condorcet wrote,
If the honor of having been his friend is the sole title to public esteem on which
I pride myself. .. 12
and DuPont de Nemours asserted,
There is nothing he ever said to me that I have forgotten ... 13
New translations of Rijlexions begin also to appear; but it IS
3