The System's Perfect Victim - Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books
System's Perfect Victim 1 Part 1: The By-the-Book Admiral 2 Part 2: The Railroad Manager Who Followed Policy 3 Part 3: The Architect Who Obeyed the Emperor 4 Part 4: The Minister Who Balanced the Books ← Series Home The Ledger That Lit the Revolution In February 1781, French Finance Minister Jacques Necker published the Compte rendu au roi (Account to the King), a unprecedented document: the royal treasury’s accounts, available for public purchase. Necker, a Swiss Protestant banker, had been brought in to rescue France from bankruptcy. His report was a masterpiece of political theater. It showed a modest surplus of 10 million livres. The public was dazzled by this transparency. The book sold over 100,000 copies. There was only one problem: the accounts were fiction. Necker had omitted the colossal costs of supporting the American Revolution and hid debt through creative accounting. He hadn’t solved the crisis; he had repackaged it as a success. When he was forced to resign in 1783, the façade cracked. His successors revealed the truth: a deficit of 112 million livres. The public felt betrayed. The trust Necker had built through transparency evaporated, replaced by cynicism. When he was recalled in 1788, it was too late. The Estates-General was convened, the Bastille fell, and the monarchy Necker had tried to save with bookkeeping was destroyed by the very expectations his books had raised. ...