NECKER, Compte rendu au Roi, 1781

First edition.
This first edition was not put on the market but distributed to a privileged few before the publication of the work by the Imprimerie royale. It contains two watercolor folding maps showing the divisions of tax and drafts on French territory and a folded table of Income and expenses carried to the Royal Treasury. The “Report to the King” is one of the “economic bestsellers” of the Ancien Régime. (The printings of the Imprimerie royale were distributed to the public in some forty thousand copies). It remains a source of primary importance for the financial and fiscal history of France. In this famous plea for transparency in public finances, Jacques Necker (1734-1802), Minister of Finance to Louis XVI from 1776 to 1781, details the functioning of royal finances, the principles of its administration and the financial situation of the country. But the author also reveals the lists of pensions paid by the State to certain members of the nobility, with the names of their beneficiaries and their amounts. The scandal that followed the publication of the work led the minister to resign on May 19, 1781.


Bound with the followin pieces :
- Les Comment, ou Abrégé des objections faites contre le compte rendu par M. Necker en forme de questions, En France, 1781
ii-16 pages.
- Mémoire donné au roi par Monsieur Necker en 1778, En France, 1781
32 pages.