TURGOT, ANNE-ROBERT-JACQUES

(b. Paris, France, 10 May 1727; d Paris, 18 March 1781)

economics, Philosophy.

The most famous member of a distinguished family, Turgot was the third son of Michel-étienne Turgot, prévót des marchands de Paris, city Planner, and sponsor of the survey map of Paris known as the Turgot map. An older brother, Étienne-Fran¸ois, served briefly as governor of French Guiana and was a competent botanist and agronomist.

Turgot was originally intended for the priesthood and studied at the Séminaire St.-Sulpice and the Sorbonne. In 1751, recognizing that he had no religious vocation, he decided to follow the family tradition of public service. He was appointed intendant of Limoges in 1761, and his reforms there, over a period of thirteen years, made him a figure of national prominence. Perhaps best known was his abolition of the corvée (forced labor on the roads); by using professional rather than peasant labor, he achieved results of such quality that in 1787 the roads of Limousin were still being described as the best in France.¹ Offered transfers to more prosperous regions, Turgot preferred to remain in Limnousin; he left the area only in 1774, when he was appointed minister of the navy in the first government formed by Louis XVI. One month later he was to hold for less than two years (August 1774-May 1776). In that capacity he attempted bold reforms on a national scale, thus antagonizing many special interest groups and earning an enduring reputation as the most courageous and enlightened official of the old regime.

Turgot’s interests and talents were encyclopedic, extending far beyond his modern image as an economist. He knew five foreign languages well, studied two more, and published poetry and prose translations from English, German, and Latin. He displayer similar versatility in the sciences; his writings dealt with aspects of physics, chemistry, and geology. In addition, he reportedly knew enough astronomy, geography, and navigational theory and practice to be an unusually well-qualified minister of the navy.

Turgot’s formal education in the sciences included the study of Newtonian physics with the Abbé Sigorgne and chemistry with Guillaume-Francois Rouelle. In 1748, while still a student, Turgot drafted an essay on “the causes of progress and decline in the arts and sciences,” which he intended to submit for a prize then being offered by the Academy of Soissons. That year he also composed a brief and interesting critique of Buffon’s cosmology and geology, the principles of which had just been published in a prospectus for Buffon’s Histoire naturelle. Turgot’s only other foray into geology was a series of field notes based on travels during the year 1760.

The one scientific work by Turgot published during his lifetime was the article “Expansibilité,” in the Diderot Encyclopédie.² Here he was concenrd with distinguishing between vaporization and evaporation, the latter defined as a loss of volume from the surface of liquid or solid exposed to the atmosphere; he defined vaporization as the result of forces of repulsin–he elaborated at length upon this Newtonian theme–which act at the particulate level and produce a change okf state. His article apparently had some influence on Lavoisier during the 1960’s and Condorcet later declared that Turgot had “opened new views in natural philosophy.”³ During the last years of his life Turgot was able to return to some of the topics raised in his article, and especially to the study of distillations in vacuo and under changing temperature conditions.

Turgot’s talents as a chemist are revealed in the letters he exchanged with Condorcet in 1771–1772. Anticipating some of the ideas of Lavoisier, he argued persuasively that the gain in weight of a metallic calx (oxide) should be explained as a combination of the metal with “air.” As he admitted, he had not tested his conclusions in the laboratory, and his argument was a logical, inductive one.

More significant than Turgot’s own scientific activities was his role as a patron and a public official who regularly sought the advice of scientific experts. His recourse to scientisting not a series of ad hoc decisions but rather a general philosophy put into practice. Influenced by both Vincent de Gournay and the physiocrats, Turgot believed it desirable to free agriculture, industry, and commerce from excessive governmental regulation; the inescapable corollary to this doctrine was that laissez-faire would ensure progress and prosperity. But to this idea he added a conviction that was to him of equal weight: the results of scientific research, applied to technology and taught to peasants, craftsmen, manufacturers, and others, could provide a firm foundation for progress. These beliefs are apparent in many of his actions, such as his appointment of geologist Nicolas Desmarest as inspector of manufactures in Limousin⁴ and his pioneering efforts to gather accurate statistical data about Limousin and, eventually, all of France.

Turgot’s views were not new and, in fact, were shared by contemporaries ranging from the Trudaines to the encyclopedists. If the differences between Turgot and others are matters of degree rather than of kind, the consistency of his policies elevates him to a position of distinction among royal ministers, while his political power separates him from other philosophers. Furthermore, Turgot’s own knowledge and ability in the sciences made him an intelligent judge of the ability of others, and he purposely increased his acquaintance with such subjects as agronomy in order to understand more fully the advice given him by the scientists he consulted. His attitude in this respect was succinctly summarized by Condorcet:

He was not afraid to consult men of science, because he was not afraid of truth. . . . But he knew at the same time that the learned, accustomed to system and demonstration, carried sometimes to excess the spirit of scepticism and uncertainty; and that in consulting them, it is necessary both to seek to understand, and to be capable of understanding them. . . . [He] regarded the encouragement of the arts and sciences as an indispensable duty of his office.⁵

Translated into policy, his attitude led Turgot to devise some projects of his own, solicit suggestions from scientists, sponsor translations of scientific treatises, and encourage the work of inventors.

While an intendant, Turgot’s major concern was the improvement of agriculture in a region as poor as Brittany and subject to endemic and epidemic famine. Aware of the studies of agronomists, he became convinced that potatoes were hardy enough to thrive where wheat could not, and that the potato was a food nourishing to both human beings and livestock. His efforts to persuade his peasants to make the experiment eventually met with some success, years before the potato became common in other French provinces. Turgot was also the patron of the Society of Agriculture of Limoges, founded by his predecessor, Pajot de macheval, in 1759. He doubted that experiments done in common could be done properly, but he attended some meetings, donated equipment, and used his own funds to establish prizes for essays on agricultural subjects. In 1766 he founded a short-lived school of veterinary medicine in Limoges, patterned upon the school in Lyons to which Turgot had sent students since its opening in 1762. When the Collè ge de Limoges was undergoing reform after 1762, Turgot used his influence to see that the sciences were given some prominence in the new curriculum.

As controller general, Turgot’s concern with agriculture was expressed in two especially significant ways. A serious outbreak of murrain in 1774 led him to send Félix Vicq d’Azyr to the afflicted southwestern provinces to study the disease and to recommend remedies. The problems of diagnosis and control suggested to Turgot that the study of epidemics be undertaken systematically, and he and Vicq became founders of a society formed for that purpose and for the improvement of medical education and research. The society, which first met in 1776, later became the Société Royale de Médecine with Vicq d’Azyr its first secretary. At the same time, Turgot continued his efforts to introduce new crops. As an intendant, he had brought to Limousin crops already being raised elsewhere in France, but as controller general he extended his interests to the genuinely exotic. In 1775 he arranged the mission of naturalist Joseph Dombey to South America, instructing Dombey to bring back to France plants of botanical interest and of potential agricultural value. Turgot was intimately involved in planning this voyage, for which he sought the advice of Condorcet and the botanists Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu and Anrdé Thouin.

The voyages of Dombey and others were not wholly agricultural in purpose. One of Turgot’s broader aims, which he shared with the physiocrats, was to bring about a more rationally organized world trade, with each country growing and producing those goods for which its soil, climate, and technological skills were best suited. but in addtion Turgot dreamed of being able to send scientists all over the world as a kind of “traveling academy” for the collection of scientific information.⁶ His view, not uncommon at the time, that science belonged to all humanity rather than to particular nations was made explicit in a memorandum written after 1776 and addressed to Louis XVI; Turgot urged the king (who accepted his advice) that, with France on the verge of war with England and with Captain Cook engaged in the third of his voyages, all French ships should be ordered not to molest Cook in any way.

The scientist consulted most regularly by Turgot was Condorcet, who was a personal friend and seems to have served informally as Turgot’s liaison with the Académie Royale des Sciences. Among the many projects in which Condorcet played a part was Turgot’s plan to introduce a uniform system of weights and measures a reform long considered desirable. Like the later designers of the metric system, Turgot thought it best to select a natural constant–the length of a seconds pendulum at a given latitude–for the unit of length; a standard of weight should be determined in some comparable way, and the coinage should then be issued in units corresponding to divisions of weight. It was on Condorcet’s advice that Turgot asked the astronomer Charles Messier to carry out the preliminary measurement, and in 1775 Turgot and Condorcet drew up instructions for Messier. Although the work was began, it was discontinued when Turgot fell from power.

Turgot’s interest in the system of canals and natural waterways of France originated from his desire to improve internal commerce. In 1775, on the advice of Condorcet, he created a committee of three eminent scientists–Condorcet, Bossut, and d’Alembert–to examine proposals for new canals and to inspect those already under construction. The scientists proposed that they work without salary, but Condorcet was rewarded with an appointment as director of the mint, while Bossut was named to a newly created post of professor of hydrodynamics. The committee was abolished upon Turgot’s dismissal from office.

To reform the manufacture of gunpowder, Turgot created the Régie des Poudres in 1775, appointing Lavoisier one of the régisseurs. This government agency not only administered nationally the manufacture of saltpeter, but it also encouraged research to improve the quality and increase the quantity of saltpeter used for gunpowder. Research continued–much of it by Lavoisier–long after Turgot’s dismissal, with results soon visible during the American Revolution and later during the French Revolution.

Turgot’s activities during his twenty months as controller general–and for eight of the twenty months he was confined to bed with severe attacks of gout–were remarkable for their number, variety, and intelligence. His efforts can be considered the logical culmination of his earliest ideas and of his work as an intendant, and they bear witness to the consistency with which he tried to put into practice his ideals as an enlightened reformer. Although few of his reforms outlasted his term in office–several were reintroduced in later decades–his philosophy was to leave its mark upon subsequent generations.

NOTES

1. Arthur Young, Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788, 1789 (many editions), entry dated 6 June 1787.

2. Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, VI (1756), 274-285, and the important errata, VII (1757), 1028-1029. Reprinted in Schelle, Oeuvres, I, 538-576.

3. Condorcet, Life, 30–31.

4. Letter from Turgot to Daniel Trudaine, 10 September 1762, in Pierre Bonnassieux and Eugène Lelong,Conseil de commerce et Bureau du commerce 1700-1791. Inventaire analytique des Procès-Verbaux (Paris, 1900), xlv, col, 2. n. 2.

5. Condorcet, op. cit., 136–137, 144.

6. Dupond de Nemours, Mémoires, I, 122. Cf. Schelle, Oeuvers, II, 523–533.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. 1. Publications: The best of several editions of Turgot’s works is Oeuvres de Turgot et documents le concernant. Gustave Schelle, ed., 5 vols. (Paris, 1913–1923), although the editor’s transcriptions are sometimes faulty, and he omitted much of value, including letters addressed to Turgot. Still indispensable, therefore, is the Correspondance inédite de Condorcet et de Turgot, 1770–1779, Charles Henry, ed. (Paris 1883).

The authorship of published geological notes, attributed to Turgot, remains in some doubt, although it is certain that Turgot did make geological observations during his travels. Relevant texts and discussion are in Oeuveres, II, 604, and in Oeuvres de M. Turgot, ministre d’état, P.S. Dupont de Nemours, ed., 9 vols. (Paris, 1808–1811), I, 52–53; III, 376–447.

2. Manuscripts: There are three major repositories, one of them private; the others are the Archives Nationales, Paris, and the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Wilmington, Delaware. Cf. John B. Riggs, A Guide to the Manuscripts in the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library: Accessions Through the Year 1865 (Greenville, Del., 1970). Most documents were published by Schelle, but the footnotes in his edition provide a guide to some of the manuscripts he decided to omit.

II. Secondary Literature. P. F. C. Foncin, Essai sur le ministère de Turgot (Paris, 1877); Douglas Dakin, Turgot and the Ancien Régime in France (London, [1939]), with valuable bibliography and notes; Henry Guerlac, Lavoisier–The Crucial Year: The Background and Origin of His First Experiments on Combution in 1772 (Ithaca, New York, [1961]), ch, 5; Roger Hahn, “The Chair of Hydrodynamics in Paris, 1775–1791: A Creation of Turgot,” in Acts du X^e congrès international d’histories des sciences II (Paris, 1964), 751–754; Rhoda Rappaport, “Government Patronage of Science in Eighteenth Centuary France,“in History of Science VIII [publ. 1970]), 119–136; Jerry Gough, “Nouvelle contribution à l’étude de l’évolution des idées de Lavoisier sur la nature de l’air et sur la calcination des métaux,“in Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 22 (1969), 267–275.

See also Denis I. Duveen and Herbert S. Klickstein, A Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier 1743–1794 (London, 1954), esp. 219-222; a subject index to this volume is in Duveen, Supplement to a Bibliography of the Works of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier 1743-1794 (London, 1965).

The many general studies of Turgot tend to minimize or ignore scientific questions, but still valuable are the earlies’ biographies: P. -S. Dupont de Nemours, Mémoires sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Turgot, ministre d’ Etat, 2 vols. -in-1 (Philadelphia, 1782); and Marquis de Condorcet, Vie de Monsieur Turgot (London, 1786), translated anonymously as The Life of M. Turgot (London, 1787); also published in Oeuvres de Condorcet, A. C. O’Connor and F. Arago, eds., 12 vols. (Paris, 1847-1849), V, 1-233.

For discussions of Turgot’s relations with the scientific community, see Keith M. Baker, Condorcet, From Natural Philosophy to Social Mathematics (Chicago, 1975); and C. C. Gillispie, “Probability and Politics: Laplace, Condorcet, and Turgot,“in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 116 (1972), 1–20.

Rhoda Rappaport