Joseph Foullon de Doué

__NOTOC__Joseph-François Foullon de Doué or "Foulon de Doué" (June 25 1715–July 22 1789, Paris) was a French politician and a Controller-General of Finances under Louis XVI.

Biography

Offices

Born in Saumur, he was Intendant-General of the armies during the Seven Years' War, and Intendant of the Army and Navy under Marshal de Belle-Isle. In 1771 he was appointed Intendant of Finances. In 1789, when Jacques Necker was dismissed, Foullon was appointed Controller-General of Finances and minister of the king's household, having been the choice of the reactionary party as a substitute.

He became unpopular on all sides. The farmers-general resented his severity, and the Parisians his wealth (viewed as resulting from exploitation of the poor) - he was reported, probably quite without foundation, to have said of an earlier famine: "If [the people] are hungry, let them browse hay. Wait till I am minister, I will make them eat hay: my horses eat it". Utterly conservative, he also had a conflict with the supporters of Louis Philippe d'Orléans.

Foullon was member of the "parlement" of Paris prior to the French Revolution, nicknamed "Ame damnée" (familiar demon).

Refuge and murder

After the storming of the Bastille on July 14, aware of the people's hatred, Foullon left Paris for his friend Antoine de Sartine's house at Viry-Châtillon, a few miles to the south of the city, and attempted to spread the news of his death.

He was, however, soon captured by the peasants on Sartine's estate, and taken to the Hôtel de Ville (made to walk barefooted, he had a bundle of hay tied to his back, was given to drink only vinegar, and had his sweat wiped off with nettles).

In spite of the interventions of Jean Sylvain Bailly and the Marquis de La Fayette, Foullon de Doué together with his son-in-law Berthier de Sauvigny was dragged out by the populace to the Place de Grève. He was hanged to a lamp-post, but the string broke three times in a row, and members of the crowd decided to behead him instead, and then paraded the head on a pike with the mouth stuffed with hay (Berthier de Sauvigny was killed at roughly the same time). The episode is mentioned in Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities".

References

*1911 "In turn, it cites as references:"
**Eugène Bonnemère, "Histoire des paysans" (4th ed., 1887), tome iii
**Charles Louis Chassin, "Les Elections et les cahiers de Paris en 1789" (Paris, 1889), tomes iii. and iv.
*Nuttall