Nicolas Beaujon

Nicolas Beaujon (1718–1786) was a wealthy French banker at the Court of King Louis XV. The portrait of Nicolas Beaujon seen here was painted by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun in 1784.

Born in Bordeaux, the scion of two very wealthy local commercial families, the Beaujons and the Delmestres, Nicolas's father, Jean, had greatly increased his families' fortunes in the course of saving Bordeaux from disaster twice by timely acquisitions and importations of grain during catastrophic famines early in the eighteenth century. Nicolas Beaujon, the eldest son, followed in the family footsteps and early made a fortune in commodities, mostly grain, and most notably during yet another famine. These were uncommonly frequent in France during this period due to a combination of outdated administrative practices making it cumbersome for the government to bring stocks of grain to where they were needed quickly enough to make a difference. Private entrepreneurs often stepped in at this sort of juncture, alleviating the misery whilst lining their own pockets.

As was sometimes the case when private individuals undertook large relief operations for a profit, charges of profiteering arose from some critical locals. Beaujon was proved innocent of any wrongdoing in a court of law (though to be fair he had made a tidy sum saving his city) but finding the scope of the provinces too restrictive for someone of his talents and ambitions anyway, he removed to Paris where he was to remain until the end of his days. (Some later writers would assert that he fled Bordeaux due to unpopularity following his "profiteering" in connection with the famine, but Masson shows that this was clearly not true, being more probably a case of the sort of calumny the extremely rich always seem to attract.) The vast Beaujon townhouse in Bordeaux still exists, though Nicolas sold it off at the time of his marriage, in 1753, to Louise Elisabeth Bontemps, herself a granddaughter of Alexandre Bontemps, Louis XIV's First Valet and Intendant of Versailles (and one of the only eyewitnesses to the King's secret marriage to Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon).

Once established in the capital, Beaujon rapidly emerged as one of the richest men in France, playing a crucial rôle in the financing of the government of Louis XV, in particular by lending enormous sums (in the millions, year after year) during the Seven Years' War, which enabled the French Navy, bankrupt as was the rest of the government, to continue to function. During this period he became a Farmer General. (Under the royal French fiscal system, the responsibility for tax collection was "farmed out" for a fee to private individuals who were responsible for meeting a set quota for the year; anything else they collected reverted to themselves; considerable fortunes were made entirely legally in this way.) Around this time he also gained entry into the Conseil d'Etat or Council of State under Louis XV. Perhaps the richest private individual in France in his day, and certainly the best connected financially, Beaujon also served as the private banker to many persons of rank or position, most notably to Madame du Barry, the last official mistress of Louis XV.

...
Wikipedia