1734–1802 · French statesman & Controller-General of Finances
Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed Controller-General of Finances by Louis XVI in 1783 and dismissed in 1787. He tried to meet a desperate fiscal crisis by borrowing and spending freely while proposing to tax privileged landholders — a programme the Assembly of Notables rejected, helping set the French Revolution in motion. He spent his later years in exile, mostly in England, and died in Paris in 1802.