ETIENNE DE

See also:

• ETIENNE DE SILHOUETTE (1709-1767)

SILHOUETTE (1709-1767)  , controller-general of France, was born at Limoges on the 5th of July 1709 . He travelled extensively while still a young man and drew attention to himself by the publication of English translations, historical writings, and studies on the financial system of England . Successively councillor to the parlement of Metz, secretary to the duke of Orleans, member of the commission on delimitation of Franco-British interests in Acadia (1749), and royal commissioner in the Indies Company, he was named controller-general through the influence of the marquise de Pompadour on the 4th of March 1759 . The court at first reposed a blind confidence in him, but soon perceived not only that he was not a financier but also that he was bent on attacking privilege by levying a land-tax on the estates of the nobles and by reducing the pensions . A storm of opposition gathered and broke: a thousand cartoons and jokes were directed against the unfortunate minister who seemed to be resorting to one financial embarrassment in order to escape another; and in allusion to the sacrifices which he demanded of the nobles, even the conversion of their table plate into money, silhouette became the popular word for a figure reduced to simplest form . The word was eventually (1835) admitted to the dictionary by the French academy . Silhouette was forced out of the ministry on the 21st of November 1759 and withdrew to Brie-sur-Marne, where during the remainder of his life he sought refuge from scorn and sarcasm in religious devotion . He died on the loth of January 1767 . Silhouette left several translations from the English and the Spanish, accounts of travel, and dull historical and philosophical writings, a list of which is given in Querard, France litteraire, ix . 138 . A Testament politique, published under his name in 1772, is apochryphal . See J .

P .

Clement and A . Lemoine, M. de, Silhouette (Paris, 1872) .