Joseph Marie Terray

Joseph Marie Terray. Portrait by Alexander Roslin.

Joseph Marie Terray (December 1715, Boën — February 18, 1778) was a Controller-General of Finances during the reign of Louis XV of France.

Terray, a priest, was appointed an ecclesiastical counsellor in the Parlement of Paris in 1736. where he specialized in financial matters. He attracted the attention of Louis XV's chancellor, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, who made him controller general in December 1769. His first big venture was helping to bring down the minister of foreign affairs, Étienne François, duc de Choiseul the very next year by demonstrating that the government could not afford to go to war with Great Britain. Terray spent the next few years stabilizing the finances of the country by repudiating part of the national debt, suspending payments on the interest on government bonds, and levying forced loans. These reforms aroused mass protest among nobles and commoners alike, which forced Maupeou to strip the Parlements of their political power in 1771 so that further reforms could be enacted.

Terray continued his overhaul of the financial system by reforming the collection of both the vingtième (a five percent tax on income) and the capitation (head tax) of Paris and renegotiating more advantageous agreements with the farmers general, the financiers who held the right to collect indirect taxes. These measures were responsible for a large increase in government revenue. However, he continued to face opposition, particularly over his restriction of free trade of grain, which opponents charged was part of a "Pact of Famine" with Louis XV designed to allow the king to profit from artificially high grain prices. When Louis XV died in May 1774, his successor Louis XVI bowed to pressure and dismissed both Terray and Maupeou.