Footprints of Famous Men: Designed as Incitements to Intellectual Industry

by John G. Edgar

The forefathers of this celebrated person whose name justly occupies so conspicuous a place in the political annals of continental Europe, are stated to have been Irish Protestants, at a time when there was particularly little personal safety to those holding the doctrines of the reformed faith. At a troublous period they fled from persecution, and sought refuge in Prussia, whence another generation found their way into Switzerland. Thus it happened that Necker was born in Geneva, on the 3d of September, 1732, where his parents were in respectable circumstances, and where his father held the Professorship of Public Law. The boy was doubtless educated with care in his native city, whose beautiful situation on the Rhône and at the end of Lake Leman, with its fine walks and pleasant prospects, furnished a fitting scene wherein to indulge his youthful and ambitious aspirations after fame and fortune. But at the same time the manners and customs of the place conveyed to him impressions still more salutary, and predisposed him in favor of those habits of rigid virtue on which he subsequently built his high power and enviable reputation, as also those sound religious principles which, in after life, distinguished him and his house from those among whom his lot was cast.

The opinion that the true genius is a mind of large general powers, determined by accident to some particular direction, is rather confirmed than otherwise by the instance of Necker. His natural bent was toward political and philosophical studies, and had they been encouraged and pursued, he might have become a fanciful and brilliant thinker; but his parents did not regard his prepossessions with satisfaction. On the contrary, they deemed it better that his time should be devoted to the lucrative labor which fortune supplies to a votary of activity, energy, and intellect. While commerce fills the purse it clogs the brain; and, though highly favored in his efforts, Necker was not luckier than others in this respect. In earlier years he is said to have written two comedies; but the extraordinary struggle which must have been required to metamorphose a friendless clerk into one of the richest men of his time would naturally tend to crush and destroy any of the more precious particles of talent and enthusiasm with which he had been endowed by nature. His uncompromising virtue, rare amiability, common sense, amazing industry, and well-proved philanthropy, are the claims which his name possesses to the respect and gratitude of posterity.

Regarding the wishes of his parents as law, Necker sacrificed his own inclinations, and was sent at the age of fifteen to acquire a knowledge of mercantile affairs in the establishment of Vernet, a banker in Paris. Notwithstanding his aspiring vein, it would, indeed, have been difficult at that critical period of his existence for any one to imagine the possibility of the young Genevan adventurer rising to be first minister of royal France—figuring as the centre of literary society in the most polished of European capitals, and exercising a mighty influence on the destinies of the world.

Nevertheless his ability and industry were soon proved, and brought him into notice; his employers duly considering, of course, that it was their interest to do so, afforded him such assistance as was likely to redound to their own profit and advantage. His perseverance was encouraged; he rapidly ascended to a place of trust and confidence in the banking-house, and thus laid the foundation of that character for care and aptitude in business which, as years passed on, made him Chairman of the French East India Company—the highest of his commercial distinctions.

The reputation, however, on which he rose to political eminence had to be created by unflinching assiduity, and the exhibition of intellect. Female inspiration was essential to its proper formation in the capital on the Seine; and presently an influence of no unworthy kind was present to nerve the hand, elevate the mind, and fire the soul of the young banker’s clerk, struggling, though unaided, to make a name and form a reputation.

As has been well observed, “Women are the priestesses of predestination. It is the spirit of man that says, I will be great; but it is the sympathy of women that usually makes him so.” That influence, in a very pure and elevating degree, it was ere long Necker’s good fortune to find. While in the employment of Thelusson, a rich banker, he was in the habit of visiting at the house of Madame de Vermenoux, who had just engaged a remarkably learned and accomplished Swiss governess, of captivating appearance, to teach Latin to her son. This foreign instructress, though young, had run no ordinary career. She had encountered and borne up against troubles and disappointments with heroic courage and dauntless energy. In the gay days of girlhood she had been wooed, won, and sighed for by no less eminent a person than the embryo historian of the Roman empire. In obedience to the mandate of his family, who relished not the idea of so strange a match, Gibbon philosophically abandoned, though he could not altogether forget, the learned and beautiful object of his attachment. The death of her father, the venerable pastor of a mountain village, left her quite unprovided for; but, far from sinking under the circumstances, she conveyed her surviving parent to Geneva, where the liberal education she had received enabled her to maintain both by teaching young females. On the death of her mother she had been induced to remove to Paris, and thus met the man whose aspirations she was to guide and whose ambition she was to direct. Necker was immediately impressed by the charms and accomplishments of the erudite damsel, and, on becoming better acquainted, her grave style of beauty and noble character of mind threw over him a potent spell, and produced upon his heart an effect of no ordinary kind. Then, however, he could offer nothing but a devoted heart, with such worldly prospects as the enthusiasm of youth, especially in such circumstances, can readily conjure up. Thus, in consequence of their mutual poverty, they were under the harsh necessity of submitting to the delay of years. Soon, however, did the hero of this somewhat romantic engagement emerge from that chill obscurity which aspiring spirits like his can ill brook. He became a partner of the flourishing banking-house in which he was employed, and hailed the sun of fortune’s better day all the more eagerly that it gave him the power of completing their union without any violation of prudential considerations. Madame Necker’s ardent desire for honorable fame speedily exercised an effect on her husband. It quickened his efforts after distinction, and prompted him to apply his intellect to huge adventures and important speculations. By his transactions in corn he realized an immense fortune, which was employed and increased by large financial operations with the Government.

Meantime he was steadily advancing in social favor, to which his amiability and uprightness highly recommended him, and he was chosen envoy for the republic of Geneva at the court of Versailles. When that State was, in some crisis, contemplating the appointment of an embassador to Paris, the Minister of the Crown assured Necker that such an envoy was altogether unnecessary. “I will have nothing to do with any one in this affair but yourself, Monsieur Necker,” he said. This office opened up a passage for him to aristocratic circles, where his known wealth and accurate information secured him a tolerable degree of respect. As he rose to affluence and social importance, his natural inclination began to assert its dormant claim; he withdrew from active business, and devoted much attention to the pursuits toward which his heart had originally been turned. He had studied finance with singular determination; and his extensive knowledge of that subject, as shown in several pamphlets written at this period, excited much interest, and won him considerable praise.

In 1773 he carried off the prize at the Academy, with his Eloge de Colbert; and soon after won even greater distinction by his able essay, entitled La Législation et le Commerce des Grains. His information was extensive, and his views of questions as intelligent and comprehensive as his training and education admitted of their being. His regular and precise habits were, doubtless, rare as the conjugal devotion which raised the wonder of sneering skeptics and gay courtiers. His conversation, though a little pedantic, was lively, refined, and instructive, and his manner characterized by the courage of honesty.

Indeed the time had now arrived when the upright character, financial skill, and approved ability of the Swiss adventurer, rendered him a personage whom the Government could not overlook. His disposition was so amiable that it inspired love and esteem in those who were best acquainted with him; while his generosity and munificence had fascinated the masses, and won him popular applause. Besides, his intellect had impressed itself on public feeling, and on the national mind. He enunciated the doctrine, not under all circumstances agreeable, that no new tax was lawful till all the resources of economy had been tried; and he held opinions in favor of retrenchment before the idea was in fashion with the multitude. Such a man was unquestionably of no small value in the administration of affairs. The finances were in all but hopeless disorder, and war was apparently approaching. Therefore, though he was, as a foreigner, distasteful to the nobles, and as a Protestant an object of aversion—not unmingled, perhaps, with dread—to the clergy, urgent necessity overbore considerations which might not have yielded to a less imperious monitor, and he was nominated Director-general of the Finances. To allay the foolish murmurs of the privileged classes, he was not admitted to a seat in the cabinet; and to the complaints of the clergy, who naturally remonstrated against a Protestant being intrusted with an office of such importance, the prime minister of the day used this very significant and conclusive argument: “I will give him up to you, if you will pay the debts of the State.”

Having thus placed his foot on the ladder of power, Necker speedily made his influence beneficially felt. Various reforms, great and small, in the administration of the national finances, testified that a strong hand and a clear head were enlisted in the service of a country that much required them. He commenced his official career by prudently declining to receive the emoluments pertaining to the post he occupied, and forthwith signalized his accession to office by suppressing some six hundred places about the Court and Treasury. His early education had strongly impressed him in favor of free institutions; and his system of government was essentially popular. His plan was, to render as public as possible the national accounts and expenditure, and to form provincial assemblies, in which local affairs and taxation might be discussed and debated. His schemes, however, were not in any respect agreeable to the courtiers, and he was assailed by a continuous shower of pamphlets from the members of the Parliament of Paris. Under these untoward circumstances he deemed a place in the Council requisite, that he might be in a proper position to defend his measures when they were under the deliberation of that body.