The French financier and statesman Jacques Necker (1732-1804) served King Louis XVI as director general of finances. His efforts to reform French institutions prior to 1789 and to compromise with the Estates General after the start of the Revolution failed.

Jacques Necker was born in Geneva, Switzerland, where his father, of Prussian origin, taught at the university. At the age of 18 Necker moved to Paris to work in a bank. He rose rapidly in the world of finance and accumulated a considerable fortune, partly as the result of speculation in the French East India Company, of which he became a director, and in the grain trade.

In 1765 Necker founded his own bank. A year earlier he had married Suzanne Curchod, the gifted daughter of a Swiss pastor, whose salon was soon frequented by leading literary and diplomatic figures. As a result of his wife's influence, Necker abandoned his bank...