Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron de l'Aulne, a French statesman, born in Paris, May 10, 1727, died there, March 20, 1781. He was educated for the church, and in 1749 became prior of the Sorbonne; but he abandoned the profession in 1752, studied law, and in 1753 became councillor in the parliament and master of requests. As early as 1745 he had published his Lettre sur le papier-monnaie, and he now applied himself to the study of natural philosophy, agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, publishing his views in papers in the Encyclopedic or in pamphlets.' The most remarkable of these are his Lettres sur la tolerance (1753). In 1761 he was appointed intendant of Limousin, and introduced many reforms in the administration of that province; free transport was allowed to corn and breadstuffs, taxes were lessened, roads and highways improved, and workhouses and charitable institutions established. In 1771 appeared his Reflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses, his chief work on political economy. He also published papers on loans and on mines, and Lettres sur la liberie du commerce des grains.

On the accession of Louis XVI. he was made comptroller general of finances, and undertook to improve the financial condition of the kingdom by freedom of labor at home and of trade abroad, and by substituting for taxes on a multitude of articles a single tax on land. These reforms were encouraged by the king, but were obnoxious to courtiers and many others. In 1775 he was charged with having caused scarcity by his regulations respecting the grain trade. In January, 1776, he caused an edict to be issued, abolishing compulsory labor for the state, internal duties on breadstuff's, the privileges of trading corporations, etc. But this only increased the number of his enemies; the privileged classes were so loud in their complaints that the king was afraid to support his minister, and Turgot was dismissed in May. His oeuxres completes, published by Dupont de Nemours (9 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1808-11), were reprinted under the supervision of Eugène Daire and Hippolyte Dusard (2 vols., 1843-'4). His biography was written by Condorcet (London, 1786).