Name Jean-Roland Malet | Died April 12, 1736 | |
Jean-Roland Malet or Mallet (c. 1675 – 12 April 1736, Paris) was a French economic historian, author of the Comptes rendus de l'administration des finances du royaume (Accounts of the financial administration of the kingdom), which constitute the most important source of economic and financial data for Ancien Regime France.
Biography
Son of a master carpenter, he was commissaire-general des vivres de la marine in the departement of Caen, puis secretaire de Louis XIV et tresorier general des pensions militaires en 1707. He was elected a member of the Academie francaise in 1714 for having written an Ode sur les glorieux succes des armes du Roy (Ode on the glorious successes of the King's armies), which won the poetry prize "in the judgement of the Messieurs of the Academie". At a certain point in his career, he became chief clerk to Nicolas Desmarets, Controller-General of Finances and nephew of Colbert, for whom he edited the Comptes rendus de l'administration des finances du royaume.
The full title of this work, completed around 1720 but only published in 1789 under the name Jean-Roland Mallet, was Comptes rendus de l'administration des finances du royaume de France pendant les onze dernieres annees du regne de Henri IV, le regne de Louis XIII et soixante cinq annees de celui de Louis XIV avec des recherches sur l'origine des impots sur les revenus et depenses de nos rois depuis Philippe le Bel jusqu'a Louis XIV et differents memoires sur le numeraire et sa valeur sous les trois regnes ci-dessus (Report on the administration of the finances of the kingdom of France during the last eleven years of the reign of Henri IV, the reign of Louis XIII and the sixty five years of the reign of Louis XIV with research on the origin of taxes in the revenues and dispensations of our kings from Philip IV to Louis XIV and different memoires on the currency and its value under the three reigns listed above).