Rewriting the Lives of Eighteenth-Century Economists.

MIRABEAU, Victor de Riquetti, marquis de, 1715-1789; TURGOT, Anne-Robert-Jacques, baron de l'Aulne, 1727-1781; HISTORY of economics; BIOGRAPHIES; PHYSIOCRATS; FRENCH economic policy; REIGN of Louis XVI, France, 1774-1793

The article discusses historiography and the methodology of biographical scholarship in economic history. The author reflects on the biographies of noblemen the Marquis de Mirabeau (Victor Riquetti) and Jacques Turgot in order to explore economic doctrines such as physiocracy and mathematical models of economics. The article also explores Mirabeau's individual interest in the moral dimensions of physiocracy and tax reform. Turgot's literary activities, linguistic research, translation work, and economic reforms in France during the reign of king Louis XVI are discussed.