Mirabeau, Victor de Riquetti, marquis de (1715-1789)

French author and physiocrat.

Served in the French army. Published Mémoire concernant l’utilité des états provinciaux … (1750), which criticized the centralization of French government, and L’Ami des hommes, ou Traité de la population … (Avignon, 1756), in which he championed agriculture as the source of national wealth. Associated himself with the physiocratic school of Quesnay. His sharp criticism of tax farming in Théorie de l’impôt (1760) led the government to exile him to his estates in Bignon.

Married Marie-Genevieve Vassan. Father of the famous writer and orator Gabriel-Honoré Riquetti, comte de Mirabeau.