Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron d'Aulne, was born in Paris on May 10, 1727. He came of a branch of an old noble family of Normandy, which had for two or three generations furnished the state with able administrative officials: his grandfather had served as an Intendant; his father had occupied high judicial positions, and presided for a time over the municipal government of Paris as Prévôt des Marchands. He received his early education at the Collège Louis-le-Grand and the Collège du Plessis; and then, being destined as a younger son for the ecclesiastical profession, he entered upon his theological studies at the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice, and received the degree of bachelor of theology in 1747. In 1748 he was admitted to residence in the Maison de Sorbonne; and, in December 1749, he was elected to the honorary office of Prieur for the ensuing year. Early in 1751 he changed his plans, and determined to enter the judicial and administrative service. In January 1752 he was appointed Substitut du Procureur Général; in December, Conseiller au Parlement de Paris; in March 1753, Maître des Requêtes. His duties for the next eight years were chiefly judicial; but in 1755 and 1756 he accompanied Gournay, the Intendant du Commerce, in his official tours of inspection through the south and west of the kingdom.
In August 1761 he was appointed Intendant of the Généralité of Limoges, and held that office till the middle of 1774. During his administration he reformed the method
