Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739-1817), French economist, born in Paris. His name was originally Dupont; he changed the form and later added de Nemours to avoid confusion with innumerable other Duponts in France. Only he and his sons used the full name. Du Pont was educated by his mother, and in his early 20s he became a friend and disciple of the French economist François Quesnay, leader of a group of economic theorists. The supporters of Quesnay's theories took the name physiocrats from the book explaining Quesnay's doctrines, Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux du genre humain (Physiocraticism, or the Natural Constitution of Government Most Advantageous to Man, 1768) written by du Pont. From 1768 to 1772 he was editor of the journal of the physiocrats, Ephémérides du citoyen (The Citizen's Historical Calendar). His articles favoring reforms, such as the abolition of slavery and of governmental restrictions on the economic life of the nation, aroused the anger of the government, however, and he was forced to leave France. After traveling in Germany, Sweden, and Poland, he was recalled to France in 1774 by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, who in that year became comptroller general of Louis XVI, king of France. Two years later, Turgot was forced to resign, and du Pont left the government service. He returned at the request of Jacques Necker, who became finance minister in 1776. In 1782 du Pont was entrusted by Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, then foreign minister, with the negotiations with Britain that led to the British recognition of American independence in the following year. He also negotiated a commercial treaty between France and England in 1786. The district of Nemours elected him to the Estates-General in 1789 and later to the Constituent Assembly, of which he was twice president. After the assembly was dissolved, he opened a printing and publishing business in Paris. His reactionary and Royalist views, particularly his defense of Louis XVI, led to his imprisonment, and he narrowly escaped being guillotined. In 1799 he and his sons immigrated to the United States, where he hoped to establish a colony in Virginia. The colony never materialized, but du Pont was well received in the U.S. Thomas Jefferson asked him to prepare a plan for national education; the plan was not adopted in the U.S., but parts of it were later incorporated into the French education code. When Napoleon Bonaparte began to welcome the return of the refugees from the French Revolution, du Pont returned to France in 1802. He played an important role in the negotiations for the Louisiana Purchase and later was appointed president of the Paris Chamber of Commerce. After the defeat of Napoleon, du Pont became secretary of the provisional government preparing for the return of Louis XVIII to the French throne, but Napoleon's escape from Elba in 1815 forced du Pont to take refuge with his son in the U.S., where he remained. Among his works were Mémoires sur la vie et les ouvrages de Turgot (Recollections of the Life and Works of Turgot, 1782) and Philosophie de l'univers (Philosophy of the Universe, 1796).