Chamillart, Michel

Chamillart or Chamillard, Michel (both: mēshĕl` shämēyär`), 1652–1721, French statesman. He was named controller general of finances (1699), minister of state (1700), and minister of war (1701). To raise funds Chamillart resorted to the sale of offices and titles, loans, lotteries, manipulation of the currency, and anticipation of revenues. To these means he added a wartime capitation tax, imposed from 1695 to 1698 and again after 1701, but he could not meet the mounting expenses of the government, especially after the outbreak (1701) of the War of the Spanish Succession. The deficit and the national debt grew huge, and the marquis de Vauban censured the disorder of the tax system. Chamillart resigned the finances to Nicolas Desmarets in 1708 and gave up his other offices in 1709.