A magistrate from Douai who served as intendant at Metz and then at Lille, Calonne was appointed controller-general of finances in November 1783. He proposed to meet a growing deficit with a permanent land tax payable by all proprietors without exemption, assessed through elected provincial assemblies, and put the plan to an Assembly of Notables convened at Versailles in February 1787. The Notables declined to approve it and he was dismissed in April. He emigrated to England, where he published against Necker, and afterwards attached himself to the émigré councils at Koblenz, spending most of his wife’s fortune in their support. Allowed to return under the Consulate, he died in Paris in 1802.