Francois Quesnay, 1694-1774. The humbly-born Francois Quesnay trained himself in medicine, rising to become a physician in Louis XV's court and the leader of a sect of Enlightenment thinkers known as the Physiocrats or the economistes. The working-class boy who could not read until he was 11 was eventually elected to the Academy of Sciences and hailed as the Confucius of Europe , the modern ...

Francois Quesnay June 4, 1694-December 16, 1774 Le Droit Naturel Text provided by Paulette Taieb, Universite Paris I. Tableau Economique Text provided by Paulette Taieb. L'Essai physique sur l'oeconomie animale (1747) Bibliography ...

Encyclopedia physiocrats Pronunciation Key physiocrats , school of French thinkers in the 18th cent. who evolved the first complete system of economics. They were also referred to simply as the economists or the sect. The founder and leader of physiocracy was Franois Quesnay. His most ardent disciple, Victor de Mirabeau, was the author of the physiocratic tax doctrine; Pierre Samuel Du Pont de ...