René Louis de Voyer de Paulmy, Marquis d’Argenson (1694–1757), was a minister in France; in a letter, Voltaire wrote that he was “the best citizen that had ever tasted the ministry.” He was, along with Boisguilbert and Vincent de Gournay, one of the main promoters of the laissez-faire stance in French economics leading up to the Physiocrats. He wrote numerous essays and kept a journal, in which he discussed how the social and economic conditions of France could be revived through a policy of non-intervention. His views influenced numerous economists, including the Physiocrats.