Marc-Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy, comte d'Argenson

Marc-Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy, comte d'Argenson (1696–1764), was Louis XV's reforming war minister and a figure well regarded by the philosophes.

Made war minister in 1743 during the War of the Austrian Succession, he reorganized the army after consulting Marshal Saxe, revived local militias to aid recruitment, and founded the École royale du génie at Mézières for military engineers. After the war he standardized the artillery and founded an officer school.

He also laid out the Place de la Concorde. Dismissed after the 1757 Damiens plot against the king, he died in 1764, days after returning from exile.