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Martin Michel Charles Gaudin is certainly not the most famous of Napoleon’s ministers. The historiography’s discrediting of him is almost a tribute to the proverbial modesty of his few biographers. Yet his task was not the least of those facing the consular government in the aftermath of 18 Brumaire: to reconstitute the revenue networks, to unblock the tax bureaucracy, to find a remedy for the chronic debt that was sinking the Treasury, and above all to restore the confidence without which no economic recovery was conceivable—just two years after the bankruptcy of the Two-Thirds. In these circumstances, the choice of this “somewhat colourless man” (J. Tulard) to assist Bonaparte in the decisive battle of finances may at first sight seem surprising. However, this appointment expresses the spirit that would henceforth drive the management of public funds, in a perfect counterbalance to the excesses of the Revolution: between pragmatism, empiricism and restraint.