Samuel-Jacques Bernard (19 May 1686 — 22 November 1753), comte de Coubert after the death of his father in 1739, was the son of the financier Samuel Bernard, a rich noble in France and his first wife, née (Anne)-Magdeleine Clergeau; he was superintendent of finance for Queen Maria Leszczyńska from 1725, a maître des requêtes, conseiller du roi and Grand Croix and Master of Ceremonies of the Order of Saint-Louis.[1] In 1715[2] Bernard married Elisabeth-Olive-Louise Frot[t]ier, daughter of the marquis de La Coste-Messelière.
At his father's death he inherited a fortune estimated at 33,000,000 livres.[3] His sensational bankruptcy in 1751, which involved Voltaire in a loss of 80,000 livres representing 8,000 livres of income,[4] did not interrupt his career as a grand seigneur,[5] though the estate at his death remained deeply in debt. His richly furnished hôtel particulier was designed by Germain Boffrand and built in 1741-45 at 46, rue du Bac, backing onto the Paris.[6] He filled it with works of art. For the dining-room, panelled in oak left its natural color (à la capucine), Jean-Baptiste Oudry painted in 1742 two large canvases with hunting dogs, which rank among Oudry's most splendid decorations.[7] They now hang in the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg. The white-and-gold boiseries of the grand salon, with their overdoors of the Four Continents painted by four painters who were providing tapestry cartoons for the looms at Aubusson: Jacques Dumont le Romain, Charles-Joseph Natoire, Charles Restout and Carle Van Loo,[8] are now installed in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.[9] Books and manuscripts from his extensive library, dispersed at auction in 1754 and 1756,[10] are recognizable from the arms surrounded by the collar of the Order of Saint-Louis and the motto Bellicae vitutis praemium stamped on their rich bindings.[11]