Joseph Jean Baptiste Fleuriau d'Armenonville (22 January 1661 – 27 November 1728) was a French

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. Fleuriau d'Armenonville was born in Paris and obtained a place in government service in 1683 through his brother-in-law, Claude Le Peletier de Morfontaine, then

Controller-General of Finances The Controller-General or Comptroller-General of Finances (french: Contrôleur général des finances) was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1661 to 1791. It replaced the former position of Superintendent of Finances (''S ...

. He served in the financial administration until 1689 when he purchased a post as councillor serving with the

Parlement A ''parlement'' (), under the French Ancien Régime, was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 parlements, the oldest and most important of which was the Parlement of Paris. While both the modern Fre ...

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

. He returned to the finance in 1701 when he was named as director-general of finances, holding the

sinecure A sinecure ( or ; from the Latin , 'without', and , 'care') is an office, carrying a salary or otherwise generating income, that requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active service. The term originated in the medieval chu ...

s of "bailli and captain" of

Chartres Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...

. In 1705 he was appointed to the senior grade of Conseiller d'État. In 1716, he was appointed

Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

, a post which was then without any responsibilities as foreign affairs were in fact directed by the Cardinal Dubois. Fleuriau d'Armenonville arranged to have the post pass to his son,

Charles Jean Baptiste Fleuriau de Morville Charles Jean-Baptiste Fleuriau, comte de Morville (30 October 1686, in Paris – 2 February 1732) was a French statesman. Son of Joseph Fleuriau d'Armenonville, he was ambassador to Holland, then Secretary of State for the Navy from 28 February ...

(Charles, Count of Morville), who duly took over responsibility for foreign affairs from 16 August 1723, following the death of Cardinal Dubois. Fleuriau d'Armenonville became Secretary of State for the Navy on 24 September 1718, taking over responsibility from the council led by

Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Comte de Toulouse Louis Alexandre de Bourbon (6 June 1678 – 1 December 1737), a legitimated prince of the blood royal, was the son of Louis XIV and of his mistress Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. At the age of five, he became grand admiral of ...

, who resigned from the regency, which had previously directed affairs under the

polysynody {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 Polysynody (from Greek πολυς numerous, several, and Greek συνοδος meeting, assembly) was the system of government in use in France between 1715 and 1718 and in which each minister (secretary of state) ...

. He remained in office until 1722 when his son Charles took up the post. On leaving the Navy ministry, he became

keeper of the seals The title keeper of the seals or equivalent is used in several contexts, denoting the person entitled to keep and authorize use of the great seal of a given country. The title may or may not be linked to a particular cabinet or ministerial offi ...

, holding that office until he resigned on 14 August 1727. Fleuriau d'Armenonville purchased the

Château de Rambouillet The Château de Rambouillet (), known in English as the Castle of Rambouillet, is a château in the town of Rambouillet, Yvelines department, in the Île-de-France region in northern France, southwest of Paris. It was the summer residence of the ...

from the duc d'Uzès in 1699 for 140,000 livres. He spent half a million livres on works, but sold to the Count of Toulouse in 1706, receiving in return half a million livres and the post of master of the hunt in the

Bois de Boulogne The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...

and surrounds, an office which brought with it the use of the

Château de Madrid The Château de Madrid was a Renaissance building in France. It was built in Neuilly, on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, near Paris in the early 16th century. It fell into disuse in the 17th and 18th centuries and was almost completely demolishe ...

. Fleuriau d'Armenonville's son Charles Jean Baptiste, Count of Morville, followed him in government service.

References

1661 births 1728 deaths Secretaries of State of the Navy (France) Secretaries of State of Ancien Régime France 18th-century French people 17th-century French people People of the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans People of the Ancien Régime {{france-politician-stub

See also

References