René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, marquis de Morangles (; 25 February 1714 – 29 July 1792) was a French lawyer, politician, and
chancellor of France
The Chancellor of France (), also known as the Grand Chancellor or Lord Chancellor, was the officer of state responsible for the judiciary of the Kingdom of France. The Chancellor was responsible for seeing that royal decrees were enrolled and ...
, (Prime Minister) whose attempts at reform signalled the failure of
enlightened despotism in France. He is best known for his effort to destroy the system of
parlement
Under the French Ancien Régime, a ''parlement'' () was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 ''parlements'', the original and most important of which was the ''Parlement'' of Paris. Though both th ...
s, which were powerful regional courts, in 1770–74. When King
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
died in 1774, the parlements were restored and Maupeou lost power.
Early life
He was born in
Montpellier
Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...
to a family ennobled in the sixteenth century as ''
noblesse de robe'', the eldest son of
René Charles de Maupeou (1688–1775), who was president of the
''parlement'' of Paris from 1743 to 1757.
In 1744 he married a rich heiress, Anne de Roncherolles (1725–1752), a cousin of
Madame d'Épinay, the friend of
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...
who moved in the circles of the ''
Philosophes
The were the intellectuals of the 18th-century European Enlightenment.Kishlansky, Mark, ''et al.'' ''A Brief History of Western Civilization: The Unfinished Legacy, volume II: Since 1555.'' (5th ed. 2007). Few were primarily philosophers; rathe ...
''. Entering public life, he was his father's right hand in the conflicts between the ''parlement'' and
Christophe de Beaumont
Christophe de Beaumont du Repaire (26 July 1703 – 12 December 1781) was a Kingdom of France, French cleric who belonged to a cadet branch of the Les Adrets and Saint-Quentin branches of the illustrious Dauphin family of Beaumont. He became Bish ...
,
archbishop of Paris, who was supported by the court. Between 1763 and 1768, dates which cover the revision of the
Calas case that Voltaire had championed and the trial of the
comte de Lally, Maupeou was himself president of the ''parlement''. In 1768, he became
chancellor
Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...
in succession to his father, who had held the office for twenty-four hours only, largely in order to permit him to retire with the prestigious title. With the disgrace of Choiseul, 24 December 1770, Maupeou was the chief minister.
He determined to support the royal authority against the ''parlement'', the perennial block to reforms of the
tax farm
Farming or tax-farming is a technique of financial management in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by contract, legal contract to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from t ...
ing system or the privileges of the propertied classes, which in league with the provincial magistratures was seeking to arrogate to itself the functions of the
states-general. He allied himself with the
duc d'Aiguillon and the king's mistress
Madame du Barry
Jeanne Bécu, comtesse du Barry (; 28 August 1744 – 8 December 1793) was the last ''maîtresse-en-titre'' of King Louis XV of France. She was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution on accusations of treason—particularly being ...
, and secured for a creature of his own, the
Abbé Terray, the office of comptroller-general. The struggle erupted over the trial of the case of the duc d'Aiguillon, ex-
governor of Brittany This page is a list of royal governors of Brittany during the Ancien Régime.
*Nominoe (841-851)
*Enguerrand VII, Lord of Coucy (1380–1397)
*Jean de Laval, Mayenne, Laval, husband of Françoise de Foix (1528-1554)
*Jean IV de Brosse (1554-1565)
* ...
, and of
La Chalotais
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
*La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
*"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...
, ''procureur-général'' of the province, who had been imprisoned by the governor for accusations against his administration.
When the ''parlement'' showed signs of hostility against Aiguillon, Maupeou read letters patent from
Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
annulling the proceedings. Louis replied to remonstrances from the ''parlement'' by a ''
lit de justice'', in which he demanded the surrender of the procedural minutes. On 27 November 1770 appeared the ''Édit de règlement et de discipline'', which was promulgated by the chancellor, forbidding the union of the various branches of the ''parlement'' and correspondence with the provincial magistratures. It also made a strike on the part of the ''parlement'' punishable by confiscation of goods, and forbade further obstruction to the registration of royal decrees after the royal reply had been given to a first remonstrance. This edict the magistrates refused to register, and it was registered in a ''lit de justice'' held at
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
on 7 December, whereupon the ''parlement'' was suspended in its functions.
Coup
After five summonses to return to their duties, the magistrates were surprised individually on the night of 19 January 1771 by
musketeers, who required them to sign yes or no to a further request to return. Thirty-eight magistrates gave an affirmative answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by ''
lettres de cachet'', they retracted and were also exiled. Maupeou installed the council of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six superior courts in the provinces and of a new ''parlement'' in Paris, in which the magistrature would no longer be a hereditary prerogative but become salaried officials appointed by the Crown. The ''
cour des aides'' was next suppressed. Maupeou proposed to make the judicial system more uniform throughout the country, which was a patchwork of local judicatures.
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
praised this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old hereditary magistrature, but by the aristocrats and the ''noblesse de robe'', Maupeou's policy was regarded as the triumph of tyranny. The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles, and of the minor courts, were met by exile and suppression, but by the end of 1771, the new system of the ''parlements de Maupeou'' was established, and the Bar, which had offered a passive resistance, recommenced to plead. A renewed attempt was made to tax the privileged and exempted groups. But it was not merely the death of Louis XV in May 1774 that ruined the chancellor:
Durand Echeverria characterized the dismissal of Maupeou as "the inevitable liquidation of an exhausted expedient".
Fall
The immediate restoration of the ''parlements'' by
Louis XVI
Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...
was followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new king and the magistrature. Maupeou and Terray were replaced on 24 August 1774 by
Miromesnil and then by
Malesherbes, recalled from his exile in 1775 to be
Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi, and by the economist
Turgot. Maupeou is said to have remarked, "I had won for the king a case that has lasted three hundred years. He wishes to lose it again; he is the master of it."
Maupeou lived in retreat, still holding the office of Chancellor (abolished 1 July 1790) until his death at
Thuit (Eure) in 1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the ''
ancien régime
''Ancien'' may refer to
* the French word for " ancient, old"
** Société des anciens textes français
* the French for "former, senior"
** Virelai ancien
** Ancien Régime
** Ancien Régime in France
{{disambig ...
''. His work, in so far as it was directed towards the separation of the judicial and political functions and to the reform of the abuses attaching to a hereditary magistrature, was subsequently endorsed by the
Revolution
In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
. He had aimed at securing absolute power for Louis XV, but his intrigues and the violence of his judicial actions were in reality a serious blow to the monarchy. "By pressing the issue of sovereignty to an ultimate confrontation in this way," remarks
Keith Michael Baker[Baker, ''Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century'', 2nd ed. 1990 :139.] of Maupeou's staffing his remodelled courts with men willing to exercise judicial functions within limits imposed by the royal will, "he undermined in practice exactly that belief in a constitutional middle ground between liberty and despotism that Guillaume-Joseph Saige had been concerned to deny in theory".
Issue
He had two sons:
#René Ange Augustin de Maupeou (1746–1794), who became ''
maître de camp'' of the .
#Charles Victor René de Maupeou (1749–1789), who became ''
maître des requêtes
A Master of Requests () is a counsel of the French ''Conseil d'État'' (Council of State), a high-level judicial officer of administrative law in France. The office has existed in one form or another since the Middle Ages.
The occupational titl ...
''.
See also
*
Maupeou Family
Notes
Further reading
* Bell, David A. "Lawyers into Demagogues: Chancellor Maupeou and the Transformation of Legal Practice in France 1771-1789." ''Past and Present'' (1991): 107–141
in JSTOR* Doyle, William. "The Parlements of France and the Breakdown of the Old Regime 1771-1788." ''French Historical Studies'' (1970): 415-45
in JSTOR
* Echeverria, Durand. ''The Maupeou Revolution: A Study in the History of Libertarianism, France, 1770-1774'' (Louisiana State University Press, 1985)
* Jones, Colin. ''The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon'' (2003) pp 280–98
* Swann, Julian. ''Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754-1774'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maupeou, Rene Nicolas Charles Augustin de
1714 births
1792 deaths
Politicians from Montpellier
Occitan people
Chancellors of France
French marquesses