View source for René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou

{{Short description|French nobleman, lawyer and statesman}}
{{redirect|René de Maupeou|his father, the French politician born in 1688|René Charles de Maupeou}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name        = René Nicolas de Maupeou
|image       = René-Augustin de Maupeou.PNG
| caption = Portrait by [[Pierre Lacour]]
|office      = [[Chancellor of France]]
|term_start  = {{Start date|1768|9|16|df=y}}
|term_end    = {{End date|1790|7|1|df=y}}
|predecessor  = [[René Charles de Maupeou]]
|office2     = First president of the [[Parlement of Paris|''parlement'' of Paris]]
|term_start2 = {{Start date|1763|10|12|df=y}}
|term_end2   = {{End date|1768|9|15|df=y}}
|predecessor2 = Mathieu-François Molé
|successor2  = Étienne François d'Aligre
|birth_date  = {{Birth date|1714|2|25|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Montpellier]], France
|death_date  = {{Death date and age|1792|7|29|1714|2|25|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Le Thuit, Eure|Le Thuit]], France
|party       = [[Ancien regime|Bourbon Crown]]
|profession  = [[Wikt:statesman|Statesman]], [[magistrate]]
|footnotes ={{center|1='''[[Chief Minister of France]]'''<br />
{{flatlist|
*{{big|'''←'''}} [[Étienne François, duc de Choiseul|Duke of Choiseul]]
*[[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot|Turgot]] {{big|'''→'''}}}}}}
}}
'''René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou, marquis de Morangles'''<ref>He was marquis de [[Morangles]] and de [[Bully, Seine-Maritime|Bully]], vicomte de [[Bruyères-sur-Oise|Bruyères]].</ref> ({{IPA|fr|mopu|lang}}; 25 February 1714 – 29 July 1792) was a French lawyer, politician, and [[chancellor of France]], (Prime Minister) whose attempts at reform signalled the failure of [[Enlightened absolutism|enlightened despotism]] in France.  He is best known for his effort to destroy the system of [[parlement]]s, which were powerful regional courts, in 1770–74. When King [[Louis XV]] died in 1774, the parlements were restored and Maupeou lost power.
==Early life==
He was born in [[Montpellier]] to a family ennobled in the sixteenth century as ''[[noblesse de robe]]'', the eldest son of [[René Charles de Maupeou]] (1688&ndash;1775), who was president of the [[Parlement of Paris|''parlement'' of Paris]] from 1743 to 1757.
In 1744 he married a rich heiress, Anne de Roncherolles (1725&ndash;1752), a cousin of [[Louise d'Épinay|Madame d'Épinay]], the friend of [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]] who moved in the circles of the ''[[Philosophes]]''. Entering public life, he was his father's right hand in the conflicts between the ''parlement'' and [[Christophe de Beaumont]], [[archbishop of Paris]], who was supported by the court. Between 1763 and 1768, dates which cover the revision of the [[Calas affair|Calas case]] that Voltaire had championed and the trial of the [[Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally|comte de Lally]], Maupeou was himself president of the ''parlement''. In 1768,<ref>The patronage of the [[Étienne François, duc de Choiseul|duc de Choiseul]] has been overplayed.</ref> he became [[Chancellor of France|chancellor]] 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]]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 [[French States-General|states-general]]. He allied himself with the [[Emmanuel-Armand de Richelieu, duc d'Aiguillon|duc d'Aiguillon]] and the king's mistress [[Madame du Barry]], and secured for a creature of his own, the [[Joseph Marie Terray|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]], and of [[Louis-René de Caradeuc de La Chalotais|La Chalotais]], ''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]] 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 [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] 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.<ref>Durand Echeverria, ''The Maupeou Revolution: A Study in the History of Libertarianism, France, 1770-1774'' (1985)</ref>
[[Voltaire]] 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".<ref>Echeverria's assessment "rings true", according to Bailey Stone, ''Reinterpreting the French Revolution: a global-historical perspective'' 2002:36.</ref>
==Fall==
The immediate restoration of the ''parlements'' by [[Louis XVI]] 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 [[Armand Thomas Hue de Miromesnil|Miromesnil]] and then by [[Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes|Malesherbes]], recalled from his exile in 1775 to be [[Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi]], and by the economist [[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune|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."<ref>"J'avais fait gagner au roi un procès qui dure depuis trois cents ans. Il veut le reperdre, il en est le maître."</ref>
Maupeou lived in retreat, still holding the office of Chancellor (abolished 1 July 1790) until his death at [[Le Thuit, Eure|Thuit]] (Eure) in 1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the ''[[ancien régime]]''. 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 [[French Revolution|Revolution]]. 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]]<ref>Baker, ''Inventing the French Revolution: essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century'', 2nd ed. 1990 :139.</ref> 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&ndash;1794), who became ''[[maître de camp]]'' of the {{Interlanguage link|Royal-Burgundy cavalry regiment|fr|3=Régiment Royal-Bourgogne cavalerie}}.
#Charles Victor René de Maupeou (1749&ndash;1789), who became ''[[maître des requêtes]]''.
==See also==
* [[House of Maupeou|Maupeou Family]]
==Notes==
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{{reflist}}
==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. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/650779 in JSTOR]
* Doyle, William. "The Parlements of France and the Breakdown of the Old Regime 1771-1788." ''French Historical Studies'' (1970): 415-458 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/285992 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)
* {{EB1911||wstitle=Maupeou, René Nicolas Charles Augustin|volume=17|pages=906–907}}
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[[Category:1714 births]]
[[Category:1792 deaths]]
[[Category:Politicians from Montpellier]]
[[Category:Occitan people]]
[[Category:Chancellors of France]]
[[Category:French nobility]]
[[Category:French marquesses]]