Réforme De Maupeou

Issu d'une famille de robe anoblie au XVIe siècle, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou (1714-1792) était le fils ainé de René Charles de Maupeou (1688-1775), premier président du parlement de paris de 1743 à 1757.

Maupeou débuta sa carrière en étant le bras droit de son père puis devint à son tour premier président de 1763 )à 1768. Lorsque le chancelier Guillaume de Lamoignon de Blancmesnil démissionna de ses fonctions le 14 septembre 1768, il fut convenu que René Charles de maupeou lui succéderait tout en renonçant aussitôt à son office au profit de son fils. Le voilà chancelier mais d'un jour, puisque le 16 septembre 1768 son fils prenait ses fonctions. Il devenait à son tour chancelier, sans savoir qu'il serait le dernier chancelier de la monarchie.

René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou[1] (25 February 1714 – 29 July 1792) was a French lawyer,politician and chancellor of France, whose attempts at reform signalled the failure of enlightened despotism in France. He is best known for his effort to destroy the system of parlements, which were powerful regional courts, in 1770-74. When King Louis XV died in 1774, the parlements were restored and Maupeou lost power.

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 (1688–1775), 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 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 case that Voltaire had championed and the trial of the comte de Lally, Maupeou was himself president of the parlement. In 1768,[2] he became chancellor in succession to his father, who had held the office for a few days 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.

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