See also: Etienne d' Aligre

Etienne François d' Aligre , count de Marans, marquis d' Aligre, is a French magistrate born in 1727 and died in Brunswick in 1798.

Going down from the famous family of Aligre which had given to France two Chancellors and Ministers of Justice (the father and the son, single fact in the History), wire of Etienne Claude d' Aligre (1694 - 1752), president with mortar at the Parliament of Paris, it was accepted to advise with the Parlement of Paris in 1745 and became President with mortar in 1752 and First president of 1768 with 1771 and of 1774 with 1788.

When he was still President with mortar, Laverdy proposed it to the King for the place of first president of the Parliament of Paris. The King was astonished by the choice of a so young man for a so important function. He gave nevertheless it to him, and the marquis d' Aligre preserved it until 1788 and on several times the occasion to show just and enlightened magistrate. Etienne d' Aligre had the heavy responsibility of judge famous the " Business of the Collar ". It indeed did not fear to censure the taxes and arbitrary measurements of the government.

Often limited defender of the prerogatives of the Parliament, it was exiled in his ground of Tremblay in 1771. He returned in 1774 when Louis XVI pointed out the Parliaments and took again its obstruction with the reforms, in particular tax. Hating the reforming Court and ministers, he is regarded by certain as one of the craftsmen of the failure of the reforms of Calonne and Loménie de Brienne.

He made in particular a sharp opposition to Necker and S endeavoured to prevent the convocation of the general states. Not believing its councils listened by the King and it gave his resignation in November 1788. The former president failed to perish the July 14th, 1789, the day of the Storming of the Bastille at the same time as Berthier and Foulon. He hastened to gather part of his immense fortune and withdrew himself initially with Brussels, then in England and finally in Brunswick. He occupied himself then, only of these financial speculations which at that time did one of richest moment.

He piled up a considerable fortune. According to Mr. Provost in the biographical dictionary of Novel and Amat: “It had, said one, five million capital in the bank in London and had 700.000 books of income; the presidents being associated with all the businesses comprising of spices, it would have touched, in seventeen years, of vacations representing four hundred years of work. ”

It devoted an important part of its fortune to restore its castle of Baronville and to reconstitute the old gardens.

He was clerk of the Ordre of the Holy Spirit from July 12th to 20th 1770.

Under the Revolution, he emigrated in London with his family, then in Brunswick where he died in 1798.

He is the father of Etienne Jean François d' Aligre (1770 - 1847).

It is him whom the Town of Paris wanted to honor by giving the name with Aligre to a street and an contiguous place on February 26th, 1867.

A famous descent

Etienne Francois, marquis d' Aligre, had a many descent and is the ancestor of the most famous French and foreign families: marquis de Pomereu; princes of Talleyrand-Périgord; princes of Croÿ, Croÿ-Roeulx, Croÿ-Solre; red , Red marquis and counts of dukes of Caylus and counts of the Plessis-Suspension brace; princes of Merode; princes of Liechtenstein; dukes and princes of Bauffremont - Courtenay; dukes of Rohan; princes of Beauvau-Craon; princes Murat; dukes and princes of Clermont-Thunder; dukes and princes of Arenberg; Riquet dukes of Caraman princes of Chimay; dukes of Thimble-Brissac; dukes of Durfort Civrac and dukes of Lorge; dukes and princes de Blacas d' Aulps; Rochechouart, dukes of Mortemart; dukes of Harcourt; St.Clair Erskine Earls off Rosslyn; dukes of Gramont; counts de Limburg-Stirum; princes Sanguszko; marquis of Mun; princes of Polignac; princes of Orleans (Bourbon-Orleans); counts of Bourbon-Busset.