Germain Louis Chauvelin

Biography

Germain Louis Chauvelin is resulting from a family of lawyers to the Parlement of Paris, installed in the capital towards 1530 and fixed in the district of the Place Maubert. At the 17th century, a branch of the family is combined with that of the chancellor Michel Tellier, which takes with its service, and that of his/her son Louvois, several of its members. Germain Louis Chauvelin is the son of the one of them, Louis III Chauvelin, who was Intendant in Franche-Comté (1673 - 1684) and in Picardy (1684 - 1694), and of his wife, Marguerite Billard.

November 1st 1706, Germain Louis Chauvelin is provided with the joint offices of advising with the Grand the Council and of large rapporteur and corrector of the letters of chancellery. May 31st 1711, it obtains a load of Maître requests. With died of his older brother, Louis IV Chauvelin, in 1715, it takes again his office of Prosecuting attorney with the Parlement of Paris then, in 1718, buys a load of President to mortar which raises it at the top of the legal hierarchy. The same year, he marries wealthy heiress, Anne Cahouet of Beauvais, girl of the First president of the office of finances of the general information of Orleans. They have several children:

Anne Espérance, which marries Henri François Colbert de Maulévrier;
Anne Madeleine, which marries Louis Michel Chamillart;
Anne Sabine Rosalie, which marries Jean François of Rochefoucauld;
Henri Philippe (1716-1770), known as the abbot of Chauvelin .

The marshal of Huxelles, which chairs the council of the foreign affairs and enters to the council of Regency in 1718, presents it to the cardinal Fleury of which he becomes the collaborator and the adviser. When the Fleury cardinal becomes principal minister in 1726, it is not long in making enter Chauvelin to the Government: it is named Minister of Justice on August 17th 1727 following the resignation of Joseph Fleuriau d' Armenonville, then secretary of foreign affairs the following day following the resignation of Charles Jean Baptiste Fleuriau de Morville.

Like Minister of Justice, Chauvelin had to share its attributions with Henri François d' Aguesseau, which preserved the irremovable load of Chancelier of France. September 2nd, 1727, the king establishes a division of attributions between the two men: of Aguesseau preserved the presidency of the councils and the representation of the king attached to the Parliament while Chauvelin received the businesses of the Bookstore and the presidency of the Seal. For this reason Chauvelin had to exert the censure on the many works related to the controversy around the Bulle Unigenitus. Moreover, the right of the seal ensured him of the important incomes. Barber qualifies it “the prodigiously rich one”. He thus could, in 1731, to buy the Château of Grosbois to Samuel-Jacques Bernard (1686-1753), wire of the financier Samuel Bernard.

As secretary of foreign affairs, Chauvelin is shown very hostile in Austria to which it constantly seeks to oppose Spain. Fleury, pacifist, often negotiates in writing pad, as 1735 for the preliminaries of Vienna, which subordinate peace to the resolution of the Lorraine question: the cardinal obtains, by secret negotiations, the renunciation of François of Lorraine, Chauvelin intervening only to overcome last resistances of Austria.

February 20th 1737, Chauvelin, which Fleury did not need more, was returned and led to its Château of Grosbois, then with Bourges the next on June 6th. It tried to approach Louis XV with died of Fleury in January 1743 but undergoes the one second disgrace and was exiled with Issoire, then with Riom. “One is explained such rigors badly, observes Jean de Viguerie. Chauvelin had been one of the confidants of the king who often wrote to him. But it is perhaps there precisely the cause of its disgrace. Louis XV could regret being itself entrusted to him. ”

He managed to return to Paris in April 1746 thanks to the intercession of the marquis d' Argenson and of the count de Maurepas but in the political life until its death in 1762 did not intervene any more.

References

Internal bonds

List of the French Ministers for Justice
List of the French Ministers for the Foreign affairs

External bonds

Alix Bréban, German Louis Chauvelin (1685-1762), minister of Louis XV , thesis of the School of the Charters, 2004 (summarized)

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