Henri François d\' Aguesseau

Henri François d' Aguesseau , lord of Fresnes, is a magistrate French, born the November 27th 1668 with Limoges and died the February 9th 1751 with Paris.

Biography

Henri François d' Aguesseau, wire of Henri d' Aguesseau, Main of the requests and Intendant of the Languedoc, and Anne Picart de Périgny, niece of Omer Heel, came from a parliamentary family and was high in a medium strongly influenced by the Jansénisme. Itself married, on October 4th 1694, Anne Lefèvre d' Ormesson, also resulting from an big family of dress. This marriage represented, according to a contemporary, “the alliance of the merit and virtue”.

The member of Parliament

After having studied the right under the direction of Jean Domat, whose influence is felt at the same time in its writings and its legislative work, of Aguesseau made a brilliant career with the service of the king. Initially lawyer of the king to the parquet floor of Châtelet (1689), it became in 1691, prosecuting attorney with the Parlement of Paris, where it was pointed out by his eloquence. September 24th 1700, he became public prosecutor, always at the Parliament of Paris. In these functions, it defended freedoms of the Church gallicane and resisted the promulgation of the bubble Unigenitus of 1713 condemning the Jansénisme, established very well in the parliamentary mediums.

The minister

The Régent named it chancellor and in February 1717 but opposition Minister of Justice of Aguesseau to the Système of Law was worth to him to be private seals and exiled in its ground of Fresnes as of the following year (January 1718).

D' Aguesseau was pointed out in June 1720 to alleviate the opinion. It is said that John Law itself had recommended its recall and that this circumstance threw a shade on the popularity of the chancellor. He had to contribute, against his own principles, to make accept the bubble Unigenitus by the Parliaments: he granted the exile of the rebellious members of Parliament and made exert the power of recording by the Grand the Council. He was again returned on March 1st 1722 with the advent of the cardinal Dubois like principal minister.

He withdrew himself in his property of Fresnes where he spent five years that he was to then remind himself with delights. He studied the Writings and jurisprudence, without omitting philosophy and the literature, and even the gardening.

He was recalled in 1727 by the cardinal Fleury and was named chancellor on August 15th of this year, even if he were to find the seals later only ten years. He made a gloss considerable to the function of Chancelier of France, which had been extremely lowered under its predecessors, in particular losing the essence of the capacity of legislation to the profit of the General inspector of finances. In 1730, it was named honorary member of the Academy of Science.

Fleury required of Aguesseau to continue the work of Codification right committed under Louis XIV. Between 1731 and 1747, of Aguesseau made adopt by Louis XV four important ordinances on the Donation S (1731), the will S (1735), the forgery (1737) and the Fidéicommissaire S (1747). They were prepared by an Office of legislation placed near the chancellor and by investigations near the superior courts. The Parliaments made obstacle with the continuation of this work. The reforms of Aguesseau also improved the legal procedures and tended to ensure more uniformity in the application of the laws.

Like Minister of Justice of France, of Aguesseau showed themselves often undecided, and missed firmness with regard to the courses sovereign, of which it could involuntarily encourage the tendency to the rebellion against the royal capacity. In 1746, it signs the Privilège Encyclopédie of Diderot and Alembert.

He resigned of his functions of chancellor the November 27th 1750, took his retirement and died the following year.

Just magistrate, eminent lawyer, eloquent speaker, of Aguesseau was not less remarkable by his social qualities, his piety and his immense instruction. He had dealt much with philosophy: he left Méditations metaphysics , where he follows the steps of Rene Descartes. He conceived a political system of philosophy which combines Cartesian rationalism, egalitarianism, moral Jansenist and Gallicanisme, and which had a considerable influence at the 18th century, where of Aguesseau was the intellectual guide of a great number of magistrates and lawyers.

One of the four statues in front of the staircase of the Palais Bourbon east to its effigy. Its name was given to the promotion of the National school of administration left in 1982.

Works

The Œuvres of the chancellor of Aguesseau were printed in 13 volumes in-4 (1759 - 1789), but the most complete edition is that of the eminent lawyer Jean-Marie Pardessus, published in 16 volumes in-8 (1818 - 1820). Its correspondence was published separately by Dominique Bernard Rives (1823). A selection of its principal works appeared, in two volumes, under the title selected Œuvres , with a biographical note, at E. Falconnet (Paris, 1865).

Most of its work relates to directly dependant matters with its political activity, but one finds there also a Traité on the currency , several theological tests, a biography of his father who is interesting for the way in which it gives an account of education that it accepted from this one in his earliest youth, and of the meditations metaphysics, that it wrote to try to show that independently of any revelation and of any positive law, there was, in the constitution of the human spirit, all that can make the man main of itself and its destiny.

Antoine-Léonard Thomas wrote his Éloge . Auguste-Aime Boullée, in 1835, and Francis Monnier, in 1859, gave a Histoire of the life and works of the chancellor of Aguesseau .

Residences

Hotel in Paris, site of the n° 41 Street of the Suburb-Saint-Honore (destroyed in 1842).

Internal bond

List of the French Ministers for Justice
François of Paule

Partial source

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