Henri François d'Aguesseau

Henri François d'Aguesseau (27 November 1668 – 5 February 1751) was Chancellor of France three times between 1717 and 1750 and pronounced by Voltaire to be "the most learned magistrate France ever possessed".

He was born in Limoges, France, to a family of magistrates. His father, Henri d'Aguesseau, a hereditary councillor of the parlement of Metz, was a man of singular ability and breadth of view who, after holding successively the posts of intendant of Limousin, Guyenne and Languedoc, was in 1685 called to Paris as councillor of state, appointed director-general of commerce and manufactures in 1695, president of the council of commerce in 1700 and a member of the council of the regency for finance. By him he was early initiated into affairs and brought up in religious principles deeply tinged with Jansenism.

D'Aguesseau studied law under Jean Domat, whose influence is apparent in both the legal writings and legislative work of the chancellor. When little more than twenty-one years of age he was, through his father's influence with Louis XIV, appointed one of the three advocates-general to the parlement of Paris; and the eloquence and learning which he displayed in his first speech gained him a very high reputation. D'Aguesseau was in fact the first great master of forensic eloquence in France.

In 1700 d'Aguesseau was appointed procurator-general; and in this office, which he filled for seventeen years, he gained the greatest popularity by his defence of the rights of the Gallican Church in the Quietist troubles and in those connected with the bull Unigenitus.

In February 1717 d'Aguesseau was made chancellor by the regent Philip II, Duke of Orléans; but was deprived of the seals in January of the following year and exiled to his estate of Fresnes in Brie, on account of his steady opposition to the projects of the famous John Law, which had been adopted by the regent and his ministers.

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