The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 4 (of 7)

Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT, 22, LUDGATE-STREET.
1835.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke-Street, Lambeth.
Engraved by J. Mollison. DAGUESSEAU. ( From am original Picture by Mignardi in the possession of the Conntesa Segur. ) Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street, & Pall Mall East.
The Chancellor Daguesseau is said to have been descended from a noble family of the province of Saintonge; if so, he was careless of his privileges, for he never used between the two first letters of his name the comma, indicative of noble birth. He came however of distinguished parentage; for his grandfather had been First President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, and his father was appointed, by Colbert, Intendant of the Limousin, and subsequently advanced to the Intendancies of Bordeaux and of Languedoc. In the latter government he suggested to Colbert the grand idea of uniting the Ocean and the Mediterranean by means of that mighty work, the Canal of Languedoc. In the persecution raised against the Protestants of the South of France by Louis XIV., he was distinguished by mildness; and to his honour be it remembered, one person only perished under his jurisdiction. Disgusted by the dragonnades , and by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he resigned his Intendancy, and removed to Paris, where he continued to enjoy the royal favour, and to be employed in offices of trust: so that he may be said not only to have formed his son’s youth, but to have watched over his manhood.
That son, Henry François Daguesseau, was born at Limoges, November 7, 1668. In 1690, he was appointed King’s Advocate in the Court of the Chatelet, and soon after, at his father’s recommendation, Advocate-General in the Parliament of Paris. On hearing the wisdom of so young a choice brought into question, the king observed, that “the father was incapable of deceit, even in favour of his son.” So brilliantly did the young lawyer acquit himself in his charge, that Denis Talas, one of the chief of the magistracy, expressed the wish, “that he might finish as Daguesseau had begun.” The law-officers of that day did not confine themselves to a mere dry fulfilment of legal functions; there was a traditional taste, a love of polite and classic literature, a cultivation of poetry and eloquence, on which the jurists prided themselves, and which prompted them to seize every opportunity of rivalling the ecclesiastical orators and polite writers of the age. Thus, at the opening of each session, the Avocat-Général pronounced an inaugurative discourse, which treated rather of points of high morality than law. Daguesseau acquired great fame from these effusions of eloquence. Their titles bespeak what they were: they treat of the Independence of the Advocate ; the Knowledge of Man ; of Magnanimity ; of the Censorship . “The highest professions are the most dependent,” exclaimed Daguesseau on one of those occasions; “he whom the grandeur of his office elevates over other men, soon finds that the first hour of his dignity is the last of his independence.” These generous sentiments are strongly contrasted with the despotism of the government and the general servility of the age.