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

by Arthur Thomas Malkin

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.

In 1700, Daguesseau was appointed Procureur-General, in which capacity he was obliged to form decisions on the gravest questions of state. A learned Memoir, drawn up by him in the year 1700, to prove that no ecclesiastics, not even cardinals, had a right to be exempt from royal jurisdiction, shows his mind already imbued with that jealousy of Papal supremacy which afterwards distinguished him. But his occupations were not confined to legal functions, the administration of that day being accustomed to have recourse, in all difficult and momentous questions, to the wisdom and authority of the magistracy. Thus Daguesseau was enabled, by directing his attention to the state of the hospitals, to remedy the enormous abuses practised in them, and to remodel these charitable institutions upon a new and philanthropic system. In the terrible famine of 1709, he was appointed one of the commission to inquire into the distresses of the time. He was the first to foresee the famine ere it arrived, and to recommend the fittest measures for obviating the misery which it menaced.

There existed, at that time, few questions on which a French statesman or magistrate found himself in opposition to the sovereign. Constitutional political liberty was unknown; and even freedom of conscience had been violated by the persecuting edicts of Louis XIV. The magistracy had allowed the Protestants to be crushed, awed by the fear of being considered favourers of rebellion. The legal and the lettered class of French, however they had abandoned the great cause of Reform, exaggerated as it had been by Calvin, were nevertheless still unprepared to submit to the spiritual despotism of Rome. They did not presume to question fundamental doctrines of faith; but they rejected the interference of the Pope in matters of ecclesiastical government, and their claim to independence was sanctioned by the ancient privileges of the Gallican Church. And they were resolutely opposed to the faithless and insidious doctrines of the Jesuits, who sought to make the rule of conscience subordinate to the dictation of the priesthood. These two grounds of opposition to Rome and to the Jesuits constituted the better part of Jansenism. Louis XIV., in his later years, commenced a crusade against this species of resistance to his royal will; and, amongst other acts of repression, he procured a Bull from Rome, called Unigenitus, from its first word, which condemned the combined opposition of the Gallican clergy and the anti-Jesuit moralist. In order to be binding upon the French, it was necessary that it should be registered in Parliament. The consent of the great legal officers was requisite, and they were accordingly summoned before Louis XIV. The First President and the Advocate-General had already been won over to the court. The independent character of Daguesseau was the only obstacle; and they had hopes that he might be induced to yield, from the known mildness of his disposition. His parting from his wife on this occasion is recorded both by Duclos and St. Simon: “Go,” said she, as she embraced him; “when before the king, forget wife and children: sacrifice all but honour.” Daguesseau acted by the noble counsel, and remained immoveable, though threatened by his despotic master with the loss of his place. The death of Louis XIV., in 1715, soon relieved Daguesseau from the difficulty of his position.

On the establishment of the Regency, the administration was reorganized on a different plan, each department being intrusted to a council. Daguesseau was appointed member of the Council of Conscience, being, in fact, the ecclesiastical department. He proposed the immediate banishment of the Jesuits from the kingdom; but this measure he was unable to compass. In February, 1717, a vacancy occurred in the office of Chancellor, and the Regent immediately sent for Daguesseau, who was at mass in his parish church, and refused to come until he was twice sent for. When he arrived, the Regent exclaimed to the company, “Here is a new and very worthy Chancellor!” and carrying him to the Tuileries in his coach, made the young king present him with the box of seals. Daguesseau escaped from the crowd to acquaint his brother with his good fortune: “I had rather it was you than I,” exclaimed the latter, continuing to smoke his pipe.

The Regent, however, did not long remain satisfied with his choice, which had been made from a generous impulse of the moment. During the last years of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign, there had been a confusion of parties and of opinions, which were almost all united against the bigotry and despotism of the monarch’s dotage. The grandee and the magistrate displayed equal discontent, and joined in common protestations. On the demise of the monarch, however, this union disappeared. The grandee hoped to see that aristocratic influence restored, which had been suspended since the wars of the Fronde. The magistracy did not favour this idea, being of opinion that the Parliament was the fittest council and check to the authority of the crown. Daguesseau of course inclined to the magistracy, in whose interest he laboured, in conjunction with the Duc de Noailles, to root out the Jesuits, and deprive the church of ultra-montane support. The Duc de St. Simon was of the opposite opinion. He was the partisan of an aristocratic government, and he defended the church, and even the Jesuits, as useful allies. These discordant views led to bickerings in the council. St. Simon accused some magistrates of malpractices. The Chancellor sought, more than was just, to screen them. He obtained a rule, about the same time, that all the members of the Great Council, consisting chiefly of magistrates, should be rendered noble by their office, another offence to the nobility of birth. The Regent, at first inclined to be neutral, soon leaned to the noblesse. The Parliament thwarted him, and showed symptoms of an intention to support his rival the Duke of Maine, the illegitimate son of Louis XIV. The difference between the Regent and the magistracy was widened into a breach by the scheme of Law, and by the advancement of that foreigner to influence in political and financial affairs, which had hitherto been chiefly in the hands of the magistracy. The legists looked upon Law as an intruder, and regarded his acts as audacious innovations. Their remonstrances accordingly grew louder and louder, and their opposition more bold, until the Regent began to fear the renewal of the scenes of the Fronde. The Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz were then published for the first time; and their perusal, filling the public mind, excited it strongly to renew the scenes and the struggle which they described. The Chancellor’s true office, as a minister, had been to manage the Parliament, to cajole, to persuade, to menace, to repress; but the task suited neither the character nor the principles of Daguesseau, and accordingly nothing but censure of him was heard at court. He was weak, he was irresolute, and lawyers were declared to make very bad statesmen. “They might have reproached the Chancellor with indecision,” says Duclos, “but what annoyed them most was his virtue.”

On the 26th of January, 1718, the seals were re-demanded of him and given to D’Argenson, the famous lieutenant of police. Daguesseau was exiled to his country-house at Fresnes. Whilst in retirement he occupied his time chiefly in the education of his children. His letters to them on the subject of their classical and mathematical studies, lately given to the public, bear witness to his simple and literary bent of mind. Happy it was for Daguesseau to have been removed from the troublesome scene of public life during the two years of Law’s triumph and the disgrace of the magistracy. When Law’s scheme exploded, amidst the ruin and execration of thousands, the Regent, not knowing whither to turn for counsel and support, resolved at least to give some indication of returning honesty by the recall of Daguesseau, who resumed the seals with a facility that was censured by many. Law was deprived of the place of Comptroller-General of Finance, though continued in the management of the Bank and the India Company. In his place certain of the Parliament were admitted to the Councils of Finance, so that Daguesseau seemed to have had full security against the continuance of that infamous jobbing by which the public credit had been destroyed. He was disappointed. The Place Vendôme, in front of his abode, being the exchange of the day, was crowded by purchasers and venders of stock; until the Chancellor, unable to suppress the nuisance, caused it to be removed elsewhere.

The reconciliation between the government and Parliament, produced by Daguesseau’s return, did not last long; and Law having sent an edict respecting the India Company for that body to register, a tumult occurred while they were debating on it, in which the obnoxious financier was torn to pieces. Elated by the news, the Parliament rejected the edict, and hurried from the hall to assure themselves of the fate of Law, who was the great object of their odium. The Regent took fire at this mark of their contempt for his authority, and resolved to exile the Parliament to Blois. Daguesseau himself could not excuse their precipitancy; he obtained, however, that the place of exile should not be Blois, but Pontoise, within a few leagues of Paris.

In addition to these causes of quarrel, another matter occurred to widen the breach between the court and the Parliament, and to place Daguesseau, who stood between them, in a position of still greater difficulty. This was the old question of the bull Unigenitus, the acceptance of which the prime minister Dubois was labouring to procure, as the condition on which he was to receive a Cardinal’s hat from the court of Rome. The Regent, who had at first supported the Jansenists, or Parliamentary party, was now disgusted at not finding in them the gratitude which he had hoped. “Hitherto,” said he, “I have given every thing to grace, and nothing to good works.” He leaned, in consequence, to the other party; and it was resolved to obtain the acceptance of the bull, or Constitution, as it was called, in the Great Council. The Great Council was a court of magistrates acting somewhat like the English Privy Council, or present French Conseil d’Etat, and pronouncing judgment on points where the crown or government was concerned. It was the rival of the Parliament, in the place of which Dubois proposed to substitute it as a high court of judicature; an idea acted upon at a later period of French history. The Regent, attended by his court and officers, went to the Great Council, and enforced the acceptance of the bull. Daguesseau attended as Chancellor, and by his presence seemed to countenance this act, which forms the great reproach, or blot of his life. He is reported, on this occasion, to have asked a young councillor, who was loud in opposition, “Where he had found these objections?” “In the pleadings of the late Chancellor Daguesseau,” was the keen retort. The conduct of Daguesseau admits, however, of excuse. The bull had been already registered, under conditions, by the Parliament in the reign of Louis XIV.; and the present agitation of the question being rather to satisfy the Pope than make any real alteration in the law. Daguesseau was for making every concession of form, and some real sacrifices, to avoid further extremities or hostilities against the Parliament. He hoped, indeed, that registration by the Great Council might spare the Parliament further trouble on the subject. But the Cardinal de Noailles, the head of the Jansenist party, continued to protest; and the Regent, concluding that he was incited by the Parliament, re-determined to extend the exile of that body from Pontoise to Blois. Daguesseau learning this, seeing his concessions of no effect, and that extreme measures were intended against the Parliament, came instantly to offer his resignation. The Regent, in answer, bade him wait a few days; and the Cardinal having desisted from his extreme opposition, at length he was satisfied. The Parliament was recalled, and Law finally disgraced, a point gained from Dubois, no doubt, as the price of moderation in the affair of this bull.

The Regent and Dubois had now both made all the use they required of Daguesseau’s presence in the ministry; and both were anxious to get rid of a personage so little in harmony with their politics or morals. Nevertheless, the Regent felt his obligations as well as the respect due to the Chancellor, and evinced them in a manner peculiar to himself. A person of some rank and influence had proposed for the daughter of Daguesseau, allured perhaps by the hope of being allied to a minister. The Regent learning this, determined to defer the Chancellor’s disgrace, lest it might prevent the match. When Daguesseau’s future son-in-law went to ask the Regent, as is customary in France, for his sanction to the marriage, the latter, while granting it, turned to those near him, and remarked, in a style usual with him, “Here is a gentleman about to turn fishmonger at the end of Lent,” thus intimating the Chancellor’s approaching downfall. Daguesseau had irritated Dubois by joining the Dukes and Marshals, who retired from the council table rather than yield precedence to the minister who, in his new rank of Cardinal, pretended to this honour. The seals were again taken from him in February, 1722, and he returned to his estate at Fresnes.

Again resuming the volume of his private letters, as the only history of his years of retirement, we find Daguesseau occupied with the progress of his son at the bar, and in the functions of Advocate-General. At the epoch of the Duke of Orleans’ death, and the accession of the Duke of Bourbon to the ministry, there were evident intentions of recalling Daguesseau. Recourse was had to his advice in some affairs, but he refused to take cognizance of them in a position where his word might be misrepresented. In short, he refused to take any part in political affairs without, at the same time, “having the ear of the prince,” thus positively refusing to act any subordinate part. These overtures were made at the commencement of 1725. “What you must avoid of all things,” he writes to his son, “is to do any thing that might afford cause of imagining that conditions are asked of me as the price of my return, or that I engage myself in any party.” The son was, nevertheless, anxious for the return of his father to power, and, on one occasion, entreats him to open his mansion to Mademoiselle de Clermont, sister of the Duke of Bourbon, who was travelling near Fresnes; but Daguesseau refused to pay any such expensive compliments, even to the sister of the minister.