Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Laharpe and other writers have drawn the character of this famous orator, whom, if we please, we may call a great man, but woe to the country and age that may produce a number of great men like him.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

MALESHERBES.

At

CHRETIEN GUILLAUME DE LAMOIGNON DE MALESHERBES, the son of the Chancellor de Lamoignon, grandson of the president de Lamoignon, the friend of Boileau and Racine, and great grandson of the first president de Lamoignon, the Ariste of the Lutrin, was born on the 6th of December, 1721. After having completed with much distinction, his course of humanity among the Jesuits, where he had for preceptor the Abbé de Radonvilliers, who was afterwards his colleague at the French academy, Monsieur de Malesherbes devoted himself, like his ancestors, to the study of the law. the age of twenty, he commenced his judicial career as deputy attorney-general. Three years afterwards he was admitted a counsel to the parliament, and at twenty-five he succeeded his father, who was made chancellor, in the office of first president of the Court of Aids. This was taking upon himself, at an early age, and under very difficult circumstances, the duty of defending the fortune of the state, and the rights of the people, against financiers, contractors, ministers, proposers of taxes, and prevaricators of every kind. M. de Malesherbes acquitted himself during twenty-five years, with infinite credit in this arduous employ, and the talents, the perseverance, and the courage he displayed, gained him the love and affection of the nation.

In the year 1779, there was printed, under the title of Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire du droit publique de la

France en matiere d'impots, a collection of speeches and remonstrances, composed by him during the long struggle between despotism and taxation. These are so many solid and learned works upon the different parts of the administration of the finances: they present particularly an extraordinary model of the art of speaking truth to the prince, without dissimulation and exaggeration, without weakness or irreverence, with a tranquil firmness, a force of reasoning almost irresistible, with an eloquence sometimes tender and persuasive, sometimes animated and imposing: and at the same time with all those regards which prudence and reason dictate towards those whom he was compelled to attack, or rather those against whom he was compelled to defend himself. We there find, at every moment, great and important truths expressed with a conciseness that doubles their power and utility. "The liberality of princes only enriches the courtier-his refusals form the riches of the people."-" No one is so exalted as to be sheltered from the hatred of a minister, nor sufficiently debased not to be worthy of that of a clerk." Such were some of his political axioms. His fine remonstrances of the year 1771, are justly celebrated. Voltaire, who was then solicitous to please the chancellor, Maupeou, undertook, but in vain, to refute them: they triumphed over that formidable attack, divided even the court itself, and were equally applauded by men of the world and by men of letters. Some time after M. de Malesherbes falling with the company of which he had so long been the organ, expiated his success by three years of disgrace and exile. The evening before the arrival of the Lettre de Cachet, which deprived him of his functions, he said to one, of his friends, "In so many battles fought with such disadvantages, I never received

« AnteriorContinuar »