Guillaume de Malesherbes
(Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes; Paris, 1721-id., 1794) French lawyer and politician.Son of Guillaume II de Lamoignon, renowned jurist and statesman, he studied law, after which he entered the Supreme Court of Justice.
Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes
In 1750 his father was appointed Chancellor by Louis XV; Guillaume de Malesherbes, in turn, was appointed director of the censorship office.During his tenure, which he held until 1763, he allowed the publication of Denis Diderot's Encyclopedia , as well as other works critical of the Church and the current political system.
In 1775, during the reign of Louis XVI, he was appointed Secretary of State, a position from which he tried, with moderate success, to carry out a profound reform of the economy and the institutions.Malesherbes got some of his bills approved, such as the annulment of the letres de cachet , which allowed the arbitrary arrest of any individual.
However, in general, the monarch he did not look favorably on his reformist measures; therefore, in May 1776 he resigned.In 1792, in the middle of the French Revolution, he was a defense lawyer for the monarch, who had been arrested after the attack on the Tuileries Palace and was being tried for treason.The following year, after the execution of Louis XVI, Malesherbes himself was arrested and, after being declared anti-revolutionary, executed.
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