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MAUREPAS, JEAN FREDERIC PHELYPEAUX, C...

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 907 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MAUREPAS, See also:JEAN See also:FREDERIC See also:PHELYPEAUX, See also:COMTE DE (1701-1781) , See also:French statesman, was See also:born on the 9th of See also:July 1701 at See also:Versailles, being the son of See also:Jerome de Pontchartrain, secretary of See also:state for the marine and the royal See also:household. Maurepas succeeded to his See also:father's See also:charge at fourteen, and began his functions in the royal household at seventeen, while in 1725 he undertook the actual See also:administration of the See also:navy. Although essentially See also:light and frivolous in See also:character, Maurepas was seriously interested in scientific matters, and he used the best brains of See also:France to apply See also:science to questions of See also:navigation and of See also:naval construction. He was disgraced in 1749, and exiled from See also:Paris for an See also:epigram against Madame de See also:Pompadour. On the See also:accession of See also:Louis XVI., twenty-five years later, he became a See also:minister of state and Louis XVI.'s See also:chief adviser. He gave See also:Turgot the direction of See also:finance, placed See also:Lamoignon-See also:Malesherbes over the royal household and made See also:Vergennes minister for See also:foreign affairs. At the outset of his new career he showed his weakness by recalling to their functions, in deference to popular clamour, the members of the old See also:parlement ousted by See also:Maupeou, thus re-constituting the most dangerous enemy of the royal See also:power. This step, and his intervention on behalf of the See also:American states, helped to pave the way for the French revolution. Jealous of his See also:personal ascendancy over Louis XVI., he intrigued against Turgot, whose disgrace in 1776 was followed after six months of disorder by the See also:appointment of See also:Necker. In 1781 Maurepas deserted Necker as he had done Turgot, and he died at Versailles on the 21st of See also:November 1781. Maurepas is credited with contributions to the collection of facetiae known as the Etrennes de la See also:Saint Jean (2nd ed., 1742). Four volumes of Memoires de Maurepas, purporting to be collected by his secretary and edited by J.

L. G. Soulavie in 1792, must be regarded as apocryphal. Some of his letters were published in 1896 by the See also:

Soc. de l'hist. de Paris. His eloge in the See also:Academy of Sciences was pronounced by See also:Condorcet.

End of Article: MAUREPAS, JEAN FREDERIC PHELYPEAUX, COMTE DE (1701-1781)

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