MALESHERBES Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de (1721-1794).

Autograph draft to King Louis XVI (s.l.n.d. [1776]). 3 pp. in-8. Very interesting document, in which Monsieur de Malesherbes explains to the king the reasons for his resignation. He writes "Sire, It is eight days since I dared to represent to V. M. that it is an unfortunate and embarrassing that one of your ministers who having received no other mark of discontent of V. M. is deprived of the freedom to speak to her about all that must most interest her. (...) I leave the ministry for the same reasons which made me fear to enter it (...) It is true that I like freedom but I do not fear work what V. M. can believe after the conduct I have had all my life that I knew (as) sensitive as any other to the most flattering glory which is that of rendering useful services to the king and to the state, that I therefore refused for so long to the eminent place to which I was to be called only because it was shown to me that I could not fulfill the expectation that V. M. must have of me. Now, Sire, I cannot help but observe that the reasons which make a minister despair of doing good deserve to be known to the king, and if I have not been able to serve you as usefully as I would have liked to while in office, it seems to me that I could, at the moment when I leave, render you a more considerable service by exposing to you from the truth the situation of your administration" Indication on the 4th page: "from M. de Malesherbes to the king to ask for his retirement - this minute was given to me by his granddaughter Mme de Colbert [Miss Charlotte Pauline Christine de Montboissier-Beaufort-Canillac] in Montboissier in 1823.