René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou was born in Montpellier to a family ennobled in the sixteenth century as noblesse de robe, the eldest son of René Charles de Maupeou (1688–1775), who had been president of the parlement of Paris from 1743 to 1757.

In 1744 he had married a rich heiress, Anne de Roncherolles (1725–1752), a cousin of Madame d'Épinay, the friend of Rousseau who moved in the circles of the Philosophes.

Entering public life, he had been his father's right hand in the conflicts between the parlement and Christophe de Beaumont, archbishop of Paris, who was supported by the court.

Between 1763 and 1768, dates that cover the revision of the Calas case that Voltaire had championed and the trial of the comte de Lally, Maupeou had himself been president of the parlement.

In 1768, he became chancellor in succession to his father, who had held the office for twenty four hours only, largely in order to permit him to retire with the prestigious title.

With the disgrace of Choiseul on December 24, 1770, Maupeou is the chief minister.

He determines to support the royal authority against the parlement, the perennial block to reforms of the tax farming system or the privileges of the propertied classes, which in league with the provincial magistratures is seeking to arrogate to itself the functions of the states-general.

He allies himself with the duc d'Aiguillon and the king's mistress Madame du Barry, and secures for a creature of his own, the Abbé Terray, the office of comptroller-general.

The struggle erupts over the trial of the case of the duc d'Aiguillon, ex-governor of Brittany, and of La Chalotais, procureur-général of the province, who had been imprisoned by the governor for accusations against his administration.

When the parlement showed signs of hostility against Aiguillon, Maupeou had read letters patent from Louis XV annulling the proceedings.

Louis had replied to remonstrances from the parlement by a lit de justice, in which he demanded the surrender of the procedural minutes.

On November 27, 1770, had appeared the Édit de règlement et de discipline, which had been promulgated by the chancellor, forbidding the union of the various branches of the parlement and correspondence with the provincial magistratures.

It also made a strike on the part of the parlement punishable by confiscation of goods, and forbade further obstruction to the registration of royal decrees after the royal reply had been given to a first remonstrance.

This edict the magistrates had refused to register, and it was registered in a lit de justice held at Versailles on December 7, whereupon the parlement had been suspended in its functions.

The magistrates, after five summonses to return to their duties, are surprised individually on the night of January 19, 1771 by musketeers, who require them to sign yes or no to a further request to return.

Thirty-eight magistrates give an affirmative answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by lettres de cachet, they retract and are also exiled.

Maupeou installs the council of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six superior courts in the provinces and of a new parlement in Paris, in which the magistrature will no longer be a hereditary prorogative but become salaried officials appointed by the Crown.

The cour des aides is next suppressed.

Maupeou proposes to make the judicial system more uniform throughout the country, which is a patchwork of local judicatures.

Voltaire praises this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old hereditary magistrature, but the aristocrats and the noblesse de robe regard Maupeou's policy as the triumph of tyranny.

The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles, and of the minor courts, are met by exile and suppression, but by the end of 1771, the new system of the parlements de Maupeou is established, and the Bar, which had offered a passive resistance, recommences to plead.

A renewed attempt had been made to tax France's privileged and exempted groups, but it was not merely the death of Louis XV in May 1774 that ruined the chancellor: the immediate restoration of the parlements by Louis XVI had been followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new king and the magistrature.

Maupeou and Terray had been replaced on August 24, 1774, by Miromesnil, then by Malesherbes, recalled from his exile in 1775 to be Secretary of State of the Maison du Roi, and by the economist Turgot.