magistrates were surprised individually on the night of the 19th of January 1771 by musketeers, who required them to sign yes or no to a further request to return. Thirty-eight magistrates gave an affirmative answer, but on the exile of their former colleagues by _lettres de cachet_ they retracted, and were also exiled. Maupeou installed the council of state to administer justice pending the establishment of six superior courts in the provinces, and of a new parlement in Paris. The _cour des aides_ was next suppressed. Voltaire praised this revolution, applauding the suppression of the old hereditary magistrature, but in general Maupeou's policy was regarded as the triumph of tyranny. The remonstrances of the princes, of the nobles, and of the minor courts, were met by exile and suppression, but by the end of 1771 the new system was established, and the Bar, which had offered a passive resistance, recommenced to plead. But the death of Louis XV. in May 1774 ruined the chancellor. The restoration of the parlements was followed by a renewal of the quarrels between the new king and the magistrature. Maupeou and Terrai were replaced by Malesherbes and Turgot. Maupeou lived in retreat until his death at Thuit on the 29th of July 1792, having lived to see the overthrow of the _ancien régime_. His work, in so far as it was directed towards the separation of the judicial and political functions and to the reform of the abuses attaching to a hereditary magistrature, was subsequently endorsed by the Revolution; but no justification of his violent methods or defence of his intriguing and avaricious character is possible. He aimed at securing absolute power for Louis XV., but his action was in reality a serious blow to the monarchy. The chief authority for the administration of Maupeou is the _compte rendu_ in his own justification presented by him to Louis XVI. in 1789, which included a dossier of his speeches and edicts, and is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale. These documents, in the hands of his former secretary, C. F. Lebrun, duc de Plaisance, formed the basis of the judicial system of France as established under the consulate (cf. C. F. Lebrun, _Opinions, rapports et choix d'écrits politiques_, published posthumously in 1829). See further _Maupeouana_ (6 vols., Paris, 1775), which contains the pamphlets directed against him; _Journal hist. de la révolution opérée ... par M. de Maupeou_ (7 vols., 1775); the official correspondence of Mercy-Argenteau, the letters of Mme d'Épinay; and Jules Flammermont, _Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements_ (1883).