French lawyer and garden architect, friend of Voltaire. A lawyer in 1752, he joined the Parliament of Normandy before moving to Paris, where he acquired a certain celebrity when he made headlines by publishing his famous memoir to rehabilitate the name of the unfortunate Calas, executed wrongly in 1762. He bought the Palace of Canon in Normandy in 1768 and he laid out there an English-type garden until his death in 1786. The colossal building programme ruined him financially and he died heavily indebted. //