(Chretien Francis de), marquis of Baville, and president of the parliament of Paris, was born in 1644. His father would not trust the education of his son to another, but took it upon himself, and entered into the minute particulars of his first studies: the love of letters and a solid taste were the fruits the scholar reaped from this valuable education. He learned rhetoric in the Jesuit's college, made the tour of England and Holland, and returned home the admiration of those meetings regularly held by persons of the first merit at his father's house. The several branches of literature were however only his amusement: the law was his real employ; and the eloquence of the bar at Paris owes its reformation from bombast and affected erudition to the plain and noble pleadings of M. Lamoignon. He was appointed the king's advocate general in 1673; which he discharged until 1698, when the presidency of the parliament was conferred on him. This post he held nine years, when he was allowed to resign in favour of his eldest son: he was chosen president of the royal academy of inscriptions in 1705. The only work he suffered to see the light was his Pleader, which is a monument of his eloquence and inclination to polite letters. He died in 1709.