Nicolas René Berryer
French jurist (1703-1762)
Nicolas René Berryer, comte de La Ferrière (4 March 1703 – 15 August 1762) was a French politician who served as Secretary of State for the Navy from 1758 to 1761.
Life
Nicolas René Berryer was the son of Nicolas Berryer, procureur général to the Grand Conseil, and Élisabeth Nicole Ursule d'Arnollet de Lochefontaine. Initially "avocat général aux requêtes de l'hôtel", in 1728 he became "avocat général des brevets" then, in 1731, "conseiller à la cinquième chambre des enquêtes du Parlement de Paris".
In 1738, he married a rich heiress, the daughter of the fermier général, Catherine Madeleine Jorts de Fribois : beautiful, likeable and witty, she contributed to her husband's advancement. In 1739, he became maître des requêtes then président of the Grand Conseil before being named intendant of Poitou (1743–1747).
A friend of Madame de Pompadour, it was she who had him named lieutenant général de police when she became "maîtresse en titre" to Louis XV. He held this role from May 1747 to October 1757. Charged with protecting the relations between the king and de Pompadour, he created a "cabinet noir" (black cabinet), in order to keep postal correspondence between their enemies under surveillance. To this cabinet has been attributed the disgrace of several enemies of madame de Pompadour, notably the comte de Maurepas and the comte d'Argenson. On the other hand, he revealed himself unable to identify the authors of heinous libels against de Pompadour.
According to Tocqueville, Berryer was "a hard, haughty, cruel man, with much ignorance and even more presumption and stubbornness" ("un homme dur, hautain, grossier, avec beaucoup d'ignorance et encore plus de présomption et d'entêtement").
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