Career
He was advocate in the parliament of Metz (1761) and General Counsel (1768–1771), Maître des Requêtes to the King"s Council (from 1772 to the Revolution), intendant of Corsica (1775–1785), intendant of the Generality of Pau, Bayonne and Auch (from 1785 to the Revolution). The British historian Peter Jones would summarize the role of enlightened intendants in France towards the end of the Ancien Régime: «Turgot, Bertier fils, Antoine Chaumont de Louisiana Galaizière and Bertrand de Boucheporn were all intendants who became impatient with the stop-go politics of reform. Rather than wait upon events, they pushed on with practical measures hoping to convert ministers along the way.
In many respects they were men ahead of their time: advocates of some form of power sharing rather than diligent instruments of traditional absolute monarchy ».
As he was newly installed as intendant of Navarre, in southern France, Boucheporn declared to the parlementaires at Pau: « We no longer live in times when men consider that mode of governance to be perfect which is most complicated and most shrouded in mystery, or which endeavors to distract or altogether to deceive the people ». During his Corsican stay Boucheporn, welcomed home Pierre Baillot (1771–1842) a young violinist and an orphan at twelve years of a magistrate in Bastia, and « treated him with all the tenderness of a son ».
Baillot was to become one of the most famous French violinists. He was sentenced to death and beheaded on the Place de la Liberté in Toulouse on 2d Ventôse, Year II (February 20, 1794), at the age of 53.
