Francois Alexander Frederic La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, duke de, a French statesman and philanthropist, born Jan. 11,1747, died in Paris, March 27, 1827. Having fallen under the displeasure of Mme, du Barry, he found little inducement to attend the court of Louis XV., but passed his time chiefly on his estate of Liancourt, where, under the influence of a visit to England in 17G9, he established a model farm. He also established there a school of arts and trades, which became the parent of the institution bearing the same name at Chalons. After the destruction of the Bastile in July, 1789, he was appointed president of the national assembly. His efforts to befriend the king, after the life of the latter had been menaced, having brought him into danger, he took refuge in England, and subsequently travelled in the United States and Canada. He returned to France in 1799, and for some years lived in obscurity in Paris. Still busy with philanthropic plans, he aided in introducing vaccination into France, and inaugurated the system of dispensaries in Paris. Napoleon admitted him to the chamber of peers, under his hereditary title.

After the restoration he became a member of the general council of hospitals, and president of the society of Christian morals, in which capacity he labored to abolish the slave trade, and to suppress lotteries and gaming houses. He was inspector general of the school of arts and trades .at Chalons for 23 years, and a member of various public bodies of an industrial and philanthropic character, from most of which he was removed by the ministry in 1823 in consequence of his liberal political views. The academy of sciences testified their disapprobation of this persecution by admitting him a member, and the academy of medicine appointed him on the commission destined to replace the committee of vaccination, of which he had been president, and which had been suppressed by government. He subsequently inaugurated the system of schools for mutual instruction, and established the first savings bank in France. He was a voluminous writer, and among his publications are works on pauperism, on public instruction, on savings banks, on prison discipline, etc.

Among the fruits of his visit to America were an account of the prisons of Philadelphia (Philadelphia and Paris, 1796), and Voyage dans les Etats-Unis de l'Amerique (8 vols., Paris, 1800).