After practising as an attorney in partnership with John Gregson at 8 Angel Court, Throgmorton Street, from 1816 to 1834, he succeeded, by the death of a relation, into property and devoted himself for the rest of his life to his books and his friends.
It was written mainly to prove that a purely democratic government is inappropriate to the circumstances of England, and that the existing system was 'founded on a concentration of the various interests of the country in the House of Commons'.
While still a lawyer he occupied chambers in The Albany, and as a 'great lover and liberal patron of art' entertained a distinguished set of artists and wits at 'choice little dinners',[1]: 233 which are recorded in the pages of Planché's 'Recollections'.
Fonnereau died in this building on 13 November 1850, and was buried in a vault in Aldenham churchyard, with many members of the Hibbert family, his nearest relatives.
They contained many original and acute observations, from a thinker not dissatisfied with the world, and not anxious for much change, on poetry, philosophy, and political economy, and they present in style and substance an accurate representation of his talk.