[Illustration: INITIAL LETTER O FROM A DESIGN BY M. LELOIR.]
One of the grandest institutions of ancient France was the Parlement de
Paris, and its history and that of the _prévôts_ would constitute a
history of the capital, while that of the fitful and accidental
convocations of the _États Généraux_ would in nowise illustrate that of
the nation. Our facilities for acquiring a knowledge of the functions
and methods of procedure of the Parlement have been greatly increased by
the numerous critical historical works which have appeared within the
last few years, amongst which that of M. Felix Aubert, which covers the
long period between its origin, in 1250, and the reign of François I,
when it was "the instrument par excellence of the national unity and
pacification," is, perhaps, the most valuable. The establishment of the
_magistrature prévôtale_, replacing that of the Vicomte de Paris, has
been credited to Hugues Capet, but the first official record appears to
be a charter given in favor of the monks of Saint-Martin-des-Champs,
dated in the last year of the reign of Henri I, 1060, and bearing the
signature of Étienne, _prévôt_ de Paris. This officer was a lieutenant
of the king, designated by him to administer justice in his name; he
presided over the tribunal of the Châtelet, and commanded the _guet_, or
watch, and the noblesse in the _arrière-ban_ of the general muster for
war. In Paris, this office required the command of important funds, and
several citizens sometimes combined to give guarantees for the _prévôt_.
Nevertheless, the latter was frequently found unworthy of this trust,
and the Étienne of 1060 appears in the chronicles as advising the young
king, Philippe I, to plunder the treasury of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
with the view of securing for himself the famous cross of gold brought
from Spain by Childebert. This nefarious scheme was undertaken, but at
the moment when the burglarious _prévôt_ put out his hand to seize the
cross, he was suddenly stricken with blindness.
Of a very different quality was the Étienne Boileau, selected by
Saint-Louis to fill this important post, and who, according to
Joinville, "executed such good and straight justice," that "no
malefactor, thief, or murderer dared to remain in Paris but he was
immediately hanged and exterminated; neither family nor gold nor silver
could save him." The king was so well satisfied with his _prévôt_ that
he caused him to be seated by his side when he presided at the Châtelet,
and, in order to preserve to this office, after Boileau, the lustre
which he had conferred upon it, he separated from it the receipt of the
funds of the royal domains, and created for the latter a receiver, a
guardian of the seals, and sixty notaries who exercised their functions
under the authority of the _prévôt_, who, subsequently, was entitled
_garde de la prévôt de Paris_. The _guet royal_ was established, and the
_prévôt_ drew up the ancient regulations of the hundred trades or
handicrafts which existed in the capital, "in order to establish peace
and order in industry as he had established it in the nation." These
trades were divided into various great corporations. Under this wise
king, also, the Hanse, or confraternity, of the _marchandise de l'eau_
became definitely the _municipalité parisienne_; for about a century the
members of this confraternity had been called _échevins jures_, and
their chief was known as the _prévôt des marchands de l'eau_, or _prévôt
de confrérie de l'eau_. The numerous privileges which this corporation
enjoyed passed in course of time to the _prévôt des marchands_, who
acquired, successively, the administration of the _rentes_ or funds
drawn from the Hôtel de Ville, the regulation of public ceremonies, the
care and construction of the public monuments, the opening of new
streets, etc. The ancient privileges of the Hanse had previously been
confirmed at various times, amongst others, by Louis VII.
Saint-Louis was but a boy of eleven when he succeeded to the throne on
the death of his father, and a coalition of the great nobles was
immediately formed to take advantage of his minority; but the wisdom,
prudence, and piety of his mother, Blanche of Castile, not only
preserved the crown for him until he came of age, but also stood him in
great service during the years of his reign, especially in those in
which he was absent from the kingdom on his ill-starred crusades. One of
her most beneficent deeds has been immortalized by the modern painter,
Luc-Olivier-Merson, in a noble mural painting,--the delivery of the
prisoners held in bondage by the chapitre de Paris (Notre-Dame), several
inhabitants of Châtenay who had incurred the displeasure of the
ecclesiastical authorities, and who were so maltreated in their dungeons
that the lives of several of them were despaired of. The queen at first
sent a civil request to the chapter to release the captives under bonds,
but the churchmen returned an uncivil refusal and redoubled their
severities; whereupon she proceeded in person to the prison with her
son, struck the doors with her bâton, her guards immediately broke them
down, and the liberated serfs, men, women, and children, flocked out
tumultuously to thank their deliverers on their knees. The canons
protested furiously, but the discreet regent, knowing their sensitive
point, allowed them to rage openly and contented herself with seizing
their temporal revenues. This immediately brought them to terms; in the
smoothest of phrases they besought an accommodation, and speedily agreed
to set at liberty, in consideration of a certain sum, all those whom
they had unjustly incarcerated.
It would scarcely have been thought that this gracious sovereign lady,
one of the noblest figures among the women of France, could have been
made the object of malicious slander; but one of her latest biographers,
M. Élie Berger, thinks it worth while to defend her seriously against
the "legend born of jealousy and impotence" of having been the mistress
of the Cardinal de Saint-Ange and of the Comte Thibaut de Champagne. His
defence, apart from the inherent improbability of the story, seems to be
quite convincing.
The centre of authority, for both the nation and the capital, was
naturally the king, though, as we have seen, his power was often
furiously contested and at times very precarious. Under the
Mérovingians, the crown was both elective and hereditary, that is to
say, the brother of the deceased monarch was frequently chosen in the
place of his eldest son, too young to bear worthily the sword and the
sceptre. The royal authority was practically unlimited, the king decreed
constitution and laws, made war, and signed treaties of peace; he wore
the Roman costume, spoke and wrote in Latin, sate, like the Emperor, in
the prætorium to judge, and was given the titles of _Dominus_, of
Excellency, and of Majesty. For the personal service of the king, and
for the public service, there were a great number of officers,--the
_major domus_ or mayor of the palace, who eventually pushed the monarch
off the throne and mounted it himself; the marshal, the treasurer, the
cup-bearer, the chamberlain, and a multitude of inferior officers. The
political officers were more particularly the _Comte du Palais_, who
sate in the king's tribunal, and the _Réferéndaire_, a sort of
chancellor, who kept the royal signet-ring and sealed the royal decrees.
The court, or _palatium_, was crowded with important personages, counts,
dukes, and bishops, any of whom might be called to the king's council or
to sit in his tribunal. In the provinces, the royal authority was
represented in the _comtés_, which corresponded to the _civitates_ of
the Romans, by the _comtes_, who were at once judges, generals, and
financial administrators, and the _ducs_ whose administrative province
included several _comtés_. The bishops already enjoyed very considerable
political power, and the rôle of the king in their election, by the
people and the clerks of their diocese, was confined to confirmation,--a
limitation which they very frequently disregarded.
In the edict, or perpetual constitution, drawn up by the assembly of
seventy-nine bishops and the _leudes_ or great vassals of the three
kingdoms, held at Paris in 615, the interference of the king in the
election of the bishops was expressly forbidden, and his authority was
in many other matters seriously impaired in favor of the double
aristocracy, ecclesiastical and military, which was strengthening
itself. With the unworthy sons of the "good king Dagobert" this
authority gradually disappeared entirely under the rising power of the
mayors of the palace, who succeeded in making their office hereditary
under an Austrasian family, that of the Carlovingians, already powerful
in their own right.
Charlemagne's court was constituted much in the same manner as that of
the Mérovingians: his royal officers included bishops, comtes, ducs,
_missi dominici_, any of whom were eligible for the council that could
at need be transformed into a tribunal to judge the causes of the
Francs. The efforts of this monarch to repress the persistent progress
of the aristocracy were more intelligent and successful than those of
his successors, but the general movement of society was in their favor.
Charles le Chauve, desirous of obtaining the imperial crown, which was
without an owner in 875, assembled his vassals at a diet at
Kiersy-sur-Oise and there signed a capitulaire which gave to the sons of
those of his comtes who followed him into Italy the right to succeed to
their fathers' titles. This formal recognition of a practice already
ancient deprived the king of the powers which he had once conferred.
[Illustration: THE YOUNG SAINT-LOUIS AND HIS MOTHER, BLANCHE OF
CASTILLE, DELIVERING ECCLESIASTICAL PRISONERS FROM NOTRE-DAME.