The Capétiens were also elected to the throne, but the Roman tradition,
preserved by the Church, recognized in their accession to power "a
decree of Providence," and the _sovereign_ was recognized in the feudal
suzerain, "even when he was not obeyed." The great royal officers, the
_Ministerium regale_, included the Chancelier, who signed the state
papers; the Sénéchal, a species of mayor of the palace, of which he had
charge of the service; the Connétable, chief of the royal stables and,
later, head of the military forces; the Chambrier, keeper of the
treasury and the archives; the Bouteillier, who administered the
vineyards and the revenues of the royal domains. All these high offices
were made the objects of persistent attempts on the part of the holders
to retain them as hereditary privileges. In the eleventh, as in the
sixth century, we find three classes of society in Gaul, the
Gallo-Romans,--the barbarians,--the _clercs_,--the Church being replaced
by the seigneurs,--and the serfs, each with its own organization and
manners and customs and, in a certain degree, its peculiar language and
literature. The first two were rich, active, and powerful; the last,
poor and oppressed. There were three species of jurisdiction exercised
by the seigneurs, high, medium, and lower, though some of them had the
right only to the last two; these distinctions were frequently regulated
by the quality of the accused, and were definitely determined only in
succeeding centuries. The right to administer high justice carried with
it that of executing death-sentences, and the pillory and the gibbet,
erected near the château, were the visible evidences of this power. The
bishops and the abbots had the same rights as the seigneurs, even to the
extent of donning armor and combating in person if they so willed.
The obligations of the _vilains_, or serfs, included a long list of
services, taxes, and obligations of all kinds; in the cities, and
wherever possible, the seigneurs were in the habit of requiring payment
in money. There was for them a civil as well as a penal law, the _loi
vilaine_. They had, however, the right of appeal to the suzerain against
the decision of their seigneurs, and Saint-Louis favored these appeals
to his own court as tending to subordinate the seigneurial justice to
his own. In this royal court a change was taking place,--to the great
officers of the crown were now added _légistes_, as the procedures were
based upon written precedent, and these bookish personages, at first
treated with contempt by the nobles, gradually assumed the leading rôle
as their familiarity with the records and their legal knowledge
triumphed over the ignorant assurance of their betters.
In the thirteenth century, "the great revolutionist is the king, as the
aristocracy had been before Hugues Capet, as the people will be after
Louis XIV.... The royal authority had overthrown a great many barriers,
and it was marching with great strides toward absolute power. It had
imposed upon its turbulent vassals the king's peace, the king's justice,
the king's coinage, and it enacted laws for all." In the character of
Saint-Louis, "the spirit of justice which is in the Roman law was well
combined with his Christian sentiments. When he condemned, for example,
the judicial duel, he did so because _combat is not a means of
justice_,--this is the Roman conception, and because it is to
_criminally tempt God_,--this is the Christian spirit." The
enfranchisement of the serfs, which received so great an impulse in this
century, was largely brought about by a somewhat similar combination of
just impulses and of practical motives,--the latter being frankly
expressed by Beaumanoir and in several charters of the period.
The feudal court of the king had the double character of a council and
of a court of justice; with the growth of the royal authority the
functions of this court naturally increased, and it became necessary to
divide them,--there was accordingly constituted the political court, or
grand council, and the judicial court, or Parlement. Philippe le Bel,
who was far more of an innovator than even Saint-Louis, first gave the
latter a distinct organization. It was to sit twice a year at Paris,
two months at a time, in the Palais de la Cité, which, in 1303, took the
name of the Palais de Justice. The monarch counted upon his sovereign
court of justice, which extended its jurisdiction over the whole
kingdom, to bring the nation definitely under the royal authority. As
the Parlement had been separated from the _Grand Conseil_, or royal
court, so was there separated from it the _Chambre des Comptes_, charged
with the administration of the finances. With this monarch also
originated the institution of the _ministère public_, or magistrates
charged, in all legal cases, with the defence of the rights of the king
and of the public welfare.
[Illustration: CASTELLAN. REIGN OF LOUIS XIII. After a drawing by Adrian
Moreau.]
But the most important measure of the administration of this reign was
the convocation, in 1302, of the first States-General. "The _États
Généraux_ of Philippe le Bel," says Michelet, "constituted the national
era of France, its certificate of birth." Despotic as he was, the king
found himself under the necessity of seeking the support of the people
for aid in his enterprises and to sustain him against the intolerable
claims of the Papacy. The _Assemblées Générales_, in which the bishops
met with the seigneurs, had been convoked as early as the reign of Pepin
le Bref, in the middle of the eighth century, but in the _États
Généraux_ the sons of vilains took their seats with nobles and clergy.
And very loyally they came to the aid of the monarch, not only in
granting him the right to levy subsidies on the Church, but also in
protesting against the bull of excommunication which Boniface VIII had
launched against the king and the nation, and which Philippe had caused
to be publicly burned on the 11th of February, 1302. It was unanimously
declared that "the kings recognized no sovereign on the earth excepting
God, and that it was an abomination to hear Boniface maintain that the
kingdoms were subject to him, not only spiritually but temporally."
Under Philippe V, the _États Généraux_ were convoked three times, and
the regularity of their sittings thus seemingly established; this
monarch also, following the procedure established under Louis XI, 1462,
excluded the clergy from the Parlement, in order that he might have
there only docile members. They re-entered it later under the name of
_conseillers clercs_. In 1318 was created the _Conseil étroit_, or
Council of State, which was the deliberative power, as the officers of
the crown and the _clercs du secret_, from whom were selected later the
secretaries of State, constituted the executive power. In the reign of
Philippe VI, in 1338, the great principle of "taxation without
representation is tyranny" was openly proclaimed in a meeting of the
_États Généraux_, and the monarchs henceforth found themselves
constrained to wage a varying struggle against this claim of the
representatives of the nation to be consulted before the levying of
imposts upon them. In the Dark Ages, now fast drawing to a close, three
great principles had been promulgated which were to survive through many
tribulations to the present day,--that no tax could be imposed without
the consent of those who were to pay it; that no law could be enacted if
it were not accepted by the representatives of those who were to obey
it; that no judgment was legal unless rendered by the peers of the
accused.
By an ordinance of Philippe VI, dated March 11, 1344, the personnel of
the Parlement was fixed at three presidents and seventy-eight
conseillers, appointed; of the latter, forty-four were ecclesiastics,
and thirty-four, laymen. It was subsequently divided into seven
chambers, the _grand'chambre_, the _chambre criminelle_, or _la
Tourelle_, three _chambres des enquêtes_, and two _chambres des
requêtes_. The first took cognizance of the important causes which
concerned the State, the city, and the corporations; the criminal
chamber sat in appeal on judgments rendered in the criminal courts
(after 1515 it was given general jurisdiction); the three _chambres des
enquêtes_ decided upon the validity of appeals addressed to the
Parlement, and decided as a court of last resort in processes which
entailed punishments by fine; the two _chambres des requêtes_ judged
personal suits between officers of the royal household and others who,
by their rank, were entitled to be judged by the Parlement. The second
_chambre des requêtes_ was instituted in 1580; they were both suppressed
at the establishment of the Parlement Maupeou, in 1771. When Louis XIV
recalled the Parlement, he established only a single _chambre
d'enquête_. In 1546, the members of the Parlement enjoyed the privilege
of hereditary nobility. They had the precedence over all other
constituted authorities.
When the disastrous war with England broke out, under Jean le Bon, this
monarch assembled at Paris the three orders of the kingdom, the clergy,
the nobility, and the bourgeoisie, the latter having for their leader
the _prévôt_ of the merchants of Paris, Étienne Marcel. The equipment of
an army of thirty thousand men was authorized, and a levy of five
millions of livres parisis for their maintenance during a year, this
money to be raised by means of the _gabelle_, the tax on salt, and an
impost of eight deniers per pound upon everything sold, to be levied
impartially upon all three orders, even the royal family not to be
exempt, but--warned by past experience--the _États Généraux_ demanded
that the funds should remain in the hands of receivers appointed by
them, and responsible to them only, and appointed a commission of nine
of their members to supervise this measure. "This was nothing less than
a revolution, for to vote and to collect the tax, to regulate it, and to
supervise its distribution, this was to exercise one of the important
functions of sovereignty. The deputies of 1355 began by going further
than has been gone in our days under the constitutional monarchies, even
under the republics."
Ten days after the battle of Poitiers, the dauphin Charles returned to
Paris and convoked the _États Généraux_, who opened their second session
on the 17th of October, 1356. This time, their demands were so increased
that the dauphin, in dismay, adjourned their sittings, but the royal
treasury was empty, and he was obliged to assemble them again on the 5th
of the following February. The Bishop of Laon, Robert le Coq, made
himself the mouthpiece of their just grievances, and was so well
sustained by the _prévôt_, Étienne Marcel, and by Jean de Picquigny,
in the name of the nobles, that resistance was impossible, and the
_grande ordonnance_ of 1357, in sixty-one articles, provided for
sweeping reforms in the administration, in the finances, in the army, in
the courts of law, and in the arbitrary exercise of their prerogatives
by the officers of the crown. But on this occasion Paris was in advance
of the rest of the nation, and the period was, moreover, most
inopportune.
[Illustration: ANCIENT HOTEL OF THE PRÉVOT OF PARIS, PASSAGE
CHARLEMAGNE, IN THE RUE SAINT-ANTOINE.
In 1559, the Comte de Montgommery was imprisoned in the octagonal tower,
after accidentally mortally wounding Henri II.]
Charles V, called _Le Sage_, the son of Jean le Bon, in the midst of the
numerous judicious and enlightened measures which characterized his
reign, was guilty of some tyrannical and injudicious ones, and among the
latter may be cited his giving to the members of the Parlement for their
pay the fines which they inflicted in the course of their judgments. In
the reign of his son, called _Le Fou_, the office of _prévôt_ of the
merchants, with all its jurisdiction, and those of the _échevins_, or
aldermen of the city, were suppressed by letters patent, dated January
27, 1383; the king took possession of the revenues and public funds of
the city, and all the exercise of jurisdiction of the Hôtel de Ville was
transferred to the _prévôt de Paris_ or to his lieutenant. The upper
bourgeoisie were decimated and ruined in punishment for their rising
against the young king and his uncles. Five years later, Charles VI
decreed that the authority of the _prévôt_ extended through the nation,
and that he should be empowered to search malefactors anywhere in the
kingdom; this power was confirmed by Charles VII in 1447. The ordinances
of the _prévôt_ relative to the provisioning of Paris were also valid
everywhere, so that the central authority of the Parisian police became
supreme. The _prévôt_ was present at the royal sittings, and took his
place below the grand chamberlain; he walked at the head of the
nobility, enjoyed the privilege of covering himself after the calling
of the first case, a privilege reserved for dukes and peers; he assigned
the peers in the criminal cases, and was entitled to twelve guards,
called _sergents à la douzaine_. On his installation in his office, he
presented a horse to the president of the Parlement; his costume
consisted of a short robe with a cloak, the collar turned down, a sword,
a hat with plumes, and he carried his bâton of office covered with cloth
of silver.
He was also charged with the preservation of the privileges of the
University, and it was for this reason, as prescribed in the ordinance
of 1200, that he took his oath of office between the hands of the rector
of the University. In 1613, the _prévôt_, Louis Seguier, refused to
observe this formality. He had under his orders a civil lieutenant
charged with the jurisdiction of civil affairs in the first hearing,
and, later, of particular civil and criminal lieutenants; these
magistrates had the direction of the police until 1667, when there was
created a _conseiller lieutenant-général_ of police. The municipal
police of Paris absorbed successively various jurisdictions which had
previously existed, and the _prévôt_ administered this force in the
interests of the public order.
Nevertheless, the disorder in the municipal administration became so
great that Charles VI, by an edict dated January 27, 1411, restored to
the _bourgeois_, _manants_, and _habitants_ of his "good city of Paris"
the _prevosté des marchands et eschevinage, clergie, maison de la ville,
parlouer aux bourgeois, jurisdiction, coertion, cognoissance, rentes,
revenus, possessions quelconques, droits, honneurs, noblesses,
prerogatives, franchises, libertez et prévillèges_, to have and to hold
forever, as they had done before.
[Illustration: FAÇADE OF THE NEW PALAIS DE JUSTICE, VIEWED FROM THE
PLACE DAUPHINE. JOSEPH-LOUIS-DUC, ARCHITECT.]
It was under this king that there was brought before the Parlement an
important case, related at length by all the chroniclers of the time,
and which may serve to illustrate the nature of the administration of
justice. A certain Norman gentleman, Jean de Carrouges, residing in the
château d'Argenteuil, near Alençon, having occasion to go on a journey,
left his young wife at home. One of his neighbors, Jacques Le Gris,
having heard of her beauty, presented himself at the castle and asked to
be permitted to visit the donjon. He was cordially welcomed, invited to
dinner, and the Dame de Carrouges herself conducted him to the tower.
Once there, the visitor suddenly fastened the door behind them and then
proceeded to avow his passion to the lady; indignantly repulsed, he
threw himself upon her and inflicted upon her the last of outrages.
Then, rushing down the stairs, he leaped upon his horse and effected his
escape. When the Sire de Carrouges returned, he appealed for redress to
the Comte d'Alençon, his suzerain and that of Le Gris; the comte
summoned all the parties before him, but the accused gentleman stoutly
proclaimed his innocence and endeavored to establish an alibi. The
comte, unable to decide, referred the case to the Parlement at Paris;
the trial lasted eighteen months, and the Parlement finally decided that
the lady could prove nothing against Le Gris excepting on a field of
combat _jusqu'à outrance_.
The king, who was then at L'Ecluse, a town in Holland, with his barons,
preparing to pass over into England, returned to Paris when he heard of
the decree of the Parlement, followed by his uncles, the Ducs de Berry,
de Bourgogne, and de Bourbon, and a number of other seigneurs who had
also "a great desire" to witness this judicial duel. The lists were
arranged in the Place Sainte-Catherine, behind the Temple, on the 29th
of December, 1386; the king and all his court were present, seated in
galleries, and a great crowd of people thronged all the available
surroundings. The two adversaries were armed from head to foot;
Carrouges approached his wife, arrayed in deep mourning and seated in a
chair draped in black.
"Lady," he said to her, "upon your assertion I am about to adventure my
life and combat Jacques Le Gris. You know whether my quarrel is just and
loyal."
"Monseigneur," she replied, "it is so, and you combat safely, for the
quarrel is righteous."
"In the name of God, so be it!" replied the knight.
Then, embracing her, he took her hand, crossed himself, and entered the
lists, while the lady remained kneeling in her black chair, praying
fervently.
The two men took their oaths, one, of the truth of his accusation, the
other, of his innocence; then they proceeded to their places at the
extremities of the lists and waited for the signal; when it was given,
they advanced toward each other, walking their horses, and attacked with
their swords. Carrouges was the first to be wounded, seriously in the
thigh, and he lost so much blood that the spectators feared for him;
however, rallying all his forces, he assailed his enemy so vigorously
that he succeeded in seizing him by his helmet and throwing him to the
ground. Dismounting in his turn and maintaining his advantage, he
endeavored to make Le Gris confess his guilt in the prospect of certain
death; the latter maintained his innocence, but as he was vanquished he
was adjudged culpable, and Carrouges thrust his sword through his body.
Then, turning toward the spectators, he demanded of them if he had
loyally done his duty. "Yes," they replied. After which he knelt before
the king, who caused him to be raised, and gave him a post in the royal
chamber with an annual allowance of two hundred livres. Carrouges
thanked the monarch, then turned toward his wife, kissed her, and they
both proceeded to Notre-Dame, where they made their offerings and
returned to their hotel. The body of Le Gris was delivered to the public
executioner, who dragged it on a hurdle to the gibbet of Montfaucon,
where it was hung in chains.
A decree of the Parlement subsequently granted to Carrouges the sum of
six thousand livres, to be taken from the property of Le Gris. But, some
time later, a criminal, condemned to death for other offences, confessed
that he was guilty of the outrage on the Dame de Carrouges, having
assumed the name of Le Gris and profited by a certain resemblance which
he bore to that unhappy gentleman. The lady, filled with remorse, sought
refuge in a convent after the death of her husband, and took the vows of
perpetual chastity.
Under Charles VII, in 1443, took place the first division of the
authority of the Parlement, which, however, had been long preparing. The
preceding year, the king had made an expedition into Gascogne and
Languedoc; on his retiral he left behind him "that which was worth more
than an army," a parlement established in Toulouse with jurisdiction
over all of Languedoc and the duchy of Guyenne. Ten years later, the
dauphin created in his appanage the Parlement of Grenoble. The double
jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris at this period is thus defined:
"First, it sat in judgment on _causes spéciales_, those of the peers of
France and of the royal domain, those of _régale_ (right possessed by
the crown to receive the income of a vacant bishopric), and those of
individuals who had received by letters of _committimus_ the right to be
judged by it; second, it received appeals from all the inferior
jurisdictions, the royal, seigneurial, ecclesiastic, and university
tribunals. In addition, it deliberated on a multitude of administrative
matters, and, under pretext of interpreting the ordinances, rendered
decrees which were veritable acts of legislation. The royal ordinances
having the validity of laws only when enregistered by the Parlement, it
frequently refused this _enregistrement_, and sometimes thus checked the
royal authority. Finally, it frequently exercised the right of making
_remontrances_, not only against the ordinary ordinances, but against
treaties with foreign powers, particularly concerning the papal bulls,
which led to its exercising a superior superintendence over the entire
government of the Church in France. These divers powers gave the
Parlement of Paris a very high position in the State, and it will be
frequently seen intervening in public affairs."
[Illustration: CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. PALAIS DE BOURBON PERISTYLE FACING
QUAI. DESIGNED BY GIRARDIN AND POSSET.]
Under Louis XI, there were parlements at Grenoble, Bordeaux, and Dijon;
greater freedom of appeal from the decisions of the seigneurial
tribunals to the court of the king, and the magistrates were relieved
from the fear of removal from office. We have already seen instances of
the affability of this monarch toward the bourgeoisie of Paris, and his
not unsuccessful attempts to identify himself with them; the tangible
benefits which he bestowed upon them were quite sufficient to win their
gratitude. Their offices were rendered immovable, they were exempted
from all taxation, their assemblies were authorized, the free election
of their magistrates, their city was carefully fortified, they were
armed to the number of sixty or eighty thousand men; he permitted them
to acquire, by purchase, the right which the nobles had to command the
_guet_, and to the noblesse was given the exercise of certain municipal
offices.
The _États Généraux_ of 1484, during the minority of Charles VIII, are
considered to have been the first of the truly representative national
assemblies, even the peasants in the most distant communes being
represented. The number of problems presented by the exigencies of the
government was formidable; during the royal session, Jean de Rely, canon
and deputy of Paris, addressed the monarch in an eloquent discourse,
half Latin and half French, bristling with texts and citations, then he
commenced to read the list of grievances demanding redress; he read
bravely for three hours, when it was perceived that the young king was
sound asleep, and the sitting was adjourned for two days. Neither
François I nor his son Henri II had any desire to appear before the
assembled representatives of the nation; the former replaced the _États
Généraux_ by a mixed assembly of notables and deputies of Bourgogne in
1526, and in the following year by an assembly of notables at Paris,
which sanctioned his violation of the treaty of Madrid, and granted him
two millions of golden écus for the ransom of his sons, left as hostages
behind him, but it took no part in the affairs of State. The Parlement
was not treated with any more consideration; a royal edict of 1523
divested the jurisdiction of the _prévôt_ and of the Châtelet of Paris
of all causes and matters of which it took cognizance in its quality as
conservator of the privileges of the University, and for the judgment of
these causes established a new bailiwick, of which the seat was to be
the Hôtel de Nesle, where there were appointed a bailiff, a lieutenant,
an avocat, a procureur du roi, twelve counsellors, an _audiencer_
[usher, or crier], a sous-audiencer, and twelve sergents. The Parlement
was much displeased at this diminution of its authority, and on the 9th
of March a formidable protest against the new edict was made before it
by the _prévôt_ of Paris, his lieutenants, civil and criminal, the
counsellors of the Châtelet, and all the other officers, sergents,
greffiers, huissiers, and officials of the University. When the king
heard of this demonstration, he sent to the Parlement the Sieur de la
Barre, gentleman of his chamber, to inform that body, once for all, that
when he granted letters patent it was understood that they were to be
enregistered, no matter what protests might be made against them. The
Parlement replied by appointing a commission to inquire concerning the
necessity of establishing a new bailiwick, and sent word to the monarch
that the members would inform themselves on the subject; on the 17th,
the Comte Saint-Paul appeared before them with an order directing the
immediate registering of the edict, and with the information that he
would assist at their deliberations in order to be able to inform his
royal master concerning those of them who permitted themselves to differ
from him in opinion. The decree was accordingly enregistered, and on the
30th of April the Chevalier Jean de la Barre presented himself before
the Parlement with the title and quality of Bailli de Paris. This
office, however, was suppressed in May, 1526, and its jurisdiction
reunited to that of the _prévôt_ and of the Châtelet. In 1527, the
Parlement was forbidden to interfere in any matters of State, or in
anything excepting what concerned the administration of justice; it was
permitted only to give advice regarding the perfecting of the laws. The
two most important legal monuments of this reign were the edict of
Crémieu, 1536, restricting the jurisdiction of the seigneurs, and that
of Villers-Cotterets, 1539, designed to put an end to the encroachments
of the tribunals of the bishops upon those of the king, and restricting
their competence to spiritual or ecclesiastical causes only. Of the
principal offices of the crown, four were held by men of legal lore,
_hommes de robe longue_,--that of grand chancellor, who held the royal
seal and without whose advice nothing important could be decided; that
of the secretaries of State; that of the presidents, counsellors,
avocats, and all those to whom the administration of civil and criminal
justice was confided throughout the realm, and that of the treasurers,
precepteurs and receivers who administered the royal revenues. The
superior officers of justice and finance enjoyed privileges of nobility
which, while still confining them to their rank in society, exempted
them from various imposts and charges.
[Illustration: MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, ON THE QUAI D'ORSAY.]
Henri II was obliged, after the loss of the battle of Saint-Quentin, in
August, 1557, to convene an assembly of notables, in which the members
of the Parlement sat apart, like a fourth order in the State, below the
nobles but above the _tiers état_. There were still survivals of the
feudal epoch in the administration,--the Connétable was invested with
authority over the army and the Grand Admiral over the fleet, but the
era of _ministries_ was beginning. "The _clercs du secret_, become
_sécretaires d'État_ (in 1547), had in charge the correspondence of the
king on all public affairs. An ordinance of Henri II, in 1547, fixed
their number at four, each of them corresponding with a quarter of the
provinces of the kingdom and a quarter of the foreign countries. The
special attributions are of a later date; thus, all the affairs of the
_maison du roi_ and, later, of ecclesiastical affairs, were assigned to
one of them. The other three were: in 1619 and in 1636, war; in 1626,
foreign affairs; under Louis XIV, the marine; which did not prevent them
from apportioning France geographically among themselves for those
affairs which remained common to them all. The Chancelier was chief of
the department of justice, and the Surintendant, of that of finances.
The police, that great arm of monarchical times, was commencing."
The Parlement of Paris, however, cannot, by any means, be presented
always as maintaining a more or less courageous stand for justice and
right. In the massacre of the Saint Bartholomew, for example, it was a
zealous coadjutor. The officers of the municipalité had prepared for
this great measure, the _prévôt_ of the merchants, summoned to the
Louvre, received from Charles IX orders to close all the gates of the
city and to have in readiness the captains, lieutenants, and bourgeois
in whom he had confidence. He promised "to put so many hands at the
mischief that it should be remembered." Rewards were given officially to
the archers who had aided in the massacre, to the ferrymen who had
prevented the Huguenots from crossing the river, to the grave-diggers of
Saint-Cloud, of Auteuil, and of Chaillot for having interred in a week
eleven hundred corpses. A municipal medal was struck in _mémoire du jour
de Saint Barthélemy_. The president of the Parlement, Christophe de
Thou, pronounced an eulogy on the prudence of the king which had saved
the nation from the misfortune of seeing the crown fall on the head of
the Prince of Condé, and, perhaps, on that of Admiral Coligny himself,
who had been ambitious enough to dream of seating himself on the throne
of France after having driven from it the king and ruined the royal
family. The Parlement, after deliberation, declared the admiral guilty
of the crime of lèse-majesté, ordered that his body, or at least his
effigy, should be dragged on a hurdle, attached to a gallows on the
Place de Grève and then to the gibbet of Montfaucon, that his memory
should be declared infamous and that his château of Châtillon-sur-Loing
should be razed. The headless body of the admiral was at that moment
swinging on the gibbet of Montfaucon.
In the religious wars that followed, the city paid dearly for this
wholesale murder. The population, during the siege by the King of
Navarre, was reduced to the last extremity of famine, even to
cannibalism, and when that monarch had retired from before the walls,
the horrors of anarchy and civil war succeeded. The Parlement, terrified
by the execution of the first president, Brisson, refused to sit, and,
when summoned to do so, replied to the agents of the _Seize_, the chiefs
of the sixteen quarters of Paris who had formed a council to aid the
work of the _Sainte Ligue_ of the Catholics, that they would return to
their functions only to hang those who had participated in the official
murder of the president. The Duc de Mayenne, summoned to the rescue of
public order, carried out these hangings in a summary manner; and the
first care of the Parlement, when a government was partially established
again, was to disarm the factious bourgeois.
Henri IV, who disputes with Dagobert in the legends of the people the
honor of being the most popular of the French kings, was not exclusively
the jovial monarch he is generally portrayed. His answer to some
remonstrances of the Parlement, which have been preserved, would have
been worthy of François I or Louis XIV. "My will should serve as a
reason. In an obedient State, reasons are never required of the prince.
I am king: I speak to you as a king; I desire to be obeyed." His
nomination of a governor of Paris was sufficiently scandalous: on the
death of the Sieur d'O, who held that office, the king sent to the Hôtel
de Ville to say that he would not appoint a successor, that he would
honor his good city of Paris by assuming that charge himself; the
Parlement, the next day, despatched several of its presidents and
members to thank the king for this great honor, and the gracious monarch
thereupon nominated as his lieutenant-general Antoine d'Estrées, the
father of his famous mistress.
[Illustration: OFFICIAL RESIDENCE OF THE PRESIDENT. ENTRANCE TO THE
PALAIS DE L'ÉLYSÉE FROM THE RUE DU FAUBOURG SAINT-HONORÉ.]
Nevertheless, so heavy and far-reaching a calamity was his assassination
by the senseless fanatic Ravaillac, that forerunner of the socialists
and anarchists of our own day, that a certain pitiless logic attends the
frightful sentence which was pronounced upon the murderer, and which was
carried out to the letter. Thirteen days after the fatal 14th of May,
1610, the Parlement pronounced the following judgment: "The Court, etc.,
after attentive consideration, declares that it has been that the Court
has declared and declares the aforesaid Ravaillac attainted and
convicted of the crime of lèse-majesté, divine and human, in the first
degree, for the very wicked, very abominable, and very detestable
parricide committed on the person of the late king Henri IV, of very
good and very laudable memory; in reparation of which it has condemned
and condemns him to make _amende honorable_ before the principal door of
the Church of Paris, to which he shall be led and conducted in a cart;
there, naked in his shirt, holding a burning torch of the weight of two
pounds, to say and to declare that, wickedly and treacherously, he
committed the very wicked, very abominable, and very detestable
parricide, and killed the aforesaid seigneur king with two strokes of a
knife in the body, of which he repents and for which he asks pardon of
God, of the king, and of justice. From there, conducted to the Place de
Grève, and, on a scaffold which shall be there erected, torn with
pinchers on the nipples, arms, thighs, and fleshy part of the legs, his
right hand, holding the knife with which he committed the aforesaid
parricide, burnt and consumed with fire of sulphur, and on the places
where he shall have been torn with pinchers shall be poured melted lead,
boiling oil, wax, and sulphur melted together. This having been done,
his body torn and dismembered by four horses, his members and his body
consumed by fire, reduced to ashes, scattered on the wind; has declared
and declares all his property confiscated to the king, orders that the
house in which he was born shall be demolished; the individual to whom
it belongs previously indemnified, no building to be ever afterward
erected on the site thereof, and that within fifteen days after the
publication of the present decree to the sound of trumpet and by public
crier in the city of Angoulesme his father and his mother shall quit the
kingdom, being forbidden to ever return therein under penalty of being
hanged and strangled without any form or process of law whatever. We
forbid his brothers and sisters, uncles, and others to bear hereafter
the name of Ravaillac, and we enjoin them to change it under the same
penalties; and to the substitute of the procureur-général du roi to
cause to be published and to execute the present decree, under penalty
of felony; and before the execution of the said Ravaillac ordains that
he shall be again put to the question for the revelation of the names of
his accomplices."
He was put to the question of "the boot" very thoroughly, but refused to
the last to admit that he had any accomplices; the prayers of the two
doctors of the Sorbonne who assisted at his execution were drowned by
the clamors of the crowd protesting that no offices of the Church should
attend the passing of the _méchant damné_, and the people themselves
aided the horses to tear him asunder.
Marie de Médicis, the second wife of Henri IV, after ten years of
entreaty, had succeeded in inducing the king to permit her to be crowned
as Queen of France on the day preceding his death; within two hours
after that event, she and the Duc d'Epernon had taken all the necessary
steps to secure the decree of the Parlement declaring her regent. The
judicious administrative measures of the Béarnais were to be reversed,
the reign of Italian favorites was to begin, events were to be
subordinated to persons, "as is nearly always the case when queens are
kings." Nevertheless, the Parlement remembered, when it was too late,
that she had recognized its right to dispose of the sovereign power.
The last reunion of the _États Généraux_ before the famous one of 1789
was held in 1614, and was marked by the usual dissensions among the
three orders. The nobles complained to the king of the insolence of the
_tiers état_ in asserting themselves to be the younger brothers of the
same great family; "there is between them and us the difference between
master and valet." The clergy refused to assume any portion of the
public burdens; "that would be to diminish the honor due to God."
Consequently, the president of the upper bourgeoisie, the _prévôt_ of
the merchants of Paris, Robert Miron, declared boldly to the king: "If
your Majesty does not provide for the reforms which the nation demands,
it is to be feared that despair will make the people aware of the fact
that the soldier is only a peasant bearing arms; that when the
vine-grower has taken up an arquebus, from the anvil which he was, he
will become the hammer." Nothing was done; the king's great minister,
Richelieu, was too much occupied with the direction of the foreign
affairs of the nation to occupy himself with reforms at home.
Louis XIII was but eight and a half years old at the date of his
father's assassination, and his melancholy, reserved, and suspicious
character bore the traces of that tragic event through life. His early
education was greatly neglected, excepting in the matter of floggings
for obstinacy and disobedience; as a king, it was said of him that "no
man loved God less, or feared the Prince of Darkness more." The weakness
and irresolution which are generally attributed to him were conspicuous
by their absence in his retention of his minister, notwithstanding the
constant cabals, intrigues, and menaces of his mother and her
adherents, and the famous "Day of the Dupes," in which they thought they
had finally attained their end, was followed by dismissal of the
Chancellor Marillac, and the trial and execution, on the Place de Grève,
of his brother, Marshal of France, for the misappropriation of funds for
the army,--"a matter of some hay, straw, stone, and chalk," he
exclaimed, "not enough to whip a valet for!"
[Illustration: DEPUTIES OF THE THIRD ESTATE, WAITING AT THE DOOR OF THE
SALLE DES SÉANCES, JUNE 23, 1789.