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A ''parlement'' (), under the French
Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...
, was a provincial
appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...
of the
Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. ...
. In 1789, France had 13 parlements, the oldest and most important of which was the Parlement of Paris. While both the modern French term ''parlement'' (for the legislature) and the English word ''
parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
'' derive from this French term, the Ancien Régime parlements were not legislative bodies and the modern and ancient terminology are not interchangeable.


History

Parlements were judicial organizations consisting of a dozen or more appellate judges, or about 1,100 judges nationwide. They were the courts of final appeal of the judicial system, and typically wielded power over a wide range of subjects, particularly taxation. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until the parlements gave their assent by publishing them. The members of the parlements were aristocrats, called nobles of the robe, who had bought or inherited their offices, and were independent of the King. Sovereign councils () with analogous attributes, more rarely called high councils () or in one instance sovereign court (), were created in new territories (notably in New France). Some of these were eventually replaced by parlements (e.g. the
Sovereign Council of Navarre and Béarn The Sovereign Council of Navarre and Béarn () was created by Henry II of NavarreLaussat (1871), p. 16(in French)/ref> at the Château de Pau on 13 June 1519, replacing the Cour Majour which was disbanded in 1490. It functioned as a ''Conseil d' ...
and the Sovereign Court of Lorraine and Barrois). As noted by James Stephen: From 1770 to 1774 the
Chancellor of France In France, under the ''Ancien Régime'', the officer of state responsible for the judiciary was the Chancellor of Francesometimes called Grand Chancellor or Lord Chancellor (french: Chancelier de France). The Chancellor was responsible for seei ...
, Maupeou, tried to abolish the Parlement of Paris in order to strengthen the Crown. However, when King
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
died in 1774, the parlements were reinstated. The parlements spearheaded the aristocracy's resistance to the absolutism and centralization of the Crown, but they worked primarily for the benefit of their own class, the French nobility. Alfred Cobban argues that the parlements were the chief obstacles to any reform before the Revolution, as well as the most formidable enemies of the French Crown. He concludes that the
Parlement of Paris, though no more in fact than a small, selfish, proud and venal oligarchy, regarded itself, and was regarded by public opinion, as the guardian of the constitutional liberties of France.
In November 1789, early in the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, all the parlements were suspended.


Name

The
Old French Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
word ''parlement'' is derived from the verb ''parler'' ('to speak') + suffix ''-(e)ment'', and originally meant a "speaking". It is attested with the meaning of "deliberating assembly" as early as , and passed into English with this meaning. The meaning then became more specialized in French during the 13th century, to refer to the "''curia regis'' in judicial session; sovereign court of justice" until the end of the ''
Ancien Régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...
''. (The sense of "legislative assembly" or "legislative body" was used in English, ''
parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
,'' in the 14th century.)


Origin

The first parlement in Ancien Régime France developed in the 13th century out of the King's Council (french: Conseil du roi, link=no, la, curia regis), and consequently enjoyed ancient, customary consultative and deliberative prerogatives.
Philippe le Bel Philip IV (April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called Philip the Fair (french: Philippe le Bel), was King of France from 1285 to 1314. By virtue of his marriage with Joan I of Navarre, he was also King of Navarre as Philip I from 12 ...
was the first to fix this court to Paris, in 1302, officially severing it from the King's Council in 1307. The Parlement of Paris would hold sessions inside the medieval
royal palace This is a list of royal palaces, sorted by continent. Africa * Abdin Palace, Cairo * Al-Gawhara Palace, Cairo * Koubbeh Palace, Cairo * Tahra Palace, Cairo * Menelik Palace * Jubilee Palace * Guenete Leul Palace * Imperial Palace- ...
on the Île de la Cité, nowadays still the site in Paris of the Hall of Justice. The parlement also had the duty to record all royal edicts and laws. By the 15th century the Parlement of Paris had a right of "remonstrance to the king" (a formal statement of grievances), which was at first simply of an advisory nature. In the meantime, the jurisdiction of the Parlement of Paris had been covering the entire kingdom as it was in the 14th century, but did not automatically advance in step with the Crown's ever expanding realm. In 1443, following the turmoil of the
Hundred Years' War The Hundred Years' War (; 1337–1453) was a series of armed conflicts between the kingdoms of England and France during the Late Middle Ages. It originated from disputed claims to the French throne between the English House of Plantagen ...
, King
Charles VII of France Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious (french: le Victorieux) or the Well-Served (), was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. In the midst of the Hundred Years' War, Charles VII inherited the throne of F ...
granted
Languedoc The Province of Languedoc (; , ; oc, Lengadòc ) is a former province of France. Most of its territory is now contained in the modern-day region of Occitanie in Southern France. Its capital city was Toulouse. It had an area of approximately ...
its own parlement by establishing the Parlement of Toulouse, the first parlement outside Paris; its jurisdiction extended over most of southern France. From 1443 until the French Revolution, several other parlements would be steadily created all over France ; these locations were provincial capitals of those
provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
with strong historical traditions of independence before they were annexed to France (in some of these regions, provincial States-General also continued to meet and legislate with a measure of self-governance and control over taxation within their jurisdiction).


16th and 17th centuries

Over time, some parlements, especially the one in Paris, gradually acquired the habit of using their right of remonstrance to refuse to register legislation, which they adjudged as either untimely or contrary to the local customary law (and there were 300 customary law jurisdictions), until the king held a '' lit de justice'' or sent a '' lettre de jussion'' to force them to act. By the 16th century, the parlement judges were of the opinion that their role included active participation in the legislative process, which brought them into increasing conflict with the ever increasing monarchical
absolutism Absolutism may refer to: Government * Absolute monarchy, in which a monarch rules free of laws or legally organized opposition * Absolutism (European history), period c. 1610 – c. 1789 in Europe ** Enlightened absolutism, influenced by the En ...
of the Ancien Régime, as the ''lit de justice'' evolved during the 16th century from a constitutional forum to a royal weapon, used to force registration of edicts. The transmission of judicial offices had also been a common practice in France since the late Middle Ages; tenure on the court was generally bought from the royal authority; and such official positions could be made hereditary by paying a tax to the King called ''la paulette''. Assembled in the parlements, the largely hereditary members, the provincial nobles of the robe were the strongest decentralizing force in a France that was more multifarious in its legal systems, taxation, and custom than it might have seemed under the apparent unifying rule of its kings. Nevertheless, the Parlement of Paris had the largest jurisdiction of all the parlements, covering the major part of northern and central France, and was simply known as "the parlement".


The Fronde

The Parlement of Paris played a major role in stimulating the nobility to resist the expansion of royal power by military force during the
Fronde The Fronde () was a series of civil wars in France between 1648 and 1653, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. King Louis XIV confronted the combined opposition of the princes, the nobility, the law cour ...
, 1648–1649. In the end, King
Louis XIV Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
won out and the nobility was humiliated. The parlements' ability to withhold their assent by formulating remonstrances against the king's edicts forced the king to react, sometimes resulting in repeated resistance by the parlements, which the king could only terminate in his favour by issuing a ''lettre de jussion'', and, in case of continued resistance, appearing in person in the parlement: the '' lit de justice''. In such a case, the parlement's powers were suspended for the duration of this royal session.
King Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...
moved to centralize authority into his own hands, imposing certain restrictions on the parlements: in 1665, he ordained that a ''lit de justice'' could be held without the king having to appear in person; in 1667, he limited the number of remonstrances to only one. In 1671–1673, however, the parlements resisted the taxes needed to fund the
Franco-Dutch War The Franco-Dutch War, also known as the Dutch War (french: Guerre de Hollande; nl, Hollandse Oorlog), was fought between France and the Dutch Republic, supported by its allies the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Brandenburg-Prussia and Denmark-Nor ...
. In 1673, the king imposed additional restrictions that stripped the parlements of any influence upon new laws by ordaining that remonstrances could only be issued after registration of the edicts. After Louis' death in 1715, all the restrictions were discontinued by the regent, although some of the judges of the Parlement of Paris accepted royal bribes to restrain that body until the 1750s.


Role leading to the French Revolution

After 1715, during the reigns of
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
and
Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
, the parlements repeatedly challenged the crown for control over policy, especially regarding taxes and religion. Furthermore, the parlements had taken the habit of passing ''arrêts de règlement'', which were laws or regulatory decrees that applied within their jurisdiction for the application of royal edicts or of customary practices. At a session of the Parlement of Paris in 1766 known as the Flagellation Session, Louis XV asserted that sovereign power resided in his person only. In the years immediately before the start of the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
in 1789, their extreme concern to preserve Ancien Régime institutions of noble privilege prevented France from carrying out many simple reforms, especially in the area of taxation, even when those reforms had the support of the king. Chancellor René Nicolas de Maupeou sought to reassert royal power by suppressing the parlements in 1770. His famous attempts, known as Maupeou's Reform, resulted in a furious battle and failure. Parlements were disbanded and their members arrested. After Louis XV died, the parlements were restored. The beginning of the proposed radical changes began with the protests of the Parlement of Paris addressed to Louis XVI in March 1776, in which the Second Estate, the nobility, resisted the beginning of certain reforms that would remove their privileges, notably their exemption from taxes. The objections were made in reaction to the essay, ''Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses'' ("Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth") by
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de l'Aulne ( ; ; 10 May 172718 March 1781), commonly known as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Originally considered a physiocrat, he is today best remembered as an early advocate for economic libe ...
. The Second Estate reacted to the essay with anger to convince the king that the nobility still served a very important role and still deserved the same privileges of tax exemption as well as for the preservation of the guilds and corporations put in place to restrict trade, both of which were eliminated in the reforms proposed by Turgot. In their remonstrance against the edict suppressing the
corvée Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year. Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of ...
(March 1776), the Parlement of Paris – afraid that a new tax would replace the corvée, and that this tax would apply to all, introducing equality as a principle – dared to remind the king:
The personal service of the clergy is to fulfill all the functions relating to education and religious observances and to contribute to the relief of the unfortunate through its alms. The noble dedicates his blood to the defense of the state and assists the sovereign with his counsel. The last class of the nation, which cannot render such distinguished service to the state, fulfills its obligation through taxes, industry, and physical labor.
The Second Estate (the nobility) consisted of approximately 1.5% of France's population, and was exempt from almost all taxes, including the Corvée Royale, which was a recent mandatory service in which the roads would be repaired and built by those subject to the corvée. In practice, anyone who paid a small fee could escape the corvée, so this burden of labor fell only to the poorest in France. The Second Estate was also exempt from the '' gabelle'', which was the unpopular tax on salt, and also the '' taille'', a land tax paid by peasants, and the oldest form of taxation in France. The Second Estate feared that it would have to pay the tax replacing the suppressed corvée. The nobles saw this tax as especially humiliating and below them, as they took great pride in their titles and their lineage, which often included those who had died in the defense of France. They saw this elimination of tax privilege as the gateway for more attacks on their rights and urged Louis XVI throughout the protests of the Parlement of Paris not to enact the proposed reforms. These exemptions, as well as the right to wear a sword and their coat of arms, encouraged the idea of a natural superiority over the commoners that was common through the Second Estate, and as long as any noble was in possession of a fiefdom, he could collect a tax on the Third Estate called Feudal Dues, which would allegedly be for the Third Estate's protection (though this only applied to serfs and tenants of farmland owned by the nobility). Overall, the Second Estate had vast privileges that the Third Estate did not possess, which in effect protected the Second Estate's wealth and property, while hindering the Third Estate's ability to advance. The reforms proposed by Turgot and argued against in the protests of the Parlement of Paris conflicted with the Second Estates' interests to keep their hereditary privileges, and was the first step toward reform that seeped into the political arena. Turgot's reforms were unpopular among the commoners as well, who saw the parlements as their best defense against the power of the monarchy.


List of parlements and sovereign councils of the Kingdom of France

; 1789


Judicial proceedings

In civil trials, judges had to be paid ''épices'' (literally "spices" – fees) by the parties, to pay for legal advice taken by the judges, and the costs of their staff. Judges were not allowed to ask for, or receive, épices from the poor. Regarding criminal justice, the proceedings were markedly archaic. Judges could order suspects to be
torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
d in order to extract confessions or induce them to reveal the names of their
accomplice Under the English common law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the telle ...
s: there were the ''question ordinaire'' ("ordinary questioning"), the ordinary form of torture, and the ''question extraordinaire'' ("extraordinary questioning"), with increased brutality. There was little
presumption of innocence The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must presen ...
if the suspect was a mere poor
commoner A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...
. The death sentence could be pronounced for a variety of crimes including mere
theft Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for som ...
; depending on the crime and the social class of the victim, death could be by
decapitation Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the i ...
with a
sword A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed ti ...
(for nobles),
hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...
(for most of the secondary crimes by commoners), the
breaking wheel The breaking wheel or execution wheel, also known as the Wheel of Catherine or simply the Wheel, was a torture method used for public execution primarily in Europe from antiquity through the Middle Ages into the early modern period by breakin ...
(for some heinous crimes by commoners). Some crimes, such as
regicide Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...
, exacted even more horrific punishment, as
drawing and quartering To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III ( ...
. With the spread of enlightenment ideas throughout France, most forms of judicial torture had fallen out of favor, and while they remained on the books, were rarely applied after 1750. Ultimately, judicial torture and cruel methods of executions were abolished in 1788 by King
Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
.


Abolition

The parlements were abolished by the National Constituent Assembly on 6 September 1790. The behavior of the parlements is one of the reasons that since the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
, French courts have been forbidden by Article 5 of the French civil code to create law and act as legislative bodies, their only mandate being to interpret the law. France, through the Napoleonic Code, was at the origin of the modern system of civil law, in which precedents are not as powerful as in countries of
common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...
. The origin of the separation of powers in the French court system, with no rule of precedent outside the interpretation of the law, no single supreme court and no constitutional review of statutes by courts until 1971 (by action, before the
Constitutional Council of France The Constitutional Council (french: Conseil constitutionnel; ) is the highest constitutional authority in France. It was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958 to ensure that constitutional principles and rules ...
created in 1958) and 2010 (by exception, before any court) is usually traced to that hostility towards "government by judges".Denis Tallon, John N. Hazard, George A. Bermann, ''The Constitution and the Courts in France'', The American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Autumn, 1979)
pp. 567–587
/ref>


Notes


References


Further reading

* Cobban, Alfred. "The Parlements of France in the eighteenth century." ''History'' 35.123 (1950): 64–80. * Collins, James B. ''The state in early modern France'' (
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...
, 1995) * Doyle, William. "The Parlements of France and the Breakdown of the Old Regime 1771–1788." ''French Historical Studies'' (1970): 415–45
in JSTOR
* Holt, Mack P. "The King in Parliament: The Problem of the Lit de Justice in Sixteenth-Century France" ''Historical Journal'' (September 1988) 31#3 pp :507–523). * Holt, Mack P., ed. ''Society and Institutions in Early Modern France'' (1991) * Hurt, John J. ''Louis XIV and the Parlements: The Assertion of Royal Authority'' (
Manchester University Press Manchester University Press is the university press of the University of Manchester, England and a publisher of academic books and journals. Manchester University Press has developed into an international publisher. It maintains its links with t ...
, 2002
online
* Jones, Colin. ''The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon'' (2003) * Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. ''The Ancien Regime: A History of France, 1610–1774'' (1998)


In French

* Bluche, François. ''L'Ancien régime: Institutions et société''. Collection: Livre de poche. Paris: Fallois, 1993. * Jouanna, Arlette and Jacqueline Boucher, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Thiec. ''Histoire et dictionnaire des Guerres de Religion''. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 1998. * Pillorget, René and Suzanne Pillorget. ''France Baroque, France Classique 1589-1715''. Collection: Bouquins. Paris: Laffont, 1995. *

{{French Revolution navbox Kingdom of France French Revolution Political history of the Ancien Régime * Ancien Régime