frenchfrenchFrench History1477-45420269-1191Oxford University Press10.1093/fh/crp072ArticlesThe Parlement of Paris and the Ordinances of Blois (1579)DaubresseSylvie**Sylvie Daubresse is ingénieur de recherche at the CNRS in Paris. She may be contacted at sylvie.daubresse@culture.gouv.fr. This article has been translated by Mark Greengrass12200927102009234446466© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of French History. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org2009The Parlement of Paris invested considerable time and energy in detailed consideration of the substantial reforming legislation that had emerged from the first Estates General of Blois (1576–77) and which formed the eventual Ordinances of Blois (1579). Using the registers of the Parlement of Paris and hitherto unexamined copies of associated remonstrances, this article assesses why they did so, focusing on the issues of ecclesiastical and judicial reform. By placing their intervention in the context of the response from the Parisian magistrates to the holding of other Estates General in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, it concludes that the sovereign court sought as much to uphold its exalted view of the ‘law of the realm’ and its own conception of reform, as to assert its independence from the Estates General or become a decisive intermediary in the dialogue between the crown and its subjects.Could the Parlement of Paris ever collaborate with the Estates General in the framing of reform legislation?1 On 23 November 1560, when two Parisian échevins asked the Parlement to despatch councillors to the Estates General shortly to be held at Orléans ‘pour adviser à deputer ceux qui seront et debvront estre envoyez de la part de lad. Ville’, the court replied in no uncertain terms that ‘[elle] n'en deputera point pour ce qu'il pourroit advenir que lad. Court congnoistroit par appel ou aultrement des choses appartenans aux doleances desd. Estats’. Sixteen years later, the Parlement continued to stand by its view and declared that ‘la forme ancienne accoustumée [doibt] estre gardée pour le faict des Estatz’.2 It refused to send deputies to the Estates on the grounds that it could not act as both judge and plaintiff.3On 2 August 1561, the Parlement was asked to validate the cahier that contained remonstrances from the Estates General held at Orléans from 13 December 1560 to 31 January 1561.4 This was the first time that doléances had been submitted for registration by the sovereign court. Where did such an initiative originate? It is clear that it arose within the Estates General itself, whose deputies thus subjected their acquiescence in royal demands for finance to the registration without modifications of the Ordinance of Orléans.5 They sought the Parlement's approbation for its measures, its juridical guarantee, not its opinion.The gens du roi, that is, the king's law officers, did nothing to hide their astonishment at this unusual way of proceeding. The written conclusions of the procureur général were drafted around the conviction that the judges of the Parlement had nothing to do with the Estates General and that they were ‘à part par consentement du roi’.6 This was also the view of Chancellor Michel de L'Hospital who, in his opening speech to the Estates of Orléans on 13 November 1560, established a clear distinction between the Parlements, which judge the private suits of individuals, and the Estates, which deliberate on the ‘plaintes generales qui concernoyent l’universel’.7 On 9 August 1561, Antoine de Navarre came before the court to explain that it was not required to consider the proposed ordinances article by article since they had already been deliberated upon by the Privy Council and by the Estates, of which the Parlement was a part. The judges were only required to ‘voir’ the proposed ordinances and ‘l'expedier’ rapidly.8 The premier president, Gilles Le Maistre, replied icily that the Parlement of Paris was not part of the Estates General, either as a corporate body or in any particular. Although two présidents and ten to twelve conseillers had been required to attend the Estates General of Tours in 1467 and 1484, its outcomes had not been forwarded to the Parlement of Paris.9 The premier président reminded Navarre that they would deliberate on the current Ordinances and agree their opinions on them in ‘la maniere accoustumee’. There would doubtless be some articles that would cause them no difficulty, but there might be others which ‘pourront ester trouver scismatiques et grandement doubteux’. The premier président Le Maistre was banned from exercising his office for four months as a reward for his pains, a highly unusual event in the history of the court.10 So the leading sovereign court of the realm was not prepared to rubber-stamp the ordinances, but expected to deliberate upon them and express its views. Herein lay the origins of the misunderstandings between the Estates General, the royal government and the Parlement of Paris, which would be replicated during the Estates General at Blois.Almost four years after the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the edict of Beaulieu brought the fifth war of religion to a close, embodying the concessions obtained by the Malcontents, a coalition of princes and protestants under the leadership of Henri III's brother, François d'Alençon. Article 58 of the edict confirmed the summoning of the Estates General within six months. They were duly convened at Blois, meeting from 6 December 1576 to 5 March 1577, resulting in an ordinance whose articles were submitted to the Parlement for verification and registration two months after the Estates had been dismissed.11 From 28 February to 26 March 1579 the Parlement devoted seventeen sessions to examining the cahiers of Blois, and then a whole month to the drafting of remonstrances on those articles they regarded as controversial. The debate between the Parlement and the king was marked by various remonstances, reinforced by speeches from distinguished members of the court. The whole process of verification lasted almost twelve months despite all the efforts of the royal council to smooth over the various difficulties.12 Indeed, their bitter deliberations continued for several months after eventual registration in January 1580.Jacques-Auguste de Thou, a contemporary witness, was less than forthcoming, however, on what had transpired.13 Edouard Maugis, historian, furnishes no details whatsoever of these discussions.14 However, in contrast to the situation following the Estates General of Orléans of 1560, when there was next to no discussion because the ordinances were submitted so late, the registers of the Parlement of Paris enable us to follow those for the ordinances of Blois in detail.15 Even though we do not know precisely the text of the initial draft legislation submitted to the Parlement, this article demonstrates how the premier sovereign court of the realm attempted to intervene in the legislative process, following the efforts of the great estates of the kingdom to grapple with all the major issues of the day. These were so numerous, however, that we shall concentrate our attention upon the articles regarding the Church and those concerning judicial affairs.IOn the last day of February 1579, the officers of the king presented Henri III's replies to the cahiers of the Estates General of Blois before the Paris magistrates. The chambers assembled in joint session for the first reading of the edict and the nomination of a rapporteur. On 2 March, the first clause concerning the affairs of the Church was considered and, the following day (as was customary) the greffier Jean Du Tillet presented the resolutions of the court at the time of the verification of the ordinances of Orléans in 1561 and entrusted them to the rapporteur, conseiller Jacques Viole. Previous deliberations such as these always served as points of reference and the starting-point for subsequent discussion, constituting a kind of ‘juridical’ dossier upon which the magistrates could rely for precedents so that they could retain a degree of consistency of approach. On 26 March 1579, they decided to prepare remonstrances on certain articles, which were read out in draft on 6 May in the Grand'Chambre of the Parlement.16 The président, de Harlay, and three conseillers were nominated to present them to the king. They excluded comment on the proposed regulations concerning the substituts of the procureur général in article 157 of the draft Ordinances, because these were aimed exclusively at gens du roi.17These remonstrances of May 1579 exist in two extant copies.18 The first is a copy of the draft of the initial deliberations and it includes a note of the views expressed in the Parlement from which it is possible to reconstruct the spectrum of opinion.19 These varied from straightforward approval (noted with ‘bon’) for almost 60 per cent of the articles to various forms of reserve such as the petition (‘le roi sera supplié de …’), the explication (‘sera fait entendre au roi …’), or the request for further explanation or precision.20 The Parlement could propose to enlarge the scope of an article, limit it, or even completely redraft it.21 Or, again, it could decide upon formal remonstrances. Sometimes, it maintained a hard-line position, especially when it regarded a proposed article as impossible to carry out, in which case it expressed its view in a tone that brooked no dissent: ‘les anciennes ordonnances seront gardees’. The second document, also dated May 1579, is apparently a fair copy of the first, but with some notable differences in the opinions recorded.22 These manuscripts are entirely exceptional because the Parlement of Paris was normally scrupulous about maintaining the secrecy of its deliberations.23Throughout April 1579, the Parlement discussed articles concerning the Church.24 Whilst avoiding overt criticism of the Concordat of Bologna, it presented the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges as a means of appeasing ‘the wrath of God’, rooting out heresies and bringing the troubles to a close.25 From the onset of the civil wars, the Parlement had tenaciously pressed for the residence of bishops in their dioceses and the confiscation of absentees’ revenues in favour of the poor.26 The court opposed the appointment of lay abbots and priors, and condemned the practice of laymen using custodi nos or prête-noms to acquire the revenues of benefices. Their position was, however, in contradiction with their own privilege of an indult by which they could become the titular holders of certain benefices and enjoy the proceeds.27 The magistrates of the Parlement equally pressed for ecclesiastical benefices to be denied to foreigners, fearing that the revenues from ecclesiastical offices would leave the kingdom.28 To reinforce the reestablishment of discipline in monasteries, the court sought to abolish their possibility of an appeal to the king in litigation involving regular clergy.29 The Parlement also targeted the suppression of économats.30 It set the minimum age for taking monastic vows at twenty years old and required female vows to be monitored to ensure that they involved no improper pressure.31 Finally, the judges wanted churchwardens to have to present their accounts before their parishioners and in the presence of the priest in charge.32 The Parlement clearly accepted the case for a measure of reform in the French Church.33The sovereign court was sympathetic to the idea of a general law prohibiting clandestine marriages and explicitly asked that there should be no further dispensations from publishing bans of marriage—something which had also figured in the canons of the Council of Trent. It associated itself, therefore, with one of the key decision of the Ordinances of Blois, by which marriages became public acts, to be celebrated following the publication of bans and in the presence of a priest in charge and four witnesses, upon pain of being declared null and void. The Parlement continued, however, to oppose the disinheritance of children who entered into marriage without the consent of their parents.On judicial affairs, the cahiers de doléances incessantly repeated the same message: justice was in poor shape, too slow, too expensive and open to improper influence among judges with family connections. Not altogether consonant with reality, this image allowed the king to introduce reforms into the judicial sphere, and especially into its procedures. It was also a good opportunity to emphasize the ideal of the king as source of justice. In reality, the first article on justice projected the image of a king ready to hold court in public and dispense justice in person, without judicial representation or procedures.34 The priority of the Parlement, for its part, was to safeguard the authority of its decisions. It did not take kindly to the fact that members of the royal council ‘prennent connaissance par dessus lesdicts arrests’. The basis for the rescinding (‘cassation’) or withdrawal (‘retractation’) of the court's decisions should follow the normal legal procedures, that is, by means of a civil suit and a legal error.35 Only in the second draft remonstrances, and then for the first time, did the Parlement refer to its decisions having been ‘cassez et retractez’, no doubt a reflection of a certain amount of irritation among judges regarding a practice which they deplored.36 Article 92 of the Ordinances of Blois sought to give them satisfaction on this issue and strictly limited the recourse to extraordinary legal appeal, over and above the ordinary civil suits and legal error.The cahiers of the three orders had been unanimous on the issue of cases removed from the jurisdiction of Parlement upon the authority of the king (évocations). They were a stain on justice.37 It allowed the king to interfere in a judicial process before a tribunal, remove it from its competence and either judge it himself or reassign it to another jurisdiction.38 The Parlement of Paris sought to prevent suitors from seeking évocations whose significance the Chancellor, René de Birague, had minimized in his speech to the Estates General of Blois, claiming that they had mostly occurred because of family connections and ‘menées’ among the magistrates themselves.39 It was in fact the case that these évocations were often connected to cases where there were legitimate grounds for suspicion that one of the parties to the case was related to the magistrates in the tribunal judging the case. An edict of François I had established a strict procedure that these évocations had to follow, according to which they were initially ‘deliberated upon’ by the Chancellor following a report from maîtres des requêtes.40 The Parlement concentrated its efforts therefore on ensuring that the Royal Council clarified its procedures and established clear rules.41 The Parlement of Paris wanted some limited participation from magistrates of the sovereign court in the sessions of the Royal Council. Those summoned to attend would only do so at the express command of the king and only to consider matters directly concerning the Parlement. If a magistrate proferred his advice to the Council he would not have the right to participate in the Parlement's deliberations on the same matter since, to do so, would make him judge and plaintiff in the same case. However, the king's law officers would not be invited to give their views before the Council. The Parlement set its face against the establishment of a corps or ‘college’ of magistrates from which the king might select those to serve on his Council, since he should be free to choose whomsoever he wished and without creating offices for them, ‘forme qui n’a jamais fin’.42 The Parlement had no desire to see its magistrates lured away from their ordinary jurisdiction on the pretext of prolonged service at court. On the contrary, they wanted magistrates to serve in their posts, a plea which fell upon deaf ears.The remonstrances of May 1579 reached the king at a date that we cannot determine precisely, but which coincided with the moment when the ordinance was ‘delivered’ by the king. On 20 June 1579, the sovereign court was still working its way through verifying the articles of the cahiers of the Estates General.43 On 23 June the king's law officers asked for remonstrances specifically in order to resolve the relationship between the Parlement and the Privy Council.44 On 27 June, the judges learnt that Henri III had reacted badly to their criticism.45 On 25 and 26 June the king had declared ‘with bitterness’ that he had no intention of surrendering the regalian right accorded him by the Concordat of Bologna to nominate to ecclesiastical benefices.46 For the deputies from the Parlement, however, royal authority was diminished rather than enhanced by the Concordat and they were utterly convinced that a return to the Pragmatic Sanction was desired by all his kingdom's subjects.47 For the king, by contrast, ‘ce ne seroit approuver les estats si l'on en parloit’.48 Henri III knew only too well that the issue of the right of clerical nomination had been debated at the Estates General of Orléans ‘pour les diversités qui estoit au royaume’, an allusion to the intense debates between Catholics and Protestants at that point on the reform of the Church.49 He refused to compromise on the right of nomination, which he did not want to sacrifice, but he offered assurances that he would not nominate anyone unworthy of the post whilst letting it be known that elections would provoke ‘menees’.50 The declaration indicates the degree to which Henri III had been caught unawares by a debate that must have seemed to him like a rearguard action from a far-off battle. The apparent collective amnesia of the Parlement had led its members to forget what had once been a fundamental reality: the long judicial battles at the Parlement between candidates provided by Rome and those elected locally, battles that masked the essence of the issue, which was to choose the best candidate.51 Such incoherence barely disguised the discomfort of the Parlement towards the Concordat of Bologna. It was difficult for the judges to accuse the monarchy of being partly responsible for the abuses in clerical nominations. Was not their unthinking advocacy of the Pragmatic Sanction in reality nothing other than the only means they could find to exhort the king to choose prelates worthy of their office?On the issue of the Privy Council, Henri III never regarded it as constituting an entirely separate ‘corps’. With notable firmness, he added that he ‘ne se vouloit brider et n'estoit a la cour de limiter sa puissance’. Throughout this bitter exchange of views, the Parlement could claim no victory, but equally it showed no sign of bringing the process of verifying the articles of the proposed ordinance to an early close. On the contrary, it sought to reinforce its stance, and on 3 July the magistrates decided to present their remonstrances once more before the king without substantial modifications.IIThe second set of remonstrances on the cahier of the Estates General, dated 6 July, was more incisive.52 If the Parlement was exigent it was because its members accorded the matter grave importance and sought to react to remarks made by the king on 26 June, to several deputies of the Parlement, to the effect that he wanted to know the names of those who stubbornly maintained views opposed to his own. The king threatened to come before the Parlement, and ‘sçauroit bien ceux qui sont en cause pour en faire ce qu'il faut’. The Parlement sought to defend the freedom of its deliberations which had always been respected by his predecessors. The sovereign court referred to an ordinance of December 1566 authorizing the Parlements to make reiterated remonstrances, a measure that suppressed article 2 of the Ordinance of Moulins (1566) which aimed at forbidding successive remonstrances. It was in utter ‘sincerity’ that the Parlement presented the king with what it thought to be for the good of his service and the reestablishment of his state ‘que l'on voit etre en mauvais ordre’.On the issue of the Church, the Parlement became more direct and precise. Its remonstrances insisted on the importance of the choice of good prelates, the only means as they saw it of staunching heresy and bringing civil war to an end. This was their justification for earnestly seeking a return to the system of clerical election, albeit admitting that the king could make recommendations in certain cases.53 The Concordat of Bologna had resulted inevitably in the triumph of favour over merit. They noted that the payment of annates to Rome, regarded as contrary to the ‘droits et constitutions canoniques et ordonnances anciennes’ and to the councils of the Church to which the pope ought to adhere, was nowhere to be found in the Concordat.54 Deploying the financial argument, they argued that this was money drained out of the kingdom.On justice, the second remonstrances returned to the respect that was owed to the decisions of the Parlement, the ‘guarantee’ of all property. The ‘law of the realm’—the term was employed by the judges for the first time in the process of verifying the articles of the cahier—required that judicial cases be heard in first instance before prévôts, baillis and seneschals, and in further instance before the Parlement, ‘and not before others’. It was impossible ‘d'attribuer par souveraineté la justice aux Parlements et par concurrence de cette souveraineté au Conseil privé du roy’.55 Such a ‘law of the realm’ could not be changed without provoking confusion and disorder in the ‘orders of justice’. The président Séguier, the Parlement's spokesman, went even further and asserted that the king had promised to maintain the old order of the judicial system at his coronation.56 Such rules could only be modified if there was a clear advantage to be derived from doing so, he added. It is tempting to interpret this as a desire to establish a rule of law over and above the king, but, in reality, it was more the application of the fruits of proven historical experience that respect for judicial hierarchy was the best guarantee of good justice. Séguier's argument was one from reason and experience.The Privy Council, which had instituted the greffiers criminels, should refuse to hear the suits of private individuals because ‘il n'y a loix, ny ordonnance en ce royaume qui donne puissance et autorité aux gens de sondit Conseil de connoitre des causes des personnes privées et entreprendre jurisdiction contentieuse sur les sujets du roy …’.57 The decisions of the Parlement were issued in the name of the king. If they were set aside, it was tantamount to the king ‘weakening himself’ the remonstrances deduced with impeccable logic. Upon the maintenance of the ‘choses jugées’ depended the ‘security’ of all the wealth in the kingdom, its peace and the tranquillity of the state. The risks from such initiatives were clear: the ruin and subversion of the state. The position was entirely coherent from a juridical and institutional point of view, although it conveniently ignored the fact that the king was the source of all justice.The remonstrances reminded the king that the Grand Conseil had been instigated by Charles VIII and that its role was to hear cases concerning the ‘limites des différends des Parlements’. Thereafter, however, its competence had increased with the result that it judged all sorts of suits upon évocations from the Parlements, as well as judicial tribunals in first instance, which resulted in intolerable travelling expenses for suitors.58 The remonstrances of 5 May 1579 asked the king to see that article 37 of the Ordinance of Orléans was upheld: ‘Les gens tenans nostre Grand Conseil ne connoistront desormais et ne pourront entreprendre la jurisdiction d'autres matieres et causes que de celles qui leur sont attribuées par leur creation et institution.’59 Furthermore, they recalled :Il n'y a eu lois, ny ordonnance concernant le pouvoir dudit Grand Conseil qui ayant été publiez et veriffiez audit Parlement et qui etoit et est requis par les anciennes ordonnances, et ne suffit la publication faitte par devant eux qui n'ont aucun teritoire, ne juridiction sinon limitte comme dit est. Toutefois il se trouve qu'aud. Grand Conseil les arrestz donnez esd. Parlemens, juges ordinaires et naturels y sont facilement cassez et renversez en quoy ils sont soutenu et appuyez de ceux qui voudroient s'ils pouvoient aneantir les jurisdictions ordinaires pour avoir juges a leurs volontez dont souvent a esté fait plainte au roy et a ses predecesseurs.60As in the earlier remonstrances of May 1579, the Parlement sought the suppression of the recently established commercial magistrates (juge-consuls), reformulating an argument that had already been deployed when they were created, to the effect that the king had commuted his justice to individuals without either the necessary knowledge or experience. In addition, this innovation would encourage gentlemen and other subjects of the king to seek their own judicial tribunals, not to mention the risks of collusion among merchants. In sum, the initiative risked bringing ‘schisme et division’ among the king's subjects. The views of the Parlement (and the third estate) on this subject were almost completely ignored since articles 239 and 241 of the Ordinances of Blois maintained consular justice in commercial towns. Elsewhere, however, commercial suits between merchants were assigned to the ordinary judicial institutions with the intention of limiting the proliferation of lawsuits.The increased authority of the prévôts des maréchaux was also called into question by the Parlement. These provosts had power and jurisdiction over certain crimes and misdemeanours in last resort and without appeal, a situation that the sovereign court magistrates regarded as a source of abuses and injustice. The provosts being charged with apprehending suspected criminals, it was dangerous that they should also be their judges without possibility of appeal. Their cases should be despatched by the ordinary local judges and, if the baillis and seneschals were in residence, then the provosts, along with the vice-baillis and lieutenants de robe courte served no purpose. Finally, the Parlement also opposed the pardons obtained by the prévôt de l'hôtel, acting again in final instance, for individuals ‘craignant la severité et rigueur des justices ordinaires’. The provost of the household had ‘pris un nom bien haut de grand prevot, qui n'a esté recue, ne publié au Parlement …’.61The Parlement approved, however, the reinstitution of the ordinances of François I, known as the Ordinances of Bourdaisière (May 1529) and Chanteloup (March 1546). These had laid down the regulations to be followed in respect of évocations, with the aim of preventing improper collaborations between relatives and clients in one and the same Parlement.62 However, article 118 in the proposed Ordinances of Blois required conseillers and présidents, who had a lawsuit involving even their distant relatives, to bring the case before another Parlement with the resulting absence from court and ‘punitive’ travelling costs. The magistrates of the sovereign court reminded the king that their privilege of commitimus (du petit scel, i.e. their right to bring actions in first instance before the chamber of requests of the Parlement) was ‘le plus ancient privilege qu'ils ayent’. If constrained to defend their case before another Parlement this would be completely contrary to their privileges.In the eyes of the Parlement, all these proposed changes risked compromising respect for justice: ‘Si tout le peuple de ce royaume pouvoir parler par une voix, il feroit cette requeste au roy que la justice fut remise en son premier etat et naturel et que les membres tirés et separés du corps fussent réunis et raportez a iceluy.’ At the end of the sixteenth century, to reform was not to innovate. This stubborn defence of sovereign justice was based on attachment to the old order in a period when justice was the preserve of the king, or his representative, the Parlement. Each jurisdiction should, here as elsewhere, keep to its limits and, as with royal power itself, the jurisdiction of the Parlement should itself be better defined. However, in highlighting the various encroachments upon its authority, the Parlement was also demonstrating its own weakness and the fact that it felt under threat. To present itself as the ‘voice’ of the people was perhaps a better means of making its voice heard in the dialogue between king and subjects.Despite these various different views, royal letters of constraint (lettres de jussion) of 15 July 1579 commanded the Parlement to register the cahiers ‘sans rien changer ny innover’. On 18 July, président Pierre I Séguier delivered a speech before the king which summarized the remonstrances of the Parlement. Remonstrances, when reinforced by the rhetoric of a président, might serve more effectively to persuade the king to change his mind.IIIPiety and Justice ‘are the twin columns which sustain the weight of your crown’, declared Séguier to Henri III. If the king maintained them both, God would be favourably disposed towards him: ‘Vous sçavez, Sire, les exemples si frequens en l'Escripture sur la plaincte et clameur des subjectz, Dieu se courrouce aux roys, mais ce ne sera pas à vous, si luy plaist, car nous tenons certain que vous avez souvenance du support et soulaigement de vostre pauvre peuple.’63 He insisted on the necessity of the church being made up of ‘gens bien suffisans’, fervent in piety and models of virtue for the king's subjects. Séguier then summarized the history of the provision of benefices, starting with the primitive Church, a period in which there had been no interference from kings or popes. It had been precisely because Charles VII had introduced the decrees of the Council of Basel (1431–49) into the realm by the ordinance known as the Pragmatic Sanction (1438) that God had favoured the king of France in his war against the English. Only a general council of the Church, according to the Parlement, was in a position to resolve the differences between Catholics and Protestants. The pope's authority was not above that of a general council of the Church, and he therefore lacked the authority to conclude a ‘concordat’ with the French king. On the question of the in commendam royal nomination to abbeys, Séguier made somewhat curious use of the canon of the Council of Trent condemning the choice of laymen as heads of monastic houses.64 It was a matter on which he invited the comments of the members of the Royal Council but, he continued, they could not change the fact that the Pragmatic Sanction had brought nothing but good to the kingdom, and the Concordat the reverse.The Parlement, taking careful note of the report of this encounter, categorically refused to publish the Ordinances and explicitly decided to lodge a copy of these remonstrances in its registers as a ‘perpetuelle memoyre à ce que la posterité congnoisse que le Parlement s'est mis en son debvoir’.65 This was its familiar way of protesting when it was urged. The remonstrances do not, in fact, feature in its registers although, as we have seen, we have the manuscript copies of them surviving from elsewhere. On 3 September 1579, Henri III (acting through the gens du roi and the présidents) renewed his demand that the Parlement publish those articles which they had already considered and approved before they broke for their annual recess. The Parlement noted, however, the large number of absentees when it reconvened to continue its deliberations on 5 September and refused to ‘divide’ the publication of the articles in that fashion. It was remarkably hard to stop the legal machinery from taking its course once it had begun, and on 7 September the sovereign court was instructed to proceed with its work of verifying the articles, even though it was close to the recess. That same day, the duc de Nevers appeared before the Parlement to confirm the king's will in the matter, the court replying that it ‘a faict ce qu'elle a peu et deu durant la sceance du Parlement …’. In the days that followed, a chambre des vacations (a nominated bench of judges to sit through a judicial recess) was constituted despite the king's orders. Whether Henri III had changed his mind or not, we do not know.Returning from its vacation in November, the Parlement went back to work verifying the cahiers of Blois. On 11 December 1579, conseiller Philippe de Lenoncourt came before the Parlement to remind the judges of the ‘dommage indicible’ caused by the delay in their publication and to read out to them articles 2 and 5 from the cahiers of the provincial estates of Normandy.66 The king's law officers added that the estates had the impression that the delay was caused by the king, but the discussion ended inconclusively: ‘la cour a vacqué sur ce qu'elle avoit a faire sur ce sujet jusqu'a la sonnerie de l'heure’. The following day, it was finally decided to conclude the reading of the cahiers and publish them ‘aprés plusieurs remontrances faites tant de vive voix que par escript’, but without signalling approval for the Concordat (of Bologna) and without accepting the encroachment on the authority of the baillis and the Parlements that the Ordinances implied.67Henri III rejected these reservations, as he explicitly made clear to the premier président de Thou when he was summoned for an audience with the king on 13 January 1580. The king accepted that the reservations be noted in the court's register, but not that they be included in the legal registration, whose publication had to be ‘pure et simple’.68 The king required the court to publish the cahiers otherwise he would be obliged to ‘faire chose dont il seroyt marry’ – in other words, to impose his will by force. The président Bellièvre intervened in order to defend the king's position, describing the objections made to the Privy Council as ‘chicanery’. The discussions continued on 16 January and, on 19 January, the king once more pressed the court to register the ordinances without qualification through the offices of président de Harlay. On 20 January, however, the Parlement decided to prepare further remonstrances.69 Then, three days later, after hearing about personal missives (lettres closes) sent to the premier président, whose content was never revealed, the sovereign court decided that the cahiers should be published without reservation on the following Monday, but that remonstrances be presented on the need to choose the right people to head monastic houses, and that their deliberations be registered along with their remonstrances and proposed modifications of some of the articles.70 Was this a purely formal disposition? Apparently resigned to an inevitable outcome, the Parlement's real concern was the judgement of posterity.71 Yet this was not the end of the matter because, at least until the measure was printed, discussions on the Ordinances of Blois continued.On 28 January 1580, Christophe de Thou was summoned to an audience with the king.72 Three royal valets waylaid him en route for the Louvre to tell him that the king was in no mood to compromise. De Thou outlined the different stages in the verification of an edict to Henri III, emphasizing the necessity of respecting its processes and deliberations. The Parlement never decided anything without considering it at great length. If the king did not want to take account of the remonstrances prepared by the Parlement, the royal letters had to include the customary formula: ‘fait sur le très commandement du roi’. The attempt by Michel de L'Hospital to curtail reiterated remonstrances had never been enacted and the Parlement was free to make as many protests as it saw fit. De Thou expressed the regret that the Chancellor de L'Hospital would have experienced in seeing the Parlement's rights of remonstrance restricted in that manner. By way of conclusion, the premier président returned to the main bone of contention between the Parlement and the king, namely the nomination to ecclesiastical benefices, and expressed the wish that those in future which did not conform to established norms be declared null and void. At this point, the king expressed his approval for de Thou's suggestion. The cahiers, de Thou concluded, contained some good measures and they needed to be put into practice. The Parlement took no pleasure in opposing the king's will. It acted in accordance with his conscience. De Thou reported back to the Parlement that the king had not interrupted him but listened without saying a word. The royal response was ‘pleine de modestie’. He took all that de Thou said in good part. His objective was to see the Ordinances which had been placed before Parlement obeyed, especially those concerning religion and justice. He would not tolerate any infringement of the jurisdictions of baillis, seneschals and parlements and he was firmly resolved to restrict as much as possible the granting of évocations. The king could afford to appear conciliatory since the act had been registered ‘pur et simple’, but he conceded nothing but vague promises by way of response to the Parlement.Thanks to the nuncio Dandino we know that, during the following month (February 1580), the king instructed the Royal Council to examine the Parlement's concerns on ecclesiastical benefices.73 On 1 March 1580, the président Prévost and several conseillers were once more despatched with further remonstrances on the cahiers of the Estates General, arising from the decision to register them on 23 January. It was a purely symbolic act: the Parlement continued to proffer its advice, even though its views were ignored. On 9 March, some further ‘modifications’ were proposed to some of the articles, even though they had just been published without reservation.74 In reality, it was a matter of yet more remonstrances in which the court returned to almost all the points it had previously raised. On the ‘regulation’ of justice, these ‘modifications’ concerned two essential points: to define the role of the Royal Council vis-à-vis the Parlement; and to ensure that the ordinances of Chanteloup and La Bourdaisière were applied and, with them, that the privileges of members of the Parlement were respected when they were in legal contention with members of their own family.75It was with considerable satisfaction, then, that magistrates of the Parlement received article 91 of the eventual Ordinances of Blois limiting the processes of évocation, returning to the Parlements appeals pending before the Royal Council and preventing it from judging such cases in contentious litigation in the future.76 In March 1581, however, they demanded still more, namely the complete annulment of all such contentious litigation still pending before the Council.77 The problem of the privileges of parlementaires who were in litigation with their relatives had clearly still not been settled by then since the court decided to draft new remonstrances about it. Article 97 of the Ordinances of Blois, which forbad actions of évocation de propre mouvement instigated by the king himself, seems to have been a response to one of the demands of the Estates General.78 In one of his letters, the lawyer Etienne Pasquier praised the king's decision on the matter.79 His view was that évocations were unknown in France before the time of Charles VI, which was when the duc de Bourgogne sought to divert some cases to satisfy his clients. Speaking from personal experience, he remembered that, at the beginning of his legal practice in 1549, someone who had the audacity to ask for the diversion of a case from the Parlement on the grounds of letters of evocation was cut short in his tracks and condemned to a fine for his pains. In the Pourparlers du Prince, Pasquier wrote that the sovereign court always reserved to itself the right to remonstrate to the king against évocations de propre mouvement, since all legal actions ‘doivent ‘s'accorder à raison’.80 Otherwise, ‘favourites’ would construct law from their own passions out of self-interest.The issue of évocations de propre mouvement did not disappear with the Ordinances of Blois and, even in the eighteenth century, their use remained one that was strictly controlled. What was the real impact of the Ordinances upon legal practice? The decisions of the Privy Council in Henri III's reign are difficult to classify but there are singularly few that rescind those of the Paris sovereign court and very large numbers which return cases to the Parlement of Paris, a sign of their sensitivity to the concerns of the Parisian senior magistrates as much as their respect for judicial procedure. This observation should, however, be qualified by the fact that there are substantial gaps in our evidence.81 In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the Ordinances various reactions emerged, including the evident disapproval of the papacy.82 In its remonstrances, the Parlement spoke up for the stability of an order willed by God in which everyone implicitly had their place. Its enduring concern was to reinforce royal authority. Since royalty and justice were one and the same thing, to defend the unity of justice was to defend royal sovereignty, it argued. The king's desire, by contrast, was to rectify the abuses of judicial style and practice by ever more technical legislation with the objective of speeding up the delivery of justice. The sovereign court wanted the king to lay down the details of legal procedure, but it also wanted to preserve its power of remonstrance.83 In a general sense, this led to a certain consensus of views.84 So, for example, the Parlement could only welcome the prohibition upon extraordinary commissions (article 98), and equally approve the articles which laid down a summary procedures in justice so that petty cases involving sums under three écus could be despatched quickly (articles 153 and 154). On 25 January, Pierre de l'Estoile noted ironically in his diary:fust publié en la Cour de Parlement l'Edit fait et arresté après longue deliberation de la Cour sur les cahiers des Estats tenus à Blois, en l'an 1577, auquel y a beaucoup de belles et bonnes ordonnances: lesquelles, s'il plaisoit à Dieu et au roy qu'elles fussent bien observées, tous les Estats et peuple de France en seroient grandement soulagés et satisfaits, mais est à craindre qu'on en die, comme de l'Edit des Estats d'Orleans et de toutes autres bonnes ordonnances faites en France: Apres trois jours, non vallables’.85For Jacques-Auguste de Thou it was ‘le malheur des tems’ that prevented numerous laws from being enacted.IVAccording to Edouard Maugis, behind a possible secret complicity between the Estates General and the Parlement to secure their ascendancy there lay an eventual victory for the Parlement, distinct from the Estates General and with a jurisdiction superior to it, as demonstrated in its right to revise and verify the ordinances that resulted from the cahiers de doléances of the Estates.86 It would be unwise, of course, to underestimate the rivalry between these bodies (permanently constituted or not), each wedded to its own specificity and role.87 But if we put to one side this notion of a perpetual confrontation, what do we find? On the one hand, the deputies of the Estates General petitioned the crown to respect the rights of verification of laws in the Parlements, but on the other to reject meddling in the cahiers that resulted from their petitions.88 In these circumstances, why did the crown ask for the advice of the Parlement when it was a body from which juridical cautiousness was only to be expected? On the other hand, the Parlement customarily proferred its opinions when asked to comment on all sorts of royal edicts. By the end of the sixteenth century, the verifying of the cahiers of the Estates by the Parlement had become commonly accepted if we accept the view of conseiller Guillaume Du Vair, who vigorously asserted that the decisions of the Estates General would not have the force of law unless they were verified by the Parlement.89 Yet, as we have seen from the preceding analysis, verification was a mere formality when it was a matter of purely and simply publishing the measure as it was presented to them. In reality, the Parlement of Paris made its voice heard, but it did not seek to intervene decisively in the dialogue between the crown and its subjects. Or, at least, it only sought to do so in the more labyrinthine secret discussions that took place between its procureur général and the king.90In 1588, during the session of a subsequent Estates General, the magistrates of the Parlement were asked to present their own particular cahier of remonstrances.91 The king wanted them to establish the main lines of discussion to be treated in the Estates. Following custom, however, the Parlement submitted its remonstrances only after the Estates General had met. No doubt Henri III wanted to use the Parlement as a means of moderating the views of the Estates General, whose deputies were in large majority members of the catholic League. Not surprisingly, the remonstrances which it drew up in August 1588 were based on those prepared for preceding assemblies of the Estates General. Then, in 1593, in a completely different political context, the Parlement solemnly refused to depute any of its members to attend the Estates General of the League.92 The Parlement verified edicts only following the king's instruction to do so. In that respect the court was a faithful instrument of royal authority. Unlike the situation in 1560–61, when his brother had been forced by financial necessity to do so, nothing required Henri III to ask his sovereign court for its views on the cahiers. In inviting the Parlement to express an opinion, was not the French monarchy providing it with the opportunity to seize the initiative? Little by little, the court was inclined to become a more independent agent in its relationships with both the Estates General and the king. So, to look ahead, to 1615, four days after the closing session of the Estates General on 23 February, the various tribunals of the Parlement met in general session along with the princes and the peers of the realm to solemnly inform the king of the wretched state of the government of the realm. To justify this bold and unprecedented initiative, the Parlement of Paris used the promise that the king had made not to respond to the cahiers of the Estates General without taking account of its views.93 The Parlement no longer wanted to be treated separately and it no longer patiently waited for the royal command before it intervened. This change in attitude represented a profound shift in its relations with royal authority.1A[rchives] N[ationales] X1A 1596, fo. 20v (23 Nov. 1560).2AN X1A 1653, fo. 239v (6 Sept. 1576).3This had been its view since 1413: G. F. Denault, ‘The legitimation of the Parlement of Paris and the Estates General of France, 1560–1614’ (PhD Thesis, Washington University, 1975), 243, cited by A. E. Bakos, ‘Meddling chaperons: the involvement of the Parlement of Paris in the Estates General of 1593’, in idem, Politics, Ideology and the Law in Early Modern Europe (Rochester, 1994), 93.4AN X1A 1598, fo. 117v (2 Aug. 1561).5On 4 Aug. 1561, the sieur de Selve, a conseiller in the Privy Council, came before the Parlement to explain that the king was awaiting a definitive response from the Estates General, currently meeting at Pontoise, to his demands for money. However, this response would only be forthcoming when the publication of the Ordinance had been completed. De Selve was charged ‘d'alléguer [to the Parlement] que comme comprinse ausd. estatz, lad. Court en deust estre’.6Lalourcé and Duval (eds), Recueil de pièces originales et authentiques concernant la tenue des Etats généraux, 9 vols (Paris, 1789), i. 330. Guillaume de Taix, clerical deputy at the Estates of Blois in 1576–7, expressed the same conviction: ibid., ii. 124.7L. Petris, La Plume et la tribune. Michel de l'Hospital et ses discours (1559–1562) (Geneva, 2002), 386. Among the jurists, opinions were more divided. Jean Papon considered that the king could not proceed to alienate the royal domain without the consent of the Estates General. If they were not in session, that duty fell to the Parlement of Paris which, unlike the Estates, sat in permanent session and regularly offered counsel to the king: Secrets du troisième et dernier notaire (Lyon, 1578), 318. Philibert Bugnyon, however, thought that ordinances which had been deliberated in plenary sessions of the Estates General did not need to be submitted to the Parlement for registration: Commentaires sur les ordonnances faictes par le roy Charles neufiesme en sa ville de Moulins au mois de fevrier mil cinq cens soixante six (Lyon, 1567), 17, cited in A. Rousselet-Pimon, Le Chancelier et la loi au XVIe siècle d'après l'œuvre d'Antoine Duprat, de Guillaume Poyet et de Michel de L'Hospital (Paris, 2005), 166.8AN X1A 1598, fo. 173r–v (9 Aug. 1561).9In 1467, the Parlement had deputed the premier président Boulanger and a dozen councillors to the Estates, but this group was sent ‘non comme un corps mais afin de donner conseil’. In 1484, following royal instructions, the Parlement elected to send a deputation of four of its number but in fact none of those chosen ever left Paris: E. Maugis, Histoire du Parlement de Paris de l'avènement des Valois à la mort d'Henri IV, 3 vols (Paris, 1913–16), i. 656.10In reality, it was less the propositions of the premier président which had attracted this censure, but rather the Parlement's delay in ratifying the cahier of the Estates General of Orléans just at the moment when the royal government was in discussion with the Estates’ representatives at Pontoise in August 1561: S. Daubresse, Le Parlement de Paris ou la voix de la Raison (Geneva, 2005), 253.11According to Maugis, the delay was part of the monarchy's strategy of playing a waiting game to obliterate the memory of the Estates General of Blois: Histoire du Parlement de Paris, i. 671. In reality, Henri III was above all preoccupied to reestablish peace, because the edict of Beaulieu had been the prelude to renewed conflict. It was only thanks to pressure from the provincial estates and efficiency of the new chancellor, Hurault de Cheverny, that the new Ordinances were eventually promulgated.12M. Greengrass, Governing Passions: Peace and Reform in the French Kingdom, 1576–1585 (Oxford, 2007), 267.13J.-A. de Thou, Histoire universelle de Jacques-Auguste de Thou, depuis 1543 jusqu'en 1607, traduite sur l'édition latine de Londres (London, 1734), vol. 7, 74–5. He devoted only a few lines to the subject.14Maugis, Histoire du Parlement de Paris, i. 671: ‘Inutile d'entrer dans le détail qui remplirait un chapitre’.15On 2 Aug. 1561, the Parlement received the text of the ordinances of Orléans. On 30 Aug. their draft remonstrances to the king were read out: AN X1A 1598, fo. 295r–v. Thereafter nothing is recorded until 13 Sept. 1561, the date when the ordinances were registered.16AN X1A 1663 – sessions of 5, 6, 7, 9, 10–14, 16, 17, 19, 24 and 26 Mar. 1579. On 2 Mar. it was decided that two hours per day would be devoted to the processes of verification.17AN X1A 1664 fos 32v and 33, (6 May 1579). On article 157, the magistrates noted: ‘Sera fait registre a part et ne sera employé en la remonstrance que l'on fera au roy’. This article required ‘a nos procureurs et avocats generaux de prendre le moindre nombre de substituts qu'il leur sera possible’. It prohibited these substituts from accepting payments from suitors in return for furnishing requêtes, informations, interrogatoires or other trial documents. Guy Coquille regarded the proposal as inconsistent since it could not be right to ask substituts to serve without any payments at all: Oeuvres de Me Guy Coquille, sieur de Romenay (Paris, 1646), 512.18The two texts also exist in copies to be found in AN U 768 fos 265–327.19B[ibliothèque] N[ationale] MS Fr 2703 fos 204v–209, ‘Arrestez de la cour sur le cahier des Estats generaux faits avant les remonstrances de l'Estat ecclesiastique en l'an 1579’. The assembly of the clergy, meeting with the king's consent at Melun, began its deliberations on 26 June 1579 with an examination of the complaints about the abuses which had made their appearance in the French church.20In the latter, a straightforward ‘bon’ is inscribed against 202 of the 363 articles. We should note that a third of these concerned judicial affairs, and that there is a mismatch between the number of articles that figure in the remonstrances and those that appear in the eventual ordinances, which makes following the remonstrances somewhat difficult. This was because six articles were eventually struck out at the king's command and removed from the final published legislation.21Concerning article 97: ‘au lieu de l'article ce qui ensuit sera mis: Nous voulons ….’: ibid., fos 210r–v.).22BN MS Fr 4398 fos 337–339v, ‘Remonstrances faictes au roy par sa cour de Parlement sur l’édit fait sur leurs cahiers généraux du 5 may 1579’. Concerning article 5, the court ‘persiste aux remonstrances qu’elle a faictes sur le premier et deuxieme article ….’ (my emphasis). In other respects, this copy begins with a more developed and formal preamble in praise of the king's bountiful goodness and his desire to reform corruptions and abuses, and includes a reference to the imperative necessity of securing obedience to the law. This would be the version of the remonstrances presented to the king: ibid., fo. 337v.23The deliberations of the Parlement are never transcribed into its parchment registers: F. Hildesheimer, ‘Exemplaire Parlement’, in ‘Fabrique des archives, fabrique de l’histoire’, Revue de Synthèse, 125 (2004), 49–51. The deliberations of governmental organizations and courts of justice always took place in secret.24The papal nuncio Dandino, abreast of the latest news, told the Cardinal de Côme in a letter of 12 Apr. 1579 that the Parlement was in the course of deliberating on its responses to the clauses from the Estates of Blois on ecclesiastical matters: I. Cloulas (ed.), Correspondance du nonce en France, Anselmo Dandino, 1579–1581 (Rome, 1970), 367. From his letters we know that it was the Keeper of the Seals René de Birague who kept the nuncio informed on the discussions in the Parlement: ibid., 424, 15 June 1579.25BN MS Fr 2703 fo. 204r article 1.26Article 14 of the Ordinances of Blois enforced this obligation upon absentees on pain of their being deprived of the revenues of their sees.27The indult allowed conseillers of the Parlement to hold ecclesiastical benefices (if they were conseillers-clercs) or present a candidate of their choice (if they were laymen). Conseillers-clercs were given dispensation from residing in their benefices.28This was a demand that had already been voiced by the procureur général in his conclusions upon the cahiers of the Estates General of Jan. 1561: Lalourcé and Duval, Recueil, i. 333.29This issue was eventually dropped and did not figure in article 30 of the eventual Ordinances.30An économat was instituted in the six months of interregnum in a benefice prior to the issuing of a bull of institution to the next incumbent, during which period its revenues were handed over to an économe appointed by the king.31BN MS Fr 2703, fo. 206, article 28, in which those entering religious orders could dispose of their possessions up to three months after their final vow. The clause seems to reflect almost exactly the draft proposed by the Parlement save that the minimum age was set at sixteen years, a choice reflecting the demands of the clerical deputies. Cf. the clause in the same article concerning female vows: ‘et outre les abbesses et superieurs auparavant que faire bailler aux filles les habits de professes pour les recevoir a profession seront tenus un mois devant avertir l’evesque, son vicaire ou superieur de l’ordre pour s’enquerir par eux et informer de la volonté des dictes filles, s’il y a eu contraincte et induction de leur faire entendre la qualité du veu qu’ils vont faire auparavant qu’elles s’obligent’.32Their proposal was that they should be required to do so within three months of leaving office (article 53) but this was eventually dropped from the final version of the Ordinances.33According to Jean-Marie Le Gall, the Parlement had received numerous appeals early in the sixteenth century from those in the religious orders hostile to reform (‘déformés’), but its decisions were generally in favour of those who sought reform: Les Moines au temps des réformes, 1480–1560 (Seyssel, 2001), 116. Megan Armstrong's study indicates that the Parlement sought to limit the number of appeals from ecclesiastical to royal justice (appels comme d’abus), often pursued by those in monastic orders who regarded themselves as victims of decisions that had gone against them: ‘Spiritual reform, mendicant autonomy, and state formation: French Franciscan disputes before the Parlement of Paris, 1500–1600’, Fr Hist Stud, 25 (2002), 505–30.34See article 89 of the Ordinances of Blois. Jacques Krynen has recently drawn our attention to Jean Bodin's notable reticence about this aspect of royal justice, expressed in the Six livres de la République which had appeared three years earlier in 1576 (Book IV, ch. 6). Bodin invited the king not to seek to deprive magistrates of their authority on the grounds that he (the king) was not a jurist. Coquille, however, gave the article of the Ordinances of Blois his unqualified approval: Oeuvres, 493.35BN MS Fr 2703 fo. 209v. Suitors who had not received satisfaction from legal decisions arrived at by a parlement sought to demonstrate that the court had committed an error and to adduce the grounds for their view. If the latter were found to have weight, the king rescinded the decision of the court without questioning the substantive issues of the case. The Royal Council only considered the legal grounds for an appeal and referred the case back to the Parlement for a new hearing of the evidence. The point is an important one since the rescinding of judicial decisions on such grounds was also used by the magistrates themselves, admittedly in the exceptional circumstances of the split of the Parlement of Paris into two tribunals in the League between 1589 and 1594, when it was a device used by each court against the other: S. Daubresse, ‘De Paris à Tours, le Parlement “du roi” face au Parlement ”de la Ligue” (1589–1590)’, in Le Parlement en exil ou Histoire politique et judiciaire des translations du parlement de Paris (XVe–XVIIIe siècle), ed. S. Daubresse, M. Morgat-Bonnet and I. Storez-Brancourt (Paris, 2007), 466–70.36BN MS Fr 4398, fo. 344r.37G. M. R. Picot, Histoire des Etats Généraux considérés au point de vue de leur influence sur le gouvernement de la France de 1355 à 1614 (Paris, 1872), vol. 2, 568.38A. Rigaudière, Introduction historique à l’étude du droit et des institutions (Paris, 2006), 581. An évocation could occur following a decision by the king himself, or it could be the result of an action instigated by one of the parties to the suit.39Lalourcé and Duval , Recueil, ii. 63–4.40The report of the maîtres des requêtes was made a requirement by the edict of La Bourdaisière of May 1529. The Parlement derived the oversight of evocations back to an ordinance of Charles VI of 15 May 1389 as well as another of Louis XII of 22 Dec. 1499: BN MS Fr 2703 fo. 210v and, above all, the entry on ‘évocation’ in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert.41Even under the reign of Louis XIV, the Parlement was still trying to win this battle, as Albert N. Hamscher demonstrates in The Conseil Privé and the Parlements in the Age of Louis XIV: A Study in French Absolutism (Philadelphia, 1987), 80 and 107.42It is notable that the Parlement of Paris never offered a word of advice on the overall composition of the Royal Council.43According to the nuncio Dandino's correspondence with the Cardinal de Côme, their deliberations on ecclesiastical matters continued throughout May: Correspondance, 383, letter of 4 May 1579; and 386–7, letter of 10 May 1579. On 13 May, Dandino had word of the initial responses of the Parlement on ecclesiastical affairs.44AN X1A 1664 fo. 292, (23 June 1579). There were some discussions between the king and the members of the prosecutor’s office, the latter declaring that the king would enter into discussion with the papacy over the issue of papal annates.45AN X1A 1664, fos 338v–339v, (27 June 1579).46On 21 June, nuncio Dandino reported the identical view of the king, only too well aware of how much the authority to nominate to benefices mattered to him, in a letter to the Cardinal de Côme, a letter in which he totally rejected the magistrates’ views. According to the nuncio, the judges of the Parlement were seeking to poison the good relationship between the king and the papacy.47The Parlement relied on the fifteenth-century councils of the Church, which forbad the obtaining of benefices for money (‘c’estoit trafiquer’) as well as the ordinances of St Louis and Philip the Fair. We should note that the Parlement conflated the right of nomination with the problem of benefice provision. The return to election to benefices was one of the demands of the peasants studied by J.-M. Constant, ‘Le langage politique paysans en 1576: les cahiers de doléances des bailliages de Chartres et de Troyes’, in Représentation et vouloir politiques autour des Etats généraux de 1614, ed. R. Chartier and D. Richet (Paris, 1982), 31, although, as the author explains, they hoped to be able to elect their own clergy.48In their cahiers the third estate and the clergy had demanded a return to clerical elections. The nobility, however, proposed a commission of inquiry before the election of a new prelate, a suggestion that was seized upon by the Royal Council, since it incarnated the notions of the Concordat of 1516: Picot, Histoire des Etats Généraux, 393–4.49O. Christin, Les Réformes: Luther, Calvin et les protestants (Paris, 2007), 23–4.50According to nuncio Dandino, the clergy had obtained assurances from the king that he would not in future allow benefices in commendam and that he would pay no more annates to Rome: Correspondance, 469, Dandino to Côme, 8 Aug. 1579.51V. Julerot, ‘Y a un grant desordre’: élections épiscopales et schismes diocésains en France sous Charles VIII (Paris, 2006), 429–30. She notes the inefficacy of elections, the mismatch between theory and practice, and emphasizes the problem of confirming the result of a clerical election.52BN MS Fr 4398 fos 367–394v, ‘Les secondes remontrances sur les cahiers des Etats generaux, du 6 juillet 1579’, signed de Thou and Viole. The articles are not enumerated.53BN MS Fr 4398 fo. 373. Ever since the Pragmatic Sanction, the king made his recommendation to the ‘elisans’ and ‘celuy qu’il plaisoit au roi etoit ordinairement gratifié et preféré s’il etoit capable et digne’. In his reply to the cahiers of the Estates General of Orléans of 1561, the procureur général then in post had proposed that episcopal elections should involve the archbishop, the cathedral chapter and ‘douze des principaux habitans et bourgeois desdites villes qui seront élus en l’hostel d’icelle par les maire et echevins, consuls et conseillers desdites villes’. The candidate then elected would, of course, be presented to the king.54For président Pierre Séguier, annates were contrary to the word of God and human law: AN X1A 1665 fo. 13, (18 July 1579).55BN MS Fr 4398 fo. 377v. This was to create an ‘incompatible’ jurisidictional conflict and confusion, declared président Séguier on 18 July 1579: AN X1A 1665 fo. 14.56AN X1A 1665 fo. 14, (18 July 1579): ‘Sire, les loyx civilles et politicques dient qu’il ne fault poinct changer ne innover les reigles par lesquelles par le passé ont esté trouvees bonne synon que l’on trouvast au change ung bien et commodité publicq … Sire, l’ordre que dessus est l’ancien de vostre royaulme que vous avez promis a vostre sacre garder et entretenir.’57To Guy Coquille it was evident that the Privy Council was instituted to ‘connoître des affaires generales, non pour les affaires des particuliers’. It was made up of princes and other seigneurs who lacked knowledge of laws, customs and legal conventions: Oeuvres, i. 493.58The third estate equally complained that the Grand Conseil encroached upon the Parlements: Picot, Histoire des Etats Généraux, 567.59The Parlement noted that the letters patent creating offices were addressed to the Grand Conseil ‘chose directement contraire a l’institution et establissement dudit Parlement, ce qui apporte toute confusion a la justice’.60BN MS Fr 4398 fo. 388.61BN MS Fr 4398 fo. 385v, ‘Le Parlement suplie le roy puisqu’il luy plaist remettre la justice en sa splandeur et premier estat pourvoir sur ce fait que les appellations dud. Prevost de l’Hostel retourneront au Parlement.’62F. A. Isambert et al. (eds), Recueil général des anciennes lois françaises depuis 420 jusqu’à la Révolution de 1789, 29 vols (Paris, 1822–33), xii. 312–15 and 908–9.63AN X1A 1665 fos 12–15, (18 July 1579). The président also presented the king with a ‘plus ample’ memorandum from the Parlement.64AN X1A 1665 fo. 13v, ‘La commende en terme de droict commun ne vault rien, et mesme par le concile de Trente, elle est damnee et resprouvee’. The in commendam involved the collation of an ecclesiastical benefice to a cleric who was not in regular orders, or even to a layman, and the Concordat had conceded to the papacy the in commendam right: D. Richet, ‘Une famille de robe: les Séguier avant le chancelier’, in idem, De la Réforme à la Révolution: études sur la France moderne (Paris, 1991), 230.65AN X1A 1665 fo. 14v (18 July 1579).66AN X1A 1666 fo. 110v (11 Dec. 1579).67AN X1A 1666 fo. 114v–115 (12 Dec. 1579).68AN X1A 1666 fo. 237 (15 Jan. 1580). Nuncio Dandino reported the king's insistence on the matter to the Cardinal de Côme although the Parlement, he added, continued to press for the restoration of elections to ecclesiastical benefices and a return to the Pragmatic Sanction: Correspondance, 564.69AN X1A 1666 fo. 274, (20 Jan. 1580).70AN X1A 1666 fo. 281v, (23 Jan. 1580). The injunction on the registration simply reads: ‘Leues, publiees et registrees oy le procureur general du roy après plusieurs deliberations et remonstrances tres humbles faictes audict seigneur’: AN X1A 8635 fo. 184v.71As Maugis noted, Histoire du Parlement, i. 671, the Parlement was much preoccupied by ‘opinion’.72AN X1A 1666 fos 312–314v, (28 Jan. 1580).73Letter of 17 Feb. 1580, in Correspondance, 601.74BN MS Fr 4398 fos 466–471, ‘Modifications sur le cahier des estats de Blois du neuf mars mil cinq cens quatre vingt’, signed de Thou and Viole. After the Estates General of Orléans, equally, the printing of the cahier was delayed because the Parlement sought to make yet further modifications: AN X1A 1598 fo. 412, (27 Sept. 1561).75Article 117. The Parlement wanted this article modified.76Isambert et al., Recueil général, xiv. 404. According to Guy Coquille, it was an issue pursued by the Paris deputies, who ‘firent grande instance pour l’obtention de cet article’: Oeuvres, i. 493.77BN MS Fr 4398 fos 467r–v, ‘Sur le quatre vingt unziesme, le roy sera suplié de declarer toutes et chacunes les procedures qui seront faites en son Conseil nulles és causes de jurisdiction contentieuse et que les parlemens n’auront esgard a cela’.78If a case was to be evoked out of a jurisdiction, it had to be with good cause and the subject of a report prepared by the masters of requests (the Parlement also wanted oversight by the chancellor or Keeper of the Seals, assisted by the masters of requests). A signature of the secretary of state was also required by article 70 of the Ordinances of Moulins (1566).79D. Thickett (ed.), Lettres familières (Geneva, 1974), 71–5, to René Choppin, avocat at the Parlement of Paris.80E. Pasquier, Pourparlers, ed. B. Sayhi-Périgot (Geneva, 1995), 102.81F. Dumont (ed.), Inventaire des arrêts du Conseil privé (règnes de Henri III et de Henri IV) (Paris, 1969–71), vol. 2. The inventory only covers the July quarter of each year, beginning in 1579 and ending in August 1588. I am grateful to Solange Bertheau for allowing me to consult her subject catalogue before it becomes publicly available. Of the 1774 entries for the reign of Henri III in the inventory, there are three arrêts of the Parlement rescinded (‘cassés’), three others which forbad the Parlement from considering a suit, five which order the closure of proceedings in a suit, three that countermanded a decision of the court on the grounds of legal error, and only one resulting from a civil action against its decisions. There are eight evocations of suits to the Conseil privé, Grand Conseil or other jurisdictions. By contrast, seventy-six cases were sent back to the Parlement of Paris, sometimes after an attempt at an évocation (even a case sent before the Grand Conseil was returned to the Parlement: ibid., i. 34, no. 240 [12 Aug. 1580]).82Commentaries of Coquille in Oeuvres, 462–9; also ‘l’Advis de M. P. Pithou, advocat en Parlement sur l’ordonnance de Blois de 1576’, in A. Loisel, Divers opuscules des mémoires de M. Antoine Loisel, advocat en Parlement (Paris, 1652), 345–52. Cf. V. Martin, Le Gallicanisme et la Réforme catholique: essai historique sur l’introduction en France des décrets du Concile de Trente, 1563–1615 (Paris, 1919), 170. The papacy had great difficulty in accepting a measure in which the king was placed in a position of absolute superiority over bishops. It demanded its complete revision, sending a new nuncio to put its case.83L. de Carbonnières, ‘Le style du Parlement de Paris et la législation royale (XIVe–XVe siècles)’, in Modèles français: enjeux politiques et élaboration des grands textes de procédure en Europe: les enjeux politiques de la cofidication de la procédure (Paris, 2008), vol. 2, 171–93. According to Carbonnières, neither in the preamble, nor in the articles of the Ordinances of Montils-lès-Tours (1446), nor those of 1454, was there any reference made to the ‘style’ of the Parlement (i.e. the legal rules governing its procedures), not even in terms of ways of modifying it. The same was true of the Ordinances of Blois. Jean-Louis Thireau also noted that the legislative initiatives of the sixteenth century ‘fait entrer pleinement la procédure dans le domaine de la loi …’: ibid., 211.84They came up against difficulties on article 149, which forbad appeals on grounds other than procedural ‘si ce n’est pour le vuider et juger sur le champ’. In its comments on the majority of the other articles, the Parlement wanted to alter the wording, which had some juridical significance but did not change the overall legislative intent.85P. de l’Estoile, Registre-journal du règne de Henri III, ed. M. Lazard and G. Schrenck (Geneva, 1992–), vol. 3, 91–2.86Maugis, Histoire du Parlement, i. 670. Rousselet-Pimon thinks that the pretensions of the Parlement to interfere in the royal legislation, proposed in cooperation with the estates general, represent a much greater menace to royal power in the sixteenth century than that of the estates general themselves: Le Chancelier et la loi au XVIe siècle, 166.87Pierre de La Place, premier président in the Cour des Aides, thought the Parlement was not required to verify the decisions of the Estates concerning royal impositions: Commentaires de l’Estat de la Religion et Republique soubs les rois Henryy et Francois seconds, et Charles neufiesme (n.p., 1565), 157. In this respect, he was protected by the prerogatives of his own jurisdiction.88Picot, Histoire des Etats Généraux, 561–2: the third estate reminded the crown that ‘de tout temps et par l’institution de la France, nul édit ne doit être reconnu pour édit au préjudice des anciennes lois et ordonnances de France, s’il n’est premièrement vérifié par les cours souveraines’. In Nov. 1576, Blanchefort, the noble deputy expressed his desire to see the king nominate those members of his Council who would negotiate the ordinances with the Estates and then submit them to Parlement, simply for their approbation: Greengrass, Governing Passions, 90. In Dec. 1576, the deputies of the clergy wondered, in the course of a meeting with the other order, whether the reforms demanded by the three orders would be automatically adopted by the king and submitted to the Parlement of Paris as a ‘loi inviolable’: ibid., p. 92. The Parlement was here viewed above all as a guardian of the laws.89In 1593, Guillaume du Vair wrote in his Suasion: ‘veu que ce qui a accoustumé de se résoudre aux Etats généraux de la France bien et légitimement assemblez n’a force ny vigueur qu’après qu’il a esté verifié par vous séans au throsne des rois, au lict de leur justice, en la cour des pairs’, cited in Maugis, Histoire du Parlement, i. 673.90In Dec. 1576, the procureur général Jean de La Guesle presented two documents on ecclesiastical and judicial affairs before the Estates General in the name of the king. These were a project for reform whose origin had lain in a text prepared by the duc d’Anjou (the future Henri III) for the Council of Charles IX on the eve of Anjou's departure for Poland: Greengrass, Governing Passions, 93–6. Such ‘particular’ remonstrances have not been the focus of this article. In a letter of 22 Feb. 1580, nuncio Dandino reported that the responses to the Estates of Blois were in the hands of the procureur général for final modifications before being printed: Correspondance, 605. It was surely at that point that the six articles, struck out on the king's orders (four of which were about judicial matters), were removed: Isambert et al. Recueil général, xiv. 462–3). They concerned issues of legal procedures and were perhaps ‘ostés par commandement du roy’ at the request of the procureur général. They were not the object of any remonstrances by the Parlement itself.91AN X1A 1711 fos 81r–v, (9 Aug. 1588). In a letter of 6 Aug. 1588, Henri III asked the Parlement to submit a memorandum that he intended to present to the Estates General.92Maugis, Histoire du Parlement, ii. 100. Five parlementaires attended the Estates General in 1593, but that was because they were deputed from the third estate of Paris.93E. Glasson, Le Parlement de Paris, son role politique depuis Charles VII jusqu’à la Révolution (Paris, 1901), 123–4. Marie de Médicis issued an arrêt de cassation to rescind the arrêt of the Parlement which had summoned the tribunals and peers to meet in common assembly.