THE PARLIAMENTS OF FRANCE.1 - THE lawyer who seeks in his studies something besides authorities to be cited before the court in banc; who takes a wider interest in the history of jurisprudence, than as it illustrates the growth of the doctrine of uses and trusts or the development of the law of bailments; who thinks that the influence of lawyers in the political history of Europe is as important as the law of mortmain or the rule in Shelley's case, must have his interest excited by the very different political and social development of the courts of France and England. That the jurisprudence of France was based upon the Roman law, modified by a strange and confused compound of local customs, while English jurisprudence had its origin in the common law of some of the German tribes, is not the most marked distinction between the judicial systems of those great and neighboring nations. The English courts have administered a uniform system of law throughout the entire kingdom; their judges have been taken from members of the profession, of whatever original social rank, who had acquired prominence in the practice of the law. No Englishman has been "swaddled and rocked and dandled" into a judge. English, like American, lawyers have been active in the political affairs of their country. The English courts have often done great work for the restraint of tyranny, for the development of good government. Some of their decisions are among the landmarks of triumphing liberty. But the courts have held no political power. Only incidentally have they been brought into contact with the political side of the government. In all this the history of France was far different. There, separate courts administered different systems of law. The judges became a caste, transmitting or selling the succession to the ermine as a part of their estate. Their political power grew to 1 Les Parlements de France, Leur Caractère Politique, par M. F. Merilhou; Le Parlement de Paris, par Charles Desmaze; Droit Municipal de France, par M. Raynouard; Lectures on France, by Sir James Stephen; Les Parlements de France, par M. le Vicomte de Bastard D'Estang. overshadow their judicial duties in importance. The highest court at times endeavored to seize the reins of government, and, if guided by more wisdom, might have become a check on the power of the king, which would have changed the nature of the French monarchy. The origin of the French Parliaments is partly lost in the obscurity of antiquity. It can, however, be traced vaguely. The extensive powers of the feudal nobility in France included judicial authority; and most disputed questions in the early feudal period came before the Lords' Courts for decision. The right of basse, moyenne, et haute justice over his serfs and villeins was as precious to the seigneur as his right to take part of their fruits and crops, his right to confiscate their property when they left his territory, his right to aid when his son was knighted or his daughter wed, his right to make his subjects grind at his mill or follow his banner. The King's Court or Council possessed, however, an undefined jurisdiction, chiefly over the king's private domain, or in cases where he might be deemed to be specially concerned. This council was composed of the great nobles and officers of the State, to whom those versed in the law were gradually added as advisers or assistants. Philip Augustus, in his resolute attack on the feudal power, endeavored to organize the ancient King's Council or Parliament into a more effective body. He formed what he called a Court of Peers. Six lay and six ecclesiastical lords sat in this court, and their first case was the trial of King John of England for his failure to perform his duty to his feudal superior. The English king refused to heed the summons of herald or bailiff, unless he could be assured of a safe return. Philip informed him that this would depend upon the sentence imposed in the case. Unwilling, apparently, to intrust his cause to the doubtful decision of a court of his enemies, John was condemned by default; and for his contumacy, for murder and treason, he was sentenced to death, and to the forfeiture of all his fiefs in France. A court that began with the trial of a king might hope for great power and judicial might in the future. The Court of Peers was, however, soon merged in the more fully developed Parliament. Saint Louis and Philip the Fair carried on these endeavors to form a tribunal which should derive its authority from the king. By the fourteenth century, the judicial power was chiefly vested in a body of magistrates forming part of the central government. The people welcomed the change from the uncertain justice which had been meted out by the feudal courts, from the necessity of bribery, the certainty of injustice, and the possibility of every wild and bloody vagary of decree and punishment, to the orderly and honest judgment of the courts of the king. The transfer of judicial power from untutored nobles to trained lawyers was, moreover, a necessity attending the development of the law. However well fitted to pass upon some question of the law of the chase, to adjudge the delinquency of some villein failing to render the feudal dues, to adjust the quarrels of the chief equerry with the chief huntsman, the nobles found themselves sadly perplexed, and still more bored, when complicated cases came before them to be decided by yet more complicated rules of law. In the good old times, they had appealed to the judgment of God, to hot ploughshares and boiling water, to dispose of troublesome questions of fact, and had imposed the duties of a jury on the Almighty; but such pious and convenient modes of determining the right and exposing the wrong were going out of vogue. Some base-born roturier, in a mean black gown, quoted to them Latin they did not understand and rules of law they could not comprehend. To leave to such as he to decide the confused laws they cited was the natural tendency of the lords who had once delighted in justice, haute, moyenne, and basse. Jealousy of the power of the great nobility excited the resolve on the part of the king to absorb judicial power. The clergy, also, were restrained in the functions which had fallen largely into their hands when they were the sole possessors of learning. An ordinance of Philip the Fair, in 1287, provides that, if there are any clergy among the bailiffs or sergeants, they shall be removed, and that those who have causes before the Parliament shall have laymen for their solicitors. An organized judicial force soon throws all legal business into the hands of a trained class of men; and the lawyers constituted a special body in France earlier than in England. The Parliament of Paris, La Cour du Roi, as formally organized by Saint Louis and Philip the Fair, possessed both original and appellate jurisdiction; and it added legislative functions to judicial responsibilities. Its jurisdiction, like that of most courts, મે grew by legal fictions. Cases that might affect the king as suzerain were styled cas royaux. The king's courts, the Parliament or inferior magistrates subject to its authority, insisted on trying them, to the exclusion of the feudal tribunals. This power was found as elastic as the similar jurisdiction of the English Court of the Exchequer. By the writ of committimus, a large class of cases, over which the Parliament claimed appellate jurisdiction, were brought before it to be tried in the first instance. Those who were subject to the king alone, living within his private domain, must of course be tried by his judges. The rights and guilt of peers could be determined only by the Parliament. Apart from this, a right of appeal to the king's Parliament, from almost all of the inferior trial courts, was gradually established - from those held by the king's baillis or presidencies or by the prévôts, and from those held by the feudal lords or their representatives. The Parliament thus absorbed a jurisdiction greater than that of any English court. It had, moreover, a power much like that of the Roman prætor. In cases not already provided for, the Parliament could declare, that, until the king should otherwise order, certain questions should be decided in certain ways. Such a right is very near to that of actual legislation. The body of the Roman law sprang from such an origin; and, though to a much less degree, the French courts made a portion of the laws which they were to administer. The court was divided into sections having different functions. All of these sat together to consider the subjects which required the attention of the entire Parliament. With little change, save in the number of its members, it preserved the form in which it was organized by Philip the Fair, in the ordinance of 1302, down to the time when, with royalty and nobility, it perished in the French Revolution. Various Chambers of Inquiry-Chambres des Enquêtes — heard appeals from the baillis, prévôts, and other inferior tribunals. The result of their deliberations was reported to the great chamber, where the decision was pronounced which the Chambre des Enquêtes had reached. The Chamber of Petitions Chambre des Requêtes-was originally organized to hear and answer petitions presented to the Parliament. It finally heard most of the civil suits of original jurisdiction which were brought before that court. In these cases, the members of the chamber performed the duties of both judge and jury. The number of the judges might atone for the lack of the inore popular element. Some of the cases were heard orally; others were decided on written proofs. The regulation of the practice is too obscure to be clearly understood. The solicitors and advocates seem to have performed their duties in much the same manner as the attorneys and barristers of the English courts. La Tournelle Criminelle was organized at a later period than the other chambers. It had jurisdiction of criminal cases, and tried all those brought before the Parliament, except some of special importance, the trials of nobles, of some ecclesiastics, and of great public officers, which were heard before the great chamber, or all the sections combined. The members of the Tournelle varied from twenty to thirty. They did not sit permanently in this court; but were taken from the great chamber and the other branches of the Parliament, in order, as it was humanely stated, "that the habit of condemning men and sentencing them to death should not alter the natural clemency of the judges, and render them inhuman." Despite this merciful provision, prisoners had a trial far different from that secured in England to those accused of crime. The trials were ordinarily had with closed doors and upon written evidence, and there were few of the humane presumptions of the common law in favor of innocence. A majority of only two was sufficient for a conviction. The highest branch of the Parliament was the great chamber,La Grand Chambre. The first president, nine presidents à mortier, as they were styled from their caps, and thirty-seven counsellors, of whom twelve were originally in orders, composed this body. Apart from the professional members of the court, the peers of France and the princes of the royal blood had the right to sit in this body. Here the judgments reached by the other sections were brought to be pronounced. Matters of State as well as of law were discussed before it. The suits of the peerof France and actions involving royal rights were here tried. The Parliament met in the old Palais de Justice, the palace which unites the France of Saint Louis with France under the presidency of Marshal McMahon. In the hall of Saint Louis, the meetings of the entire body were held. No hall of justice has witnessed more varied or more tragic scenes. There the Parliament met in its solemn sessions when the wars, the treaties, the |