Government and Society in France

1461-1661

J. H. Shennan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032013404
• eBook ISBN: 9781000395808
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

Originally published in 1969, this volume provides a lucid analysis of French government and society over two centuries, from the late medieval period to the beginning of Louis XIV's personal rule. It takes up the essential arguments, contributes some novel interpretations, challenges some assessments, and makes essential reading for anyone trying to study the history of early modern France.

DOCUMENTS

A. Power and its Limitations

(i). The Monarchy

1(a). FROM CLAUDE DE SEYSSEL, La Monarchie de France, ed. J. Poujol, Paris, 1961, pp. 113–119.

The authority and power of the king in France is regulated and restrained by three checks… the first is Religion, the second, Justice and the third, Police…

With regard to the first, it is an indisputable fact that the French have always been, and stiÙ are… pious and god-fearing… For that reason it is both proper and necessary that whoever is king should make it known to the people by example and by visible and outward signs that he is a zealot, an observer of the Faith and of the Christian religion, and that he is resolved to use his power to sustain and strengthen it… so long as the king respects… the Christian religion he cannot act as a tyrant. If he is guilty of such an act, it is permissible for a prelate or any other devout man of religion who respects the people, to remonstrate with and to upbraid him, and for a simple preacher to rebuke and accuse him publicly as well as in private…

Justice, which is the second check… indubitably carries more weight in France than in any other country in the world, especially because of the institution of the Parlements, whose principal role is to bridle the absolute power which kings might seek to use… In the matter of distributive justice the king has always been subject to these courts, so that in civil cases an individual may gain satisfaction and justice indiscriminately against the king or against his subjects. As far as criminal cases are concerned, royal pardons and remissions are so contested, and those who obtain them are the subject of such violent argument that, lacking hope and confidence in such remissions, few people dare to act in an ill-advised, much less in a thoroughly odious manner Besides, justice is that much more powerful because those who are deputed to administer it have permanent possession of their offices and the king has no power to remove them, save in the event of forfeiture…

The third check is that of Police, by which is intended those many ordinances that have been promulgated, and subsequently confirmed and approved from time to time, by the kings themselves, which help to preserve the kingdom as a whole and the rights of the individuals who compose it.

1(b). FROM IBID., p. 130.

Regarding the monarchical state, since everything depends upon the monarch it appears that no other remedy for abuse is required, no other means of maintaining order is necessary than that the king should be good. Because he commands the entire obedience of his subjects he can, without difficulty, enforce the observance and maintenance of good laws, ordinances and customs, he can correct and annul those which are not beneficial or completely faultless, and he can make new laws if necessary; by living in a law-abiding way himself he can induce his subjects to follow his example and… do what is right…

1(c). FROM M. DEL’HôPITAL, Oeuvres inédites, ed. J. Dufey, 2 vols, Paris, 1825, vol. 1, part IV, pp. 380–81, Traité de la Reformation de la Justice.

It is loyal advice to French princes to treat their subjects with such moderation, mildness and benevolence and principally with such justice and lawfulness as to enable their subjects to perceive thereby that their affection is more paternal than lordly, more temperate than absolute, more venerable than terrible or awe-inspiring and that they hold as enemies and wicked men those who would counsel them differently. I have no wish, however, to approve rebellion against the monarch, however difficult, unjust or extortionate he may be, for I am aware that the subject, like a child, never has a just cause for revolting against his sovereign. Yet the wise man’s advice that fathers should not provoke their children to anger by harsh, ill-natured treatment may be applied equally to all who have management or authority over people, even to sovereign princes who are, or ought to be, the fathers of their country.

1(d). FROM C. LOYSEAU, Cinq Livres du Droit des Offices avec le Livre des Seigneuries et celui des Ordres, Paris, 1614, Traité des Seigneuries, chapter II, p. 15.

Sovereignty consists in absolute power, that is to say in full and complete authority in every respect, what canon lawyers call the plenitude of power, and is consequently without superior, since he who has a superior cannot be supreme and sovereign. There can be no limitation in time since that would imply neither absolute power nor even lordship but only power held in custody or on trust. Nor can there be any exception of persons or of things appertaining to the state, for such exceptions would automatically cease to belong to it. Just as the crown’s circle must be complete if it is to be truly a crown, so too true sovereignty must be entire.

However, since only God is all-powerful, the authority of men can never be entirely absolute: there are three kinds of law which limit the sovereign’s power without affecting his sovereignty. These are the laws of God, for the prince’s sovereignty is not diminished by his subjection to God; the natural, not positive rules of justice, since…one attribute of sovereignty is that it should be exercised according to the precepts of justice and not arbitrarily; and finally the fundamental laws of the state, because the prince must exert his sovereignty in the correct way, adhering both to the form and to the conditions which governed that sovereignty from the beginning.

2. FROM T. & D. GODEFROY, Le Ceremonial Français, Paris, 1649, vol. i, p. 257, Coronation Oath of Francis I.

To the Prelates: I promise and give you my word that I will scrupulously uphold the canonical privileges, due authority and jurisdiction belonging to each of you and to the churches in your keeping, that I will defend and protect you, with God’s help, to the best of my ability, according to the obligation which the king owes to every bishop and church in his kingdom.

To the People: In the name of Jesus Christ, I promise the following to the Christian people subject to me: first, that through our authority all Christian people will always maintain true peace in the Church of God. Item, that I will forbid all individuals, of whatever sort or condition, to indulge in rapacity and injustice. Item, that I will command and ordain that all judgments must be based on standards of equity and clemency so that a merciful and compassionate God may bestow his clemency upon me and upon you. Item, that it is my sincere intention to employ all the authority and power at my disposal to annihilate and drive out from the land subject to my jurisdiction, all heretics pointed out and denounced by the Church. All these things I vow and affirm to observe and accomplish.

3(a). FROM M. DEL’HôPITAL, Oeuvres Inédites, vol. I, part III, pp. 205–206, Traité de la Reformation de la Justice.

There is nothing more just or necessary… than to obey the orders and wishes of the sovereign prince; that is certainly the case when they are based on justice and good sense. Equity is the nerve, indeed the soul of the law and when it is present that law must receive pure and simple obedience; otherwise, the bond uniting civil society would be broken, there would no longer be any difference between king and subject, and that would create a fine confusion, to prevent which it is very reasonable that the king and his justice should compel obedience. But when the law is prejudicial to the public is it not true that it will recoil upon the prince himself? As chief of state, he is so intimately united with his subjects that he cannot offend nor injure them without himself feeling the effect sooner or later. As the prince is only human it is possible for him to be deceived either inadvertently or by evil and insidious counsel; with more reliable information he will change his mind and in this case a refusal to obey, so far from being imputed to disobedience and disservice, should be seen as one of the greatest and most notable services that can be done for him, for probably his intention is not to wrong or injure his people but rather to procure for them well-being and prosperity, indeed to put his own personal profit after that of his subjects…

3(b). FROM OMER TALON, Mémoires, continues par Denis Talon (vol. XXX of Nouvelle Collection des Mémoires, ed. J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat, 34 vols, Paris 1854).

And in fact, Francis I…having complained in this place of the difficulties made in registering certain edicts which ordered the creation of new offices, did not cause the letters to be published in his presence because he knew well that verification consists in liberty of suffrage, and that it is a kind of illusion in morals and a contradiction in politics to believe that edicts which by the laws of the kingdom are not susceptible of execution until they have been brought to the sovereign companies and there debated, shall pass for verified when Your Majesty has had them read and published in his presence. And so all who have occupied our places, those great personages who have preceded us, whose memory will always be honourable because they defended courageously the rights of the king their master and the interests of the public, which are inseparable, have on like occasions cried out with much more vigour than we could possibly do; the parlement has made remonstrances full of affection and fidelity.

… You are. Sire, our sovereign Lord; the power of Your Majesty comes from above, who owe an account of your actions, after God, only to your conscience; but it concerns your glory that we be free men and not slaves; the grandeur of your state and the dignity of your crown are measured by the quality of those who obey you.

3(c). FROM IBID., p. 268.

Formerly the king’s wishes were never executed by his subjects without being first approved by all the great men of the kingdom, by the princes and officers of the crown; today this political jurisdiction is vested in the Parlement; our possession of this power is guaranteed by a long tradition and respectfully acknowledged by the people. The opposition of our votes, the respectful resistance which we bring to bear in public affairs must not be interpreted as disobedience but rather as a necessary result of the exercise of our office and of the fulfilling of our obligations, and certainly the king’s majesty is not diminished by his having to respect the decrees of his kingdom; by so doing, he governs, in the words of the Scriptures, a lawful kingdom.

4(a). FROM J. BODIN, The Six Boókes of a Commonweale, ed. K. D. McRae, (a facsimile reprint of the English translation of 1606, Harvard Political Classics), Cambridge, Mass., 1962, Book 3, chapter 1, p. 267.

Wherewith the king (Charles IX) displeased, caused his privie Counsell to be called, and by the authoritie thereof a decree to bee made the xxiiii of September, whereby the Parlament [sic] of Paris was forbidden once to call in question the lawes or decrees proceeding from the king concerning matters of state: which was also before by king Francis decreed in the yeare 1528.

4(b). FROM P. R. DOOLIN, The Fronde, Harvard U.P., 1935, pp. 79–80, Royal Declaration, July 31, 1652.

…All authority…belongs to us. We hold it of God alone, and no person, of whatever quality he may be, can pretend to any part of it….The functions of justice, of arms, of finance, should be always distinct and separate; the officers of the Parlement have no other power than that which we have deigned to entrust to them, to render justice to our subjects. They have no more right to regulate…and take cognizance of what is not of their jurisdictions, than the officers of our armies and our finances would have to render justice, or establish presidents and counsellors to exercise it…Will posterity ever believe that officers have presumed to preside over the general government of the Kingdom, form councils and collect taxes, to assume, finally, the plenitude of a power which belongs only to us?

4(c). FROM IBID., pp. 135–69 Lettre ďœuis à messieurs du Parlement de Paris, anon., Paris, 1649.

… When the Kings come to the crown, they swear on the holy Gospels that they will maintain the Church of God to their best ability; that they will observe the fundamental laws of the State, and that they will protect their subjects according to God and reason, as good Kings should do; and in consideration of this oath, the people are obligated to obey them as Gods on earth; and the oath to do so which they swore to the first Kings still endures, because of the perpetual succession which is maintained in France. Both oaths are respective; and just as the King can cause subjects to be punished severely who have broken the promise which they have made to obey him as their legitimate Monarch, in all matters not contrary to the three fundamental articles which I have stated; so subjects are exempt from obedience, when Kings violate their oath; for if they overturn the laws of the Church, who is the subject who will obey them, and who is obligated to obey them? That is the great question, in fact, of the time of Henry IV, to which he could find a solution only by making himself a Catholic. If they break the fundamental laws of the State, if, for example, they pretend to cause the Kingdom to fall to the distaff, to sell or aÚenate their domain, the subjects are not bound to give them another, or to obey them on the other point. All this is without difficulty; and one must conclude that it is the same for the third circumstance of the oath, that if the Kings do not protect their subjects according to right and reason, in conformity with the laws of God and the Ordinances of the Estates which the sovereign Courts are bound to cause to be executed, having them in trust, the subjects are exempt from obedience; and even more, if they are oppressed unjustly, and with tyrannical violence, which cannot be reconciled with Royal Monarchy, in which the subjects obligate themselves to the Kings only to be protected against those who might trouble their repose; so that, if they trouble it themselves, they cease to be Kings, and the subjects to be subjects.

5. FROM P. R. DOOLIN, The Fronde, p. 94. from anon, pamphlet, Response Chrestienne et Politique aux Opinions Erronées du Temps, 1652.

It is true that the King is obliged, and promises at his Consecration, to render Justice, and to govern his Kingdom accor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• General Introduction
• Author’s Note
• Contents
• Introduction
• Documents
• Document Sources
• Index to Introduction