Parlement

A parlement (French pronunciation: [paʁləmɑ̃]) was a provincial appellate court in Ancien Régime France. In 1789 there were 13 parlements, the most important of which was by far the Parlement of Paris. They were not legislative bodies, but rather provincial high courts which heard appeals from the lower courts of record. Each was composed of a dozen or more appellate judges, or about 1,100 nationwide. They were the court of final appeal of the judicial system, and typically wielded much power over a wide range of subject matter, especially taxation. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until the parlements gave their assent by publishing them. The members were aristocrats called nobles of the gown who had bought or inherited their office, and were independent of the King. In 1770-4 the Chancellor, Maupeou, tried to abolish the Parlement of Paris in order to strengthen the Crown; however, when King Louis XV died in 1774, it was reinstated. The parlements spearheaded the aristocracy's resistance to the Crown's absolutism and centralization, but they worked primarily for the benefit of their own class, the French nobility. Alfred Cobban argues that the parlements were the chief obstacle to any reform before the Revolution, as well as the most intense enemies of the crown. He concludes, "The Parlement of Paris, though no more in fact than a small, selfish, proud and venal oligarchy, regarded itself, and was regarded by public opinion, as the guardian of the constitutional liberties of France." In November 1789, at an early stage of the French Revolution, all the parlements were suspended, and they were formally abolished in September 1790. ^ Alfred Cobban, A History of France (1957) vol 1 p 63; see also Cobban, "The Parlements of France in the eighteenth century." History (1950) 35#123 pp 64-80. ^ Paul R. Hanson, The A to Z of the French Revolution (2007) p 250-51 Less