parlement

History

Origins

Originally there was only the Parlement of Paris, which grew out of the feudal Curia Regis [king's court] and may be said to have had a separate existence from the reign of Louis IX (1226–70). Provincial parlements, similar in organization but less extensive in jurisdictional authority, were established from the 15th cent. onward. In 1789 there were, besides the Parlement of Paris, provincial parlements at Aix-en-Provence, Arras, Besançon, Bordeaux, Colmar, Dijon, Douai, Grenoble, Metz, Nancy, Pau, Rennes, Rouen, and Toulouse.

Opposition to Royal Reforms

From the late 16th cent. onward the parlements systematically opposed royal reform measures. They joined the Fronde (1648–53), the abortive aristocratic revolution against Cardinal Mazarin. A century later in the parlements protests against a tax on all income from property, including offices such as judgeships, aroused such an uproar that the project eventually collapsed. In the decade after the conclusion (1763) of the Seven Years War, the continuance of wartime taxes was vigorously opposed by the parlements.

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