French History Advance Access originally published online on October 27, 2009
French History 2009 23(4):446-466; doi:10.1093/fh/crp072
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The Parlement of Paris and the Ordinances of Blois (1579)
* Sylvie Daubresse is ingénieur de recherche at the CNRS in Paris. She may be contacted at sylvie.daubresse{at}culture.gouv.fr. This article has been translated by Mark Greengrass
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Abstract |
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The 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.