Alpha Book

] the last attempt prior to the French Revolution to cast off
royal absolutism in France. It was a vague popular protest coupled with
a selfish reaction on the part of the influential nobles: the pretext
was Mazarin's interference with the parlement of Paris.
[Sidenote: The Parlements]
The parlements were judicial bodies [Footnote: There were thirteen in
the seventeenth century.] which tried important cases and heard appeals
from lower courts. That of Paris, being the most eminent, had, in
course of time, secured to itself the right of registering royal
decrees--that is, of receiving the king's edicts in formal fashion and
entering them upon the statute books so that the law of the land might
be known generally. From making such a claim, it was only a step for
the parlement of Paris to refuse to register certain new edicts on the
ground that the king was not well informed or that they were in
conflict with older and more binding enactments. If these claims were
substantiated, the royal will would be subjected to revision by the
parlement of Paris.


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