AUDIENCE. In a technical sense, the term is applied to the right of access to the sovereign enjoyed by the peers of the realm individually and by the House of Commons collectively. More particularly it means the ceremony of the admission of ambassadors, envoys, or others to an interview with a sovereign or an important official for the purpose of presenting their cre dentials. In France, audience is the term applied to the sitting of a law court for hearing actions. In Spain, audiencia is the name given to certain tribunals which try appeals from courts of first instance. The audiencia pretorial, i.e., of the praetor, was a court in Spanish America from which there was no appeal to the viceregent, but only to the council of the Indies in Spain.
In England the Audience-court was an ecclesiastical court, held by the archbishops of Canterbury and York, in which they once exercised a considerable part of their jurisdiction. It has been long disused and is now merged in the court of arches.
EDME ARMAND GAS TON, Duc D' (1823-1905), French statesman created duke in 1844, and became auditor at the council of State in 1846. After the revolution of 1848, he retired to private life. In Feb. 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly, and became president of the right centre in 1873.
After the fall of Thiers, he directed the negotiations between the different royalist parties to establish a king in France, but as he refused to give up the tricolour for the flag of the old regime, the project failed. Yet he retained the confidence of the chamber, and was its president in 1875 when the constitutional laws were being drawn up. He likewise was president of the senate from March 1876 until 1879, when his party lost the majority.