BAZOCHE, or I3AsocuE, a kind of burlesque translation into French of the Latin word basilica, i.e., royal palace. When the French parliament ceased to be the grand council of the king, aria confined itself exclusively to administeringjustice, a distinction of name necessarily sprang up between those noblemen who formed the royal train and the habi tues of the court of justice. The former were called courtiers; the latter, basochians, or parliamentary clerks. But inasmuch as the word basilica necessarily presupposed a king, the basochians, to keep up their gathered round a mock one of their own Making, who resided at the Chateau des'Tournelles or the Initel St. Pol, just as the cour tiers did round the reality at the Louvre. Such was the origin of the basochian king and kingdom. Their historical existence can he traced to the beginning of the 14th c.. when Philip the fnir conferred on the brotherhood certain privileges. The principal authorities in this harmless monarchy, after the sovereign himself, were the chancellor, the masters of requests, the referendary, and the attorney-g,eneral. Henry III. sup pressed the title of king, and conferred all the privileges and rights attached to that office on the chancellor. Still the B. continued to exist as a kingdom, minus its head, and affected on all occasions the language of royalty. Its jurisdiction included the consider ation and decision of all processes and debates that arose among the clerks. It adminis tered justice twice a week, and also caused a species of coin to he struck which had cur rency among its members; but if we are to judge from the proverb about la nionnaie (14 lasoche, it did not enjoy an immense credit in the outer world of hard cash. The mock
monarch also possessed the extensive privilege of selecting at his pleasure, yearly, from the French royal forests, a tall tree, which his subjects, the clerks, were in the habit of planting, on the 1st of Nay, before the grand court of the palace, to the sound of tam bourines and trumpets. But this was not all. In the public sports, this fantastical little kingdom was worthily honored; its chancellor had rooms at the h5tel de Bourgogne; at the carnival, the basochians joined themselves to the corps of the prince of fools, and to the performers of low farces and " mysteries." They acted in their turn a species of satirical "morality" (q.v.), iu which they made extensive use of the liberty granted to them. in ridiculing vices and the favorites of fortune. Of course, they could not fail to provoke enmity and occasion serious scandal. Louis XII. patronized these amusements. In 1500, he gave the brotherhood of the 13. permission to perform plays in the grand saloon of the royal palace. Francis I. witnessed them in 1538; but in 15-10, they were interdicted as incorrigible. This interdict only applied to those of Paris, for several years after, we read of the basochian farces of Bordeaux. In their later development, they seem to have resembled the fastnachtzpiele (Shrove-Tuesday plays), so popular in Germany both before and after the reformation. They were the beginning of French comedy.