CHAMBRE ARDENTE (" the fiery chamber "), a name given at different times in France to an extraordinary court of justice, probably on account of the severity of the punishments which it awarded, the most common being that of death by fire. In the year 1535, Francis I. established an inquisitorial tribunal, and a chambre ardente. Both were intended for the extirpation of heresy. The former, of which the pope was a corres ponding member, searched out, by means of spies, cases of heresy, and instructed the processes; while the latter both pronounced and executed the final judgment. Under Henri II., the activity of the C. A. received a new impulse, the entrance of that mon arch into Paris on the 4th July, 1549, being signalized by the burning of several heretics. But Francis himself, gallant and gay, as courtly history represents him, also seemed to relish a spectacle of this kind, for on various occasions he and his mistress presided at a burning. By and by, the C. A. relaxed in its penalties, and a was got up among
the more bigoted Roman Catholics that it was conniving at heresy. This seems to have roused the " lurking devil " in its members, .and, in order to wipe away the reproach, they commenced a series of unheard-of cruelties, which, along with other events, con tributed to originate the religious war of 1560. In 1679, Louis XIV. employed it for a new and more praiseworthy purpose—viz., to investigate the numerous reports of poisoning cases which the trial of the marchioness Brinvil]icrs (q.v.) caused to be cir culated. Many persons of the first rank, such as the marechal de Luxembourg, and the princess Louise of Savoy, were examined on suspicion, but no one was executed except the pretended sorcerer, Voisin (1680), after whose time the C .A. ended its activity.