PARLEMENT. The name borne in France. before the Revolution, by a number of local tri bunals whieh exercised a great influenee on the governum•nt in fields other than the judicial. The Parlement of Paris. the most influential and cele brated of the French parlements, is generally sup posed to have had its origin in the curia ?Tills of the Frankish kings, an assembly consisting of the lay and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the court which inet under the presidency of the king or his representative and exercised a wide though undefined jurisdiction, equitable in nature. Broad ly speaking. its powers extended to all cases in volving the royal interest, but it also heard ap peals from inferior courts where delay or denial of justice was coneerned. Under the Carolingian monarchs it became the court for the trial of eases involving the high nobility. and its juris diction was also extended over all persons living under the royal protection. In the course of time the rurin regis fell apart into three separate bodies: the vvonswii de mi. the eliambre des comp trs, arid the Parlement proper. which name first prominently appears under St. Louis. Under Philip the Fair the lc•gistes or members of the learned bourgeoisie began to enter the Parlement which up till then had been composed exclusive ly of the lay and ecclesiastical nobility. These came to constitute a very important element in the body, as is indicated by an ordinance of 1296, which ordered that IS laics and 16 clerks should always be in session for the doing of judicial business. The Parlement at this time comprised three chambers: the grand' ehanibre or full Par lenient, meeting for the rendering of decrees; the ehambre des enquetes, to which was referred the greater mass of detailed work, such as prelimi nary investigation and the sifting of testimony, and the chambre des rcgiales, which received the petitions of those desiring to come within the jurisdiction of the Parlement. From 1417 to 1136, while Paris was in the hands of the English, the Parlement was in session at Poi tiers. In 1467 the irremovability of members of Parlement was established. The method of admission at this time was by royal appointment from a list submitted by the Parlement, hut fre quently the kings exercised the power of direct appointment. Under Francis I. the principle of
purchase became general; nominations henceforth ceased and membership. as a rule, passed from father to son, resulting in the establishment of a so-called nobility of the robe, fully as class conscious, as jealous of its prerogatives, and as careful of furthering its interests, as was the feudal nobility. The salary was slight, and the chief income of the magistrates was derived from fees which were very high. The kings at vari ous times sought to increase their revenue from the sale of offices by increasing the number of members of Parlement, or even the number of chambers, there being at one time no less than nine of these in the Parlement of Paris. In 1604 the so-called Paulette was introduced in accordance with which members of Parlement paid an annual fee of 1-60 of their income in return for which their office, on death, passed to their heirs.
The provincial parlements had their rise after the Hundred Years' War. As the great feuds were reunited with the crown. parlements were established in the local capitals to perform the same judicial functions as the Parlement of Paris did within its jurisdiction. The Parlement of Toulouse had been established in 1302, hut was dissolved after some time, and was not reestab lished till 1443. The other local parlements, with the date of their foundation, were as fol Grenoble, 1461: Bordeaux, 1462; Dijon, 1477; Aix, 1501: Rouen. 1515: Rennes, 1553; Pau. 1620; Metz, 1633; Besancon, 1676; Douai, 1636; Trevoux, 1762; Nancy, 1775. The earl• theory was that all the parlements constituted but one body, and that the members of one par lenient were entitled to sit in any other. This, however, was not maintained for a long time. The parlements were all on a basis of equality in that each was supreme within its jurisdiction. but a certain predominance was enjoyed by the Parlement of Paris, whose decrees, after 1474. were binding in any part of the kingdom with out•the visa or confirmation of the local parle meat. For the facilitation of business the Pa rte nient frequently sent out a number of its mem bers to hold court in different places. These were known as Grand .fours and constituted, prac tically, courts of assize.