Paris From the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 2

Excerpt

NE of the grandest institutions of ancient France was the Parlement de Paris, and its history and that of the prévôts would constitute a history of the capital, while that of the fitful and accidental convocations of the États Généraux would in nowise illustrate that of the nation. Our facilities for acquiring a knowledge of the functions and methods of procedure of the Parlement have been greatly increased by the numerous critical historical works which have appeared within the last few years, amongst which that of M. Felix Aubert, which covers the long period between its origin, in 1250, and the reign of François I, when it was "the instrument par excellence of the national unity and pacification," is, perhaps, the most valuable. The establishment of the magistrature prévôtale, replacing that of the Vicomte de Paris, has been credited to Hugues Capet, but the first official record appears to be a charter given in favor of the monks of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, dated in the last year of the reign of Henri I, 1060, and bearing the signature of Étienne, prévôt de Paris. This officer was a lieutenant of the king, designated by him to administer justice in his name; he presided over the tribunal of the Châtelet, and commanded the guet, or watch, and the noblesse in the arrière-ban of the general muster for war. In Paris, this office required the command of important funds, and several citizens sometimes combined to give guarantees for the prévôt. Nevertheless, the latter was frequently found unworthy of this trust, and the Étienne of 1060 appears in the chronicles as advising the young king, Philippe I, to plunder the treasury of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, with the view of securing for himself the famous cross of gold brought from Spain by Childebert. This nefarious scheme was undertaken, but at the moment when the burglarious prévôt put out his hand to seize the cross, he was suddenly stricken with blindness.

Of a very different quality was the Étienne Boileau, selected by Saint-Louis to fill this important post, and who, according to Joinville, "executed such good and straight justice," that "no malefactor, thief, or murderer dared to remain in Paris but he was immediately hanged and exterminated; neither family nor gold nor silver could save him." The king was so well satisfied with his prévôt that he caused him to be seated by his side when he presided at the Châtelet, and, in order to preserve to this office, after Boileau, the lustre which he had conferred upon it, he separated from it the receipt of the funds of the royal domains, and created for the latter a receiver, a guardian of the seals, and sixty notaries who exercised their functions under the authority of the prévôt, who, subsequently, was entitled garde de la prévôt de Paris. The guet royal was established, and the prévôt drew up the ancient regulations of the hundred trades or handicrafts which existed in the capital, "in order to establish peace and order in industry as he had established it in the nation." These trades were divided into various great corporations. Under this wise king, also, the Hanse, or confraternity, of the marchandise de l'eau became definitely the municipalité parisienne; for about a century the members of this confraternity had been called échevins jures, and their chief was known as the prévôt des marchands de l'eau, or prévôt de confrérie de l'eau. The numerous privileges which this corporation enjoyed passed in course of time to the prévôt des marchands, who acquired, successively, the administration of the rentes or funds drawn from the Hôtel de Ville, the regulation of public ceremonies, the care and construction of the public monuments, the opening of new streets, etc. The ancient privileges of the Hanse had previously been confirmed at various times, amongst others, by Louis VII.

Saint-Louis was but a boy of eleven when he succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, and a coalition of the great nobles was immediately formed to take advantage of his minority; but the wisdom, prudence, and piety of his mother, Blanche of Castile, not only preserved the crown for him until he came of age, but also stood him in great service during the years of his reign, especially in those in which he was absent from the kingdom on his ill-starred crusades. One of her most beneficent deeds has been immortalized by the modern painter, Luc-Olivier-Merson, in a noble mural painting,—the delivery of the prisoners held in bondage by the chapitre de Paris (Notre-Dame), several inhabitants of Châtenay who had incurred the displeasure of the ecclesiastical authorities, and who were so maltreated in their dungeons that the lives of several of them were despaired of. The queen at first sent a civil request to the chapter to release the captives under bonds, but the churchmen returned an uncivil refusal and redoubled their severities; whereupon she proceeded in person to the prison with her son, struck the doors with her bâton, her guards immediately broke them down, and the liberated serfs, men, women, and children, flocked out tumultuously to thank their deliverers on their knees....