SECTION III.

 

The Kingdom of France

The ancient government and laws in France so nearly resembled those of the other feudal kingdoms, that such a detail with respect to them as was necessary, in order to convey some idea of the nature and effects of the peculiar institutions which took place in Spain, would be superfluous. In the view which I have exhibited of the means by which the French monarchs acquired such a full command of the national force of their kingdom, as enabled them to engage in extensive schemes of foreign operation, I have already pointed out the great steps by which they advanced towards a more ample possession of political power, and a more uncontrolled exercise of their royal prerogative. All that now remains is to take notice of such particulars in the constitution of France, as serve either to distinguish it from that of other countries, or tend to throw any light on the transactions of that period, to which the following history extends.

Under the French monarchs of the first race, the royal prerogative was very inconsiderable. The general assemblies of the nation, which met annually at stated seasons, extended their authority to every department of government. The power of electing kings, of enacting laws, of redressing grievances, of conferring donations on the prince, of passing judgment in the last resort, with respect to every person and to every cause, resided in this great convention of the nation. Under the second race of kings, notwithstanding the power and splendor which the conquests of Charlemagne added to the crown, the general assemblies of the nation continued to possess extensive authority. The right of determining which of the royal family should be placed on the throne, was vested in them. The princes, elevated to that dignity by their suffrage, were ac­customed regularly to call and to consult them with respect to every affair of importance to the state, and without their consent no law was passed, and no new tax was levied.

But, by the time that Hugh Capet, the father of the third race of kings, took possession of the throne of France, such changes had happened in the political state of the kingdom, as considerably affected the power and jurisdiction of the general assembly of the nation. The royal authority, in the hands of the degenerate posterity of Charlemagne, had dwindled into insignificance and contempt. Every considerable proprietor of land had formed his territory into a barony, almost independent of the sovereign. The dukes or governors of provinces, the counts or governors of towns and small districts, and the great officers of the crown, had rendered these dignities, which originally were granted only during pleasure or for life, hereditary in their families. Each of these had usurped all the rights which hitherto had been deemed the distinctions of royalty, particularly the privileges of dispensing justice within their own domains, of coining money, and of waging war. Every district was governed by local customs, acknowledged a distinct lord, and pursued a separate interest. The formality of doing homage to their sovereign, was almost the only act of subjection which those haughty barons would perform, and that bound them no farther than they were willing to acknowledge its obligations.

In a kingdom broken into so many independent baronies, hardly any common principle of union remained; and the general assembly, in its deliberations, could scarcely consider the nation as forming one body, or establish common regulations to be of equal force in every part. Within the immediate domains of the crown, the king might publish laws, and they were obeyed, because there he was acknowledged as the only lord. But if he had aimed at rendering these laws general, that would have alarmed the barons as an encroachment upon the independence of their jurisdiction. The barons, when met in the great national convention, avoided, with no less care, the enacting of general laws to be observed in every part of the kingdom, because the execution of them must have been vested in the king, and would have enlarged that paramount power, which was the object of their jealousy. Thus, under the descendants of Hugh Capet, the States General (for that was the name by which the supreme assembly of the French nation came then to be distinguished) lost their legislative authority, or at least entirely relinquished the exercise of it. From that period, the jurisdiction of the States General extended no farther than to the imposition of new taxes, the determination of questions with respect to the right of succession to the crown, the settling of the regency when the preceding monarch had not fixed it by his will, and the presenting remonstrances enumerating the grievances of which the nation wished to obtain redress.

As, during several centuries, the monarchs of Europe seldom demanded extraordinary subsidies of their subjects, and the other events, which required the interposition of the States, rarely occurred, their meetings in France were not frequent. They were summoned occasionally by their kings, when compelled by their wants or their fears to have recourse to the great convention of their people; but they did not, like the Diet in Germany, the Cortes in Spain, or the Parliament in England, form an essential member of the constitution, the regular exertion of whose powers was requisite to give vigour and order to government.

When the states of France ceased to exercise legislative authority, the kings began to assume it. They ventured at first on acts of legislation with great reserve, and after taking every precaution that could prevent their subjects from being alarmed at the exercise of a new power. They did not at once issue their ordinances in a tone of authority and command. They treated with their subjects; they pointed out what was best; and allured them to comply with it. By degrees, however, as the prerogative of the crown extended, and as the supreme jurisdiction of the royal courts came to be established, the kings of France assumed more openly the style and authority of lawgivers; and, before the beginning of the fifteenth century, the complete legislative power was vested in the crown.

Having secured this important acquisition, the steps which led to the right of imposing taxes were rendered few and easy. The people, accustomed to see their sovereigns issue ordinances, by their sole authority, which regu­lated points of the greatest consequence with respect to the property of their subjects, were not alarmed when they were required, by the royal edicts, to contribute certain sums towards supplying the exigencies of government, and carrying forward the measures of the nation. When Charles VII and Louis XI first ventured to exercise this new power, in the manner which I have already described, the gradual increase of the royal authority had so imperceptibly prepared the minds of the people of France for this innovation, that it excited no commotion in the kingdom, and seems scarcely to have given rise to any murmur or complaint.

When the kings of France had thus engrossed every power which can be exerted in government; when the right of making laws, of levying money, of keeping an army of mercenaries in constant pay, of declaring war, and of concluding peace, centered in the crown, the constitution of the kingdom, which, under the first race of kings, was nearly democratical; which, under the second race, became an aristocracy; terminated, under the third race, in a pure monarchy. Everything that tended to preserve the appearance or revive the memory of the ancient mixed government, seems from that period to have been industriously avoided. During the long and active reign of Francis I the variety as well as extent of whose operations obliged him to lay many heavy impositions on his subjects, the States General of France were not once assembled, nor were the people once allowed to exert the power of taxing themselves, which, according to the original ideas of feudal government, was a right essential to every freeman.

Two things, however, remained, which moderated the exercise of the regal prerogative, and restrained it within such bounds as preserved the constitution of France from degenerating into mere despotism. The rights and privileges claimed by the nobility, must be considered as one barrier against the absolute dominion of the crown. Though the nobles of France had lost that political power which was vested in their order as a body, they still retained the personal rights and pre-eminence which they derived from their rank. They preserved a consciousness of elevation above other classes of citizens; an exemption from burdens to which persons of inferior condition were subject; a contempt of the occupations in which they were engaged; the privilege of assuming ensigns that indicated their own dignity; a right to be treated with a certain degree of deference during peace; and a claim to various distinctions when in the field. Many of these pretensions were not founded on the words of statutes, or derived from positive laws; they were defined and ascertained by the maxims of honor, a title more delicate, but no less sacred. These rights, established and protected by a principle equally vigilant in guarding, and intrepid in defending them, are to the sovereign himself objects of respect and veneration. Wherever they stand in its way, the royal prerogative is bounded. The violence of a despot may exterminate such an order of men; but as long as it subsists, and its ideas of personal distinction remain entire, the power of the prince has limits.

As in France the body of nobility was very numerous, and the individuals of which it was composed, retained a high sense of their own pre­eminence, to this we may ascribe, in a great measure, the mode of exercising the royal prerogative which peculiarly distinguishes the government of that kingdom. An intermediate order was placed between the monarch and his other subjects; in every act of authority it became necessary to attend to its privileges, and not only to guard against any real violation of them, but to avoid any suspicion of supposing it to be possible that they might be violated. Thus a species of government was established in France, unknown in the ancient world, that of a monarchy, in which the power of the sovereign, though unconfined by any legal or constitutional restraint, has certain bounds set to it by the ideas which one class of his subjects entertain concerning their own dignity.

The jurisdiction of the parliaments in France, particularly that of Paris, was the other barrier which served to confine the exercise of the royal prerogative within certain limits. The parliament of Paris was originally the court of the kings of France, to which they committed the supreme administration of justice within their own domains, as well as the power of deciding with respect to all cases brought before it by appeals from the courts of the barons. When in consequence of events and regulations which have been mentioned formerly, the time and place of its meeting were fixed, when not only the form of its procedure, but the principles on which it decided, were rendered regular and consistent, when every cause of importance was finally determined there, and when the people became accustomed to resort thither as to the supreme temple of justice, the parliament of Paris rose to high estimation in the kingdom, its members acquired dignity, and its decrees were submitted to with deference. Nor was this the only source of the power and influence which the parliament obtained.

The kings of France, when they first began to assume the legislative power, in order to reconcile the minds of their people to this new exertion of prerogative, produced their edicts and ordinances in the parliament of Paris, that they might be approved of and registered there, before they were published and declared to be of authority in the kingdom. During the intervals between the meetings of the States General of the kingdom, or during those reigns in which the States General were not assembled, the monarchs of France were accustomed to consult the parliament of Paris with respect to the most arduous affairs of government, and frequently regulated their conduct by its advice, in declaring war, in concluding peace, and in other transactions of public concern. Thus there was erected in the kingdom a tribunal which became the great depository of the laws, and by the uniform tenor of its decrees established principles of justice and forms of proceeding which were considered so sacred, that even the sovereign power of the monarch durst not venture to disregard or to violate them.

The members of this illustrious body, though they neither possess legislative authority, nor can be considered as the representatives of the people, have availed themselves of the reputation and influence which they had acquired among their countrymen, in order to make a stand to the utmost of their ability, against every unprecedented and exorbitant exertion of the prerogative. In every period of the French history, they have merited the praise of being the virtuous but feeble guardians of the rights and privileges of the nation.

 

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