Editing Parlement (section)

==History==
Parlements were judicial organizations consisting of a dozen or more appellate judges, or about 1,100 judges nationwide. They were the courts of final appeal of the judicial system, and typically wielded power over a wide range of subjects, particularly taxation. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until the parlements gave their assent by publishing them.

The members of the parlements were aristocrats, called [[Nobles of the Robe|nobles of the robe]], who had bought or inherited their offices, and were independent of the King.

'''Sovereign councils''' ({{lang|fr|conseils souverains}}) with analogous attributes, more rarely called '''high councils''' ({{lang|fr|conseils supérieurs}}) or in one instance '''sovereign court''' ({{lang|fr|cour souveraine}}), were created in new territories (notably [[Sovereign Council of New France|in New France]]). Some of these were eventually replaced by parlements (e.g. the [[Sovereign Council of Navarre and Béarn]] and the [[Sovereign Court of Lorraine and Barrois]]). As noted by [[James Stephen (civil servant)|James Stephen]]:

{{blockquote|There was, however, no substantial difference between the various supreme provincial judicatures of France, except such as resulted from the inflexible varieties of their various local circumstances.<ref>{{cite book|last=Stephen|first=James|author-link=James Stephen (civil servant)|year=1857|title=Lectures on the History of France|volume=1|page=291|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rBc1FszuGWAC|location=London}}</ref>}}

From 1770 to 1774 the [[Lord Chancellor of France|Chancellor of France]], [[René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou|Maupeou]], tried to abolish the Parlement of Paris in order to strengthen the Crown. However, when King [[Louis XV]] died in 1774, the parlements were reinstated. The parlements spearheaded the aristocracy's resistance to the absolutism and centralization of the Crown, but they worked primarily for the benefit of their own class, the French nobility. [[Alfred Cobban]] argues that the parlements were the chief obstacles to any reform before the Revolution, as well as the most formidable enemies of the French Crown. He concludes that the

{{Blockquote|Parlement of Paris, though no more in fact than a small, selfish, proud and venal oligarchy, regarded itself, and was regarded by public opinion, as the guardian of the constitutional liberties of France.<ref>{{cite book|first=Alfred |last=Cobban|title=A History of France|year=1957|volume=1|page=63}} see also {{Harvnb|Cobban|1950|pp=64-80}}</ref>}}

In November 1789, early in the [[French Revolution]], all the parlements were suspended.<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul R. Hanson|title=The A to Z of the French Revolution|year=2007|pages=250–51}}</ref>