Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- The court of the Spanish Habsburgs: a peculiar institution?
- The magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici: between myth and history
- Political rhetoric and poetic meaning in Renaissance culture: Clément Marot and the Field of Cloth of Gold
- The unlikely Machiavellian: William of Orange and the princely virtues
- The Estates of Brabant to the end of the fifteenth century: the make-up of the assembly
- Presents and pensions: a methodological search and the case study of Count Nils Bielke's prosecution for treason in connection with gratifications from France
- Between Bruni and Machiavelli: history, law and historicism in Poggio Bracciolini
- Constitutional discourse in France, 1527–1549
- Lieuwe van Aitzema: a soured but knowing eye
- John Calvin's contribution to representative government
- Luther and the humanists
- Scholars and ecclesiastical history in the Early Modern period: the influence of Ferdinando Ughelli
- ‘By an Orphean charm’: science and the two cultures in seventeenth-century England
- The crisis of the European mind: Hazard revisited
- Isaac Beeckman and music
- Decadence, shift, cultural changes and the universality of Leonardo da Vinci
- Bibliography of the writings of HELMUT GEORG KOENIGSBERGER
- Index
Constitutional discourse in France, 1527–1549
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- The court of the Spanish Habsburgs: a peculiar institution?
- The magnificent Lorenzo de' Medici: between myth and history
- Political rhetoric and poetic meaning in Renaissance culture: Clément Marot and the Field of Cloth of Gold
- The unlikely Machiavellian: William of Orange and the princely virtues
- The Estates of Brabant to the end of the fifteenth century: the make-up of the assembly
- Presents and pensions: a methodological search and the case study of Count Nils Bielke's prosecution for treason in connection with gratifications from France
- Between Bruni and Machiavelli: history, law and historicism in Poggio Bracciolini
- Constitutional discourse in France, 1527–1549
- Lieuwe van Aitzema: a soured but knowing eye
- John Calvin's contribution to representative government
- Luther and the humanists
- Scholars and ecclesiastical history in the Early Modern period: the influence of Ferdinando Ughelli
- ‘By an Orphean charm’: science and the two cultures in seventeenth-century England
- The crisis of the European mind: Hazard revisited
- Isaac Beeckman and music
- Decadence, shift, cultural changes and the universality of Leonardo da Vinci
- Bibliography of the writings of HELMUT GEORG KOENIGSBERGER
- Index
Summary
For centuries the Lit de Justice of the kings of France, one of the most celebrated events in the ancien régime, has been interpreted in terms of eighteenth-century historiography: as a ceremonial appearance of the king in the Parlement of Paris used chiefly to exercise arbitrary power and quell parlementary remonstrances. In the mid-eighteenth century the parlementaire Louis-Adrien Le Paige reflected this view.
You ask me what a Lit de Justice is? I will tell you! In its origins and according to its true nature, a Lit de Justice [assembly] is a solemn session of the king in the Parlement [of Paris] which is convoked to deliberate on important affairs of state. It is a tradition which originated in ancient general assemblies held in earlier times… [But today] the convocation of a Lit de Justice [assembly] is an occasion of mourning for the nation…
Abbreviations: A.N. – Archives Nationales, Paris; B.N. – Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris.
I express appreciation to The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where work on this chapter was completed.
In his opinion the contemporary format given the ancient Lit de Justice betrayed the pristine French constitution, and that image of the assembly as unconstitutional became fixed in French history following similar denouncements in the decades just preceding the French revolution.
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- Politics and Culture in Early Modern EuropeEssays in Honour of H. G. Koenigsberger, pp. 153 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987