The Frondes

Abstract

On 13 May 1648, the Parlement of Paris, the grand conseil, the Parisian Chambre des Comptes and Cour des Aides jointly issued the Arrêt d’Union by which these four great law courts agreed to elect representatives who would meet in a hall of the Parlement — the Chambre Saint Louis — to discuss the reform of the state. The Regency, which was following closely the collapse of the power of Charles I in England, feared that the Union might imitate what the Parliament in London was doing to the king. When discussions between representatives of the magistrates and the Regency failed to reach accommodation, the crown resorted to threats, which simply hardened the attitude of the Union. Anne relented and on 15 June accepted the Act of Union. The meetings in the Chambre Saint Louis aimed to dismantle the ‘ministerial absolutism’ which Richelieu allegedly had constructed and which Mazarin had preserved.¹ The assembly drew up a text of twenty-seven articles demanding reform. They included the suppression of the intendants and all other extraordinary commissioners not authorised by the courts of justice, a ban on the creation and sale of new offices, an end to royal interventions in the normal conduct of justice, a return to ‘traditional’ procedures in the creation of new taxes (i.e. fiscal legislation must be registered in the ‘normal’ way before being implemented), and a similar return to traditional means of collecting revenue (which meant dismissing the agents of the tax farmers). In July the Parlement of Paris added its own demand: contracts between the government and tax farmers must be revoked and the taille reduced by one-quarter.