LOUIS IX AND THE FRENCH STATE

THE FRENCH STATE BEGAN ITS modern phase under conditions in many respects different from those in the kingdom of Frederic Il. The French population in the late thirteenth century had come to be to a greater extent homogeneous in character and united in sentiment. It is true that the great distinction between North and South persisted and showed itself in diversities of speech, of customs, and of laws; but the sentiment of a common nationality had been growing steadily since Philip Augustus (d. 1223) and found its expression in the universal respect and affection felt for the person of his grandson, the sainted king Louis. Louis IX came to the French throne in 1226, with considerable resistance from the great barons, as the feudal ruler of a feudal state. The student of mediæval affairs is often tempted to ask how the feudal state, with its division of power in many hands, could have found room for a royal power at all. The answer is that the feudal king was himself a link in the intricate chain of checks and balances which held feudal society together. His suzerainty over the higher vassals was the warrant for their suzerainty over their own vassals. His sovereignty over the people as a whole represented an idea of unity, without which even the most reckless baron of them all would have found something lacking in his sense of political attachment. Nor, unless all semblance of unity were to be given up, was there any other possible form under which it could be expressed. This interdependence of the monarchy and the feudal hierarchy is the key to the process by which the monarchy in France gradually set itself free from feudal restraints and put itself at the head of a nation made up of individuals and corporations, not of sharply defined and graded social classes. Not by opposing feudal rights and privileges, but by first recognizing them, then supplementing and controlling them, and finally by replacing them, the kings of France from Philip Augustus down laid that wonderful foundation of royal rights upon which was to be built the sordid tyranny of Louis XI and the splendid absolutism of Louis XIV.

It began with the creation by Philip Augustus of royal officials called baillis or sénéchaux, words having the same meaning but used in different localities, who were to represent the interests of the king, primarily in the domaine, that is, the territory belonging to the king directly, but were readily available for the king’s service elsewhere. Under the baillis and sénéchaux were lower and more ancient officials called prévôts. Both the bailli and the prévôt were primarily judges at law, but combined in themselves also the functions of military leaders, of tax collectors, and of general administrators. To prevent the baillis from identifying themselves too closely with their bailiwicks, the kings tried to attach them to the royal person by regular salaries, short terms of service, and frequent changes of district. Of especial interest to us is the process by which the justice of the king came in time to take the place of the justice of the numerous lords on the royal domaine. For one thing, it was more “scientific.” The seigneurial jurisdiction rested almost entirely on local custom and hence was less adapted to new social conditions. It was administered normally by the lord himself, who was not a person “learned in the law,” but was bound only to see to it that the law as it was should be applied in a given case. The royal law, administered by persons at least semiprofessional and educated more and more in the Roman Law as a science, learned rapidly to borrow from this inexhaustible source principles to cover every possible kind of new case. The famous jurist, Philippe de Remi, sire de Beaumanoir (d. 1296), was bailli to Count Robert of Clermont, a son of St. Louis. In this capacity he compiled for his master the so-called “Customs of the Beauvaisis” about 1280. Beaumanoir served during his life as bailli, or seneschal, in various provinces, so that what he says as to the nature of these offices carries the weight of long and successful personal experience. In the Introduction to his code he gives a picture of the ideal bailli which shows plainly what possibilities of good lay in this office if it could be administered by such men as he has in mind. He lays down ten virtues which his model official ought to have. The first, which he says ought to be the lady and mistress of all the rest, is “sapience,” or, in plain English, common sense. The second is the love of God, such love as a man has for his father, for from such love and service comes every good thing. The bailli must be gentle and amiable (dous et debonaires) toward the well-meaning; but he must seem hard and cruel toward the evildoer. The bailli who is patient and ready to listen lets the parties say all they will that he may the better come at the evil and know the good. He needs bravery and activity without laziness, which might cause him to leave many things to others that he ought to do himself. He must be brave that he may not favor the rich against the poor, nor stand in fear of evil men. Yet his bravery should be wise, not foolhardy (folhardement). He should be generous, yet not after the manner of a spendthrift whose largesse brings no good to any, but sagely and in proportion to what he has. The bailli is bound to obey his lord except to the peril of his soul, without inquiry whether the cause in which he is ordered be good or bad; for the other party, if he be aggrieved by the bailli‘s action, may appeal to the lord. Yet this does not apply to cases involving death or maiming. He must further be thoroughly informed as to the character of his lord and of the lord’s counselors, as to his own character and that of all his subordinate officers, that he may know just how to govern himself in all these relations. He ought to be clever in getting as much out of the land as possible without injury to others, that he may return his land to the lord not diminished but improved in value. Finally comes a virtue which Beaumanoir again declares to be the chief of all, loyalty or sense of duty; for if a man be loyal, though he have little learning and little of the other virtues, he will be loved and valued for this virtue alone; but if he have not this all the rest avail him little. Like the podestà in an Italian city the bailli was forbidden to marry or allow any of his family to marry within his bailiwick, to place a relative in a church office or to employ him in any subordinate function. He must avoid annoying his subjects by change of residence, by unnecessary exactions, or by delegating his duties to others without cause. At the close of one administration he must remain forty days in the province and be subject to prosecution for malfeasance in office. If fined for such evildoing his heirs were made responsible for payment.

A royal judge of this description found little difficulty in a case of conflict of laws in discovering a legal fiction suited to his need. One of the most important of these fictions was that of the cas royaux; that is, cases in which the king as sovereign was specially concerned. For example, cases of lèse-majesté, or offence against the kingly office as such; counterfeiting money as an invasion of the royal prerogative; crimes committed on the “king’s highway.” Some went so far as to include usury and blasphemy because these were crimes against which special royal edicts had been made. Especially was the king represented as the supreme guardian of the public peace, and whatever violated this was said to be under his special jurisdiction. It is easy to see that rights like these, never strictly defined, opened up opportunities for endless expansion. A singular idea was that of “anticipation” (prevention). If the king was indeed the fountain of all justice, then he had properly the right to judge in all cases whatsoever. This right he ordinarily did not enforce, since he was supposed to have committed its execution in part to the seigneurs; but if these at any time failed to do their duty, then the latent right of the king came into force again, and if the royal judge could get ahead of the local justice, this was good evidence of neglect on the part of the latter. So also the royal law seized not only upon cases, but upon persons formerly subject to local law. Under the term bourgeois du roi we find a whole class of citizens who were thus permanently taken under the king’s protection as against the jurisdiction of the seigneur to whom the city itself belonged. Still more effective than these direct attacks upon seigneurial justice was the right of appeal, a right implied in the “fountain of justice” theory, but in the times before Louis IX seldom enforced. Under him it was revived so distinctly that the picture of the sainted king hearing cases in his own person, as drawn by his biographer, is that by which King Louis is best remembered.

“It often happened in summer that he took his seat after Mass under an oak tree in the forest of Vincennes and made us all sit about him, and all who had any business came to him without any hindrance from huissiers or any other person. Then he asked: ‘Has any one here a suit?’ and those that had suit arose. Then he said: ‘Keep silence all of you, and I will give you judgment one after the other.’ And then he called monseigneur Perron de Fontenines and monseigneur Geoffroy de Villette and said...