This pretension on the part of the parliaments was what Cardinal Richelieu was continually fighting against.  He would not allow the intervention of the magistrates in the government of the state.  When he took the power into his hands, nine parliaments sat in France—­Paris, Toulouse, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Rouen, Aix, Rennes, and Pau:  he created but one, that of Metz, in 1633, to severe in a definitive manner the bonds which still attached the three bishoprics to the Germanic empire.  Trials at that time were carried in the last resort to Spires.

Throughout the history of France we find the Parliament of Paris bolder and more enterprising than all the rest:  and it did not belie its character in the very teeth of Richelieu.  When, after Dupes’ Day was over, Louis XIII. declared all the companions of his brother’s escape guilty of high treason, the Parliament of Dijon, to which the decree was presented by the king himself, enregistered it without making any difficulty.  All the other parliaments followed the example; that of Paris alone resisted, and its decision on the 25th of April contained a bitter censure upon the cardinal’s administration.  On the 12th of May, the decision of that Parliament was quashed by a decree of the royal council, and all its members were summoned to the Louvre; on their knees they had to hear the severe reprimand delivered by Chateauneuf, keeper of the seals; and one president and three counsellors were at the same time dismissed.  When the Parliament, still indomitable, would have had those magistrates sit in defiance of the royal order, they were not to be found in their houses; the soldiery had carried them off.

[Illustration:  The Parliament of Paris reprimanded——­217]

The trial of Marshal Marillac, before a commission, twice modified during the course of proceedings, of the Parliament of Dijon, was the occasion of a fresh reclamation on the part of the Parliament of Paris; and the king’s ill-humor against the magistrates burst forth on the occasion of a commission constituted at the Arsenal to take cognizance of the crime of coining.  The Parliament made some formal objections the king, who was at that time at Metz with his troops, summoned President Seguier and several counsellors.  He quashed the decree of the Parliament.  “You are only constituted,” said he, “to judge between Master Peter and Master John (between John Doe and Richard Roe); if you go on as at present, I will pare your nails so close that you’ll be sorry for it.”  Five counsellors were interdicted, and had great trouble in obtaining authority to sit again.  So many and such frequent squabbles, whether about points of jurisdiction or about the registration of edicts respecting finances, which the Parliament claimed to have the right of looking into, caused between the king, inspired by his minister, and the Parliament of Paris an irritation which reached its height during the trial of the Duke of La Valette, third son of the Duke of Epernon, accused, not without grounds, of having caused the failure of the siege of Fontarabia from