Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/565

The Eve of the French Revolution 425 739. Arbitrary Imprisonment. But the king not only con- trolled his subjects' purses ; he had a terrible authority over their persons as well. He could issue orders for the arrest and arbi- trary imprisonment of anyone he pleased. Without trial or for- mality of any sort a person might be cast into a dungeon for an indefinite period, until the king happened to remember him again or was reminded of him by the poor man's friends. These noto- rious orders of arrest were called " sealed letters." They were not difficult to obtain for anyone who had influence with the king or his favorites, and they furnished a particularly easy and effica- cious way of disposing of an enemy. These arbitrary orders lead one to appreciate the importance of the provision of Magna Carta which runs : " No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of his peers and in accordance with the law of the land." Some of the most eminent Frenchmen of the time were shut up by the king's order, often on account of books or pamphlets written by them which displeased the king or those about him. 740. The Parlements and their Protests. Yet, notwithstand- ing the seemingly unlimited powers of the French king, and in spite of the fact that France had no written constitution and no congress to which the nation sent representatives, the monarch was by no means absolutely free to do just as he pleased. For example, the high courts of law, the so-called parlements, could often hamper him and his ministers. These resembled the English Parliament in almost nothing but name. The French parlements of which the most important one was at Paris and a dozen more were scattered about the provinces did not, however, confine themselves solely to the business of trying lawsuits. They claimed that when the king decided to make a new law he must send it to them to be regis- tered, for how, otherwise, could they adjust their decisions to it ? Although they acknowledged that the right to make the laws belonged to the monarch, they nevertheless often sent a " protest " to the king instead of registering an edict which they disapproved. They would urge that the king's ministers had misled his Majesty.