Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/481

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EDICT OF NANTES.
473

Magistrate or Commissioner be of said religion, he shall be obliged to have a Catholic Associate.

67th.—Where the question shall be upon criminal prosecution by the Provosts and their Lieutenants, of any one who is a resident and is of the said religion, who is accused of crime within the jurisdiction of the Provosts' Court, if the said Provosts or their Lieutenants be Catholics, they shall be obliged to summon an Associate of said religion, for the preparation of the suit, which Associate shall be present, as well at the decision upon competency of jurisdiction, as at the final trial of the said suit. The question of competency can only be decided at the nearest Presidial Court, to which all the principal officers of said Court, who can be found in the neighborhood must be convened, under the penalty of the proceedings being null; unless the accused party should require the competency to be decided in the said Chambers, ordered by the present Edict. In which case, with regard to those residing in the Provinces of Guyenne, Languedoc, Provence or Dauphiny, the substitutes of our Attorneys-General in the said Chambers shall bring forward, at the request of said residents, the charges and accusations laid against them, for inquiry and decision as to whether the causes belong of right to the Provosts' Court or not, and afterwards, according to the nature of the crime, to be referred by the Chambers for trial in the accustomed mode, or transferred to the Provosts' Court. In either case the Chambers shall see that all is equitably done, in conformity with our present Edict. The Presidial Judges, Provosts, Vice-Bailiffs, Vice-Seneschals, and others who pronounce final judgment, shall be respectively bound to obey implicitly all commands they shall receive from said Chambers, in like manner as they have heretofore obeyed our said Parliaments, under penalty of being deprived of their estates.

68th.—The proclamations, placards and public sale of estates, under order from the Courts, shall take i)lace in the customary places and at the usual hours, so far as may be practicable, and consistent with our Ordinances; otherwise to be in the public market place. If there be no market in the place where the property is situated, the sale shall take place at the nearest market within the district where the adjudication was made, and placards shall be affixed to the post of the said market-place, and at the entrance of the Session House of the said place, and by this means the said notices shall be deemed valid and sufficient, and the sale carried on