SALE OF JUDICIAL OFFICES.

209

and addicted to pleasure, compelled him to persevere in this mode of replenishing his empty coffers; and during the reign of his son, Henry II., it became a common practice to dispose of judicial offices in the different parliaments of the kingdom to the highest bidder, for which purpose a bureau was opened, and a regular tariff of prices was established. This continued until the year 1771, when the system was put an end to by a royal edict, passed at the time when the parliament, so well known as the parliament Maupeou, was constituted.

It is needless to dwell upon the evils of such a practice. They are too obvious to require comment. "It has been strongly remarked, that there is no rule better established (it should be added, in law and reason, for unfortunately it is often otherwise in practice), respecting the disposition of every office in which the public are concerned, than this Detur digniori. On principles of public policy, no money consideration ought to influence the appointment of such offices. It was observed of old that the sale of offices accomplished the ruin of the Roman empire. Nulla aliâ re magis Romana Respublica interiit quam quod magistratus officia venalia erant."

1

The virtuous Chancellor l'Hopital feelingly deplored the consequences of this system. "Associated," said he," with a few upright men whom cruel death has spared, we support, as best we may, the ancient splendor of the magistracy. How its lustre is dimmed! How it is de.. based since access to it has been thrown open to all the world; and we have seen enter into it a crowd of young

1 Story's Equity Jurisprudence, § 295. "Therefore, by the law of England (12 Rich. II. c. 2), it is further provided that no officer or minister o... the king shall be ordained or made for any gift or brocage, favor or affection; nor that any which pursueth by him or any other, privily or openly, to be in any manner of office, shall be put in the same office, or in any other; but that all such officers shall be made of the best and most lawful men, and sufficient: a law worthy to be written in letters of gold, but more worthy to be put in due execution."-Coke Litt. 234 a.

men without talent and without industry, who are ignorant of the first elements of law, and whose title consists in the money they have paid! In the distribution of offices of trust, regard is no longer had to merit. Virtue is forced to give way to wealth, and yet it is when vices multiply, that virtue, in order to repress them, ought to be invested with power and auChority."

1

Louis Hutin asceded the throne in 1314, and reigned only eighteen months; but in that brief period he effected some judicial reforms, and to him has been attributed the origin of the grands jours, or assizes, which afterwards formed a not unimportant part of the system of judicature in France. For, in order to correct abuses in the administration of justice throughout the kingdom, he appointed a commission of inquiry, commission inquisitoriale, which was every three years to make a tour in the provinces, and was armed with full power to redress grievances and punish such members of the inferior courts as had been guilty of corruption or any other malversation of duty. But we have seen that commissions similar to these used to issue in still earlier times, when, as yet, the name of parliament was un

1 Epistol. i. p. 15. See Bernardi, Histoire du Droit Public, 451-457. With reference to the sale of the judicial office in France, Alison, in his History of Europe, vol. i. p. 178, says, "Though the system may appear strange to English ideas, yet a little reflection must show, as Burke has observed, that it was admirably fitted both to confer independence and insure respectability." And he gives, as a reference, Burke's works, v. (vi. is printed by mistake) 367. But this remark is hardly borne out by the cauous language of the philosophic orator, who says, “They (the parliaments) Įossessed one fundamental excellence: they were independent. The most

otful circumstance attendant on their office, that of its being vendible, contributed, however, to this independency of character. They held for life. Indeed, they may be said to have held by inheritance." On the other hand, it is well to bear in mind the warning which the premier, President Guillard, gave to Francis I. "Croyez que ceux qui auront si cher acheté la justice la vendront, et ne sera cautelle ni malice qu'ils ne trouvent."MABLY, Observ. sur l'Hist. de France, tom. iii. p. 131.

ETABLISSEMENTS OF ST. LOUIS.

211

known, and the conr royale or conseil souverain formed the supreme court of justice in the kingdom.

It has been mentioned that Saint Louis felt grateful to the advocates for the part they had taken in his struggle with the pope; and in the earliest French code that was ever framed,-his Etablissements, in 1270, faits par grand conseil de sages hommes et de bons clercs,-the object of which was to collect and systematize the scattered laws of the kingdom,' one chapter was devoted to a consideration of the rights and duties of that body. They were therein enjoined to present no cause to the court which was not just and loyal, and to practicecourtesy and forbearance towards their opponents while refuting their arguments, without using words of contumely or abuse. They were also forbidden to make any bargains with their clients respecting their fees during the conduct of a cause, et il ne doit fere nul marché a celui pourqui il plaide, plet pendent.

Saint Louis died in 1270, very soon after the compilation of this work, and he was succeeded by his son, Philip the Bold, who, in 1274, issued a royal ordinance which applied exclusively to advocates. By this they were obliged, under pain of being disbarred, to take an oath upon the Holy Gospels that they would, both in their oral pleadings and their opinions upon cases submitted to them, discharge their duty with care, diligence, and fidelity; and would support causes only so long as they believed them to be just, but abandon them when they discovered that they were not. The amount of their fees was to be regulated by the importance of the cause and the ability of the advocate (just as it is practically with us at present); but it was, in no case, to exceed thirty livres tournois.

1 These Etablissements were divided into two books-the one containing 168 articles, and the other 40,-and consisted of portions of the Roman law, canons, councils, decretals, customs of the realin and Royal ordinances. They are collected in an immense work, called Ordonnances du Louvre. On the subject of the ordinances, see Bernardi, Histoire du Droit, 369.

It would be tedious and not very useful to follow in chronological order the numerous edicts issued by the French kings to regulate the conduct and practice of advocates. Their frequency proves the high importance attached to the due exercise of the duties of their office; and sometimes they speak in tones of grave reproach when they notice abuses that had crept in and called for reformation. I propose only to give a general view of their position in France during the middle ages, and a brief account of some of the peculiarities of customs and manners connected with the subject, in the time that intervened between the accession of St. Louis to the throne and the beginning of the seventeenth century, a period of more than 340 years. It is obvious that many changes must have taken place in that interval, and that what was true of a particular date might not apply to an epoch removed from it only a few years. But, separated as we are from those ages by so great a distance, it is not material that we should assign every peculiar usage to its precise year, especially as there prevailed throughout this period a general similarity of customs and habits, so that an anachronism is not likely to lead into any serious error.

When we speak of the noblesse de la robe, the term is not used in a figurative and merely complimentary sense, for the bar in France constituted a lesser order of nobility, and was recognized as such from the commencement of the fourteenth century. We have seen that, by the Roman law, advocates who had discharged the duties of their office with fidelity, were, after they had ceased to practice in the courts, deemed worthy of being held in special honor, and were numbered among the counts (comites), and most illustrious (elarissimi) of the empire. Before the reign of Philip the Bold, the only nobility in France consisted of the great feudal lords, who held fiefs directly from the crown, and it was said that these must have remained in the family for

KNIGHTHOOD OF LAWYERS.

213

three generations before the tenant was ennobled. But in 1288 Philip the Bold granted letters patent of nobility to Raoul, goldsmith to the king, and this precedent was afterwards made use of as a mode of replenishing the royal exchequer, by the sale of lettres d'anoblissment to individuals; just as our own James I. compelled persons to be knighted, and created the order of the baronetage, for the sole purpose of filling his coffers. Philip the Fair seems to have been the first French monarch who bestowed knighthood upon some of the most distinguished advocates of his time. They were styled by various titles, such as chevaliers ès loix, chevaliers de justice, chevaliers de lettres et de sciences, and chevaliers clercs, and this, in all probability, suggested the idea of claiming for the whole body the honor of nobility; which, though an usurpation at first, was gradually acquiesced in as a right, and about the middle of the fourteenth century we find them in full possession of the privileges which belonged to an order of the noblesse. Bartolus, who was born in 1300, and died in 1350, and whose authority as a jurist was, for a long period unrivalled in Italy and France, where he was styled "the mirror and lamp of law," goes so far as to say,' that after ten years of practice in his profession, the docteur en droit, or advocate, became ipso facto a chevalier or knight.

But this seems to be a mistake, and the better opinion is, that at the end of that period the learned civilian was considered to be qualified to receive the honor of knighthood, which was bestowed upon him, if at all, by the sovereign in person, or by some ancient chevalier ès

1 Ad lib. i. Cod de professoribus. Bartolus was also celebrated for his munificence; and we are told of the gorgeous trappings of his horse, and his liberality in scattering money to the populace as he rode along the streets of Bologna. To this Bishop Hall alludes in the foliowing lines from his Virgidemia, or Satires:

"While father Bartoll on his foot cloth rode,

Upon high pavement gaily silver-strowed."