jean-louis halpérin 1789) and as the advocate of privileges. For these reasons, many analyses dealt with the “responsibility” and the “faults” of theParlements, they have paid (in some way) through their suppression and the beheading (by the guillotine) of several members of these courts. As members of the “robe nobility” (noblesse de robe), the members of the Parlements appeared as unavoidable victims of the suppression of privileges they have enjoyed and they have defended. Vae victis for these judges thought the admirers of the FrenchRevolution. Roma traditoribus non premiacould the ones have said who regretted that the King of France, especially at the end of the reign of Louis XV under Chancellor Maupeou, did not succeed in quashing the authority of Parlements. With new research works, the point of view towards the Parlements has changed during the last decade. As well for the Middle Ages as for modern times, legal and political historians have focused on the richness of the case law (more than 11000 registers kept in the National Archives in Paris) and of the discourse (notably the printedworks of the presidents or general advocates from the sixteenth until the eighteenth century) developed by theParlements. They have also insisted on the fact that Parlements were supporters of the royal authority and acted many times in close collaboration with the royal government. Recently, my colleague Jacques Krynen has studied the “ideology” of the French judiciary in the longue durée and he has shown that the idea of a “state of justice” was a main theme to understand until today the judges’ claims to create law.1 Formy part I would choose as a point of departure a remark from Pierre Bourdieu about the constitution of the “legal field.”2 Pierre Bourdieu has noticed the ambiguity of the increasing “autonomy” of the legal field since the Bologna revolution in Europe: on one hand, legal experts (like the higher judges) have helped the princes to reinforce and legitimize their authority (notably by the abstract notion of the king’s two bodies or of the Crown), on the other hand, lawyers claimed for their own authority as only interpreters of legal texts (Princeps raro jurist said the glossa ordinaria) and they have used law as a barrier against royal arbitrary. My 1 Krynen, Jacques 2009 2 Bourdieu, Pierre 1997 p. 152 117
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