RS 27

michel de l’hôpital & christophe de thou 1 Discourse at the Estates General of Orléans, December 13, 1560, in L’Hospital, Michel de and Petris, Loris 2002 p. 400. 2 Reulos, Michel 1980 p. 33. 132 tthe estates General held in Orléans in December 1560, Chancellor L’Hôpital declared: “Different languages do not cause the division of the kingdom, but different religions and laws do, A splitting one kingdom into two. Hence the old proverb, une foy, une loy, un roy.”1 This statement, one of the many memorable utterances by the chancellor, made on the eve of the French wars of religion (1562–1598) captured the exigency that befell the monarchy: disunity in religion and law endangered the survival of the kingdom. The equation of pietas and iustitia was not uncommon in the sixteenth century.2 But the chancellor was referring to a specific concern facing the monarchy, that is, the urgency to implement reforming edicts and regulations throughout the kingdom and, broadly, to ensure the efficient execution of royal justice. In the Ordinance of Orléans, drafted in the spring of 1561 but backdated to January in order to make the point that it was based on the cahiers de doléance presented at the Estates General, one half of the articles dealt with the reform of the church and the other half the reform of justice. When the ordinance was sent to the Parlement of Paris for registration, the law courtt started probing the text, article by article, engaging in its usual scrutiny. The delay caused by these painstaking review activities tested the patience of the royal government. The chancellor pressed the Parlement to register the ordinance swiftly, pointing out that the articles had already been deliberated at length in the Estates General and in the royal council; the Parlement replied that the law court was not part of the Estates General and that it had the duty to examine royal laws carefully and express its opinions. The wrangling over the ordinance’s registration presaged the tug-of-war between the government and the Par-

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