RS 27

michel de l’hôpital & christophe de thou Christophe studied at Poitier around 1530, before he started a legal career as anavocat at the Parlement of Paris.24 His clients included many great families such as the house of Laval and the house of Guise. As a counsel for the Laval, de Thou had the comté of Laval seized and sold so that he could get reimbursed for the advances he had made, an incident which provoked a sizable scandal at the time.25 Christophe earned much reputation as a successful lawyer. Étienne Pasquier said that Pierre Séguier, de Thou, Jacques Aubry and Denis Riant were the four most famous avocats of the century.26 In 1554, de Thou purchased the office of president at the Parlement. It was one of the four presidencies and thirty judgeships newly created by the Edict of Semester issued in April that year. HenryII imposed the semester system at the Parlement, requiring that each office at the courts have two incumbents who would exercise their functions for six-month terms. The king justified the system by claiming that it would reduce the épices and prevent corruption by establishing mutual control between the two semestral sections.27 But there was little question that it was a device created to increase the number of offices available for sale. The edict met with fierce opposition from the parlementaires, who feared the change would reduce the esteem and income of their offices.28 But the new system allowed many members of the prominent families, including Christophe de Thou, to enter the magistracy, enhancing their grip on the judicial profession. The fact that de Thou, a then avocat at the Parlement of Paris, moved directly from the bar to the presidency at the Parlement of Paris, skipping the judgeship at the court, was unusual even by the contemporary standard. His new rank caused additional rows.29 At the time of de Thou’s appointment, Pierre Séguier, avocat du roi, was also appointed to the presi24 Richet, Denis 1991 p. 148-150. 25 Filhol, René 1937 p. 8-10. 26 Pasquier, Étienne 1723 vol. 2 col. 184. 27 Épices were originally free gifts in kind given by the parties to the judges in charge of their cases. By the sixteenth century they had been converted into a standardized money payment to the judges. 28 Kim, Seong-Hak 1997 p. 37-38. 29 Maugis, Édouard 1913 vol. 1 p. 202. 140

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