marie seong-hak kim terests as well as the corporate values of the institution. Judges resented the initiative to deprive them of a significant proportion of their perquisites of office, including épices which constituted an essential part of remuneration of judicial officials. The emerging corporatism in the parlements was unmistakable. As high judicial offices were passed on from generation to generation within a single family, there arose a highly privileged and quasi-hereditary class with a strong esprit de corps. By the mid-sixteenth century, the conseillers of the Parlement of Paris and other sovereign courts had formed a distinct and eminent group of people who knew how to manipulate the law. This group was beholden to the king for their offices and at the same time was capable of resisting him. In principle, established judges at the parlements opposed the sale of offices lest the expansion of the system should decrease the value of their own offices. But they still needed the continued existence of the market in which their investment would appreciate. The system of venality reinforced, and was reinforced by, the principle of the irremovability of judges. The principle of theinamovibilité was affirmed for the first time by Louis XI. The ordinance of 1467 prescribed that the king could not discharge officials except “par mort, forfaicture ou incompatibilité d’offices.”89 Venality and irremovability were closely linked to expand judicial security of tenure. Theoretically it was possible for the king to repurchase the office he had sold and remove the judge, but in reality the king was never in a position to afford such a repurchase.90 Still, the whole enterprise of the sale of offices would leave a gaping hole in the system without the guarantee of irremovability, as the fear of losing offices would dampen the enthusiasm of potential buyers. From the end of the fifteenth century, a new notion of personnel appointed for particular missions emerged. The theory of revocable com89 Doucet, R. 1948 p. 403-404. For a detailed analysis of the Ordinance of 1467, see Stocker, Christopher 1975 p. 360-86. 90 La Roche-Flavin, Bernard de 1621 liv. II, cited from Aubert, Félix 1912 p. 213. 153 Irremovability
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