French court

“ Bring to life all the dandified, laughing cavaliers, all the sportive easy-mannered ladies who figure in the pages of Brantôme and the "Heptameron," put in their mouths the crisp, clever, outspoken, idiomatic, eminently French speech of the sixteenth century, and you will have an idea of this seductive court, especially if you recall the saying of François I.: "A court without women is a year without spring, or a spring without flowers." ”

“ The appalling dissoluteness which characterized the French court during the first half of the eighteenth century, and was duly copied by the princelings of Germany, had poisoned the minds of high and low alike and led to a state of affairs in which there was little room for a noble or even a serious conception of love. ”

“ François Ier was the first of French kings to make his court first of all courts, a place of art, luxury, constant display. It became a magnet that drew the nobility from their stupid keeps, detaining them, when young, with adventure; when old, with office, providing, meanwhile, for the beauty of women a proper frame. ”

“ Their obligation on their own courts must be considered as complete, and without resorting either to public notoriety, or the declarations of our own laws on the subject, the decisions of the French courts must be admitted to have conformed to the rules prescribed by their government. ”

“ All that was most brilliant and refined was to be found at the Court of the French kings, under whose patronage the art and literature of the Renaissance had attained their highest development. Even Germany, which had resisted the ambitious designs of Louis XIV., imitated the manners of his Court. Every petty German potentate strove to ape the pomp and dignity of the Grand Monarque; and the courtiers, affecting to look on everything German as rude and barbarous, adopted French fashions, and spoke a hybrid jargon which they considered much more elegant than the plain mother tongue. ”

“ Inordinately vain, selfish, capricious, too shallow either really to love or hate, extravagant and yet avaricious, with no sense and no scruples, this young girl, scarcely out of childhood, not knowing a word of French, and having been brought up in the distant castle of a Bavarian noble, was suddenly placed at the head of the court of France, the gayest and most splendid in Europe, with every one at her feet, her will129 supreme except for the nominal control of a dissipated, extravagant boy only two years older than herself, and very much in love with her. ”

“ The court allows noisy altercation in a fashion unknown in England, and the task of the magistrate is, to the Anglo-Saxon mind, almost beyond belief. The breezy outpourings of plaintiff and defendant are ended with the juge de paix's words, "You can retire," and, as a rule, some sound and friendly advice has been offered to the unneighbourly neighbours. A very considerable amount of litigation arises through the possession of land or houses, for the thriftiness of the French has always inclined the people towards the ownership of their farms or the land they till. ”

“ The French have to be judged by their peers! Of what use is it to pay for judges if we, land-owners, are obliged to do their work. The old parliaments, against which so much has been said, were a thousand times better than all this bedlam let loose in a court of assizes. ”

“ The philology is from the old French cort or curt. It is curious that it means something narrow. There are the suggestions of the lists, of heralds, of trumpets, of banners and knights in armor, of prancing steeds, of fair ladies watching, of joust, tournaments, and trials by battle. There is something royal about the word. We think of pomp and magnificence and purple robes, of kings on their thrones, with courtiers standing about. The conception of Diety to the simple man who visualizes, immediately takes on the form of a court. We speak of the Courts of Heaven. ”

“ The whole Nation is indeed satisfied that our Court was at that juncture too much influenced by French Councils; but few will be brought to believe that the French knew more of our own Affairs than we our selves did. ”

“ I have heard much talk of a sort of court called the French Academy. There is no tribunal in the world which is less respected; for they say that no sooner does it issue a decree than the people break it, and substitute laws which the Academy is bound to follow. ”

“ The Queen was holding her court at Vincennes and had placed in command of the troops who acted as her guards, Louis de Bosredon, and the Sires de Graville and Giac, dissolute young nobles, who spent enormous sums of money and passed their time in feasting, revelry, and in carrying on intrigues with the Queen’s ladies, and, it was rumoured, even with the Queen herself. ”

“ The judicial system of France is not as concentrated as ours. Every Sous-prefecture in France has its local Civil Court with a Presiding Judge, an Assistant Judge, and a "Substitut." The latter, in small towns, is the substitute for the Procureur de la Republique, or Public Prosecutor. The legal profession in France is far more "clannish" than with us, for lawyers have always played a great part in the history of France. The so-called "Parlements" (not to be confounded with our Parliament) had had, up to the time of the French Revolution, very large powers indeed. ”

“ Art. 2. Subject to the jurisdictional rules that govern the French courts of Our Empire, legal actions, civil or commercial, securities or real estates are judged, as a first or last resort, at the rate which will be fixed by Vizerial Order, by special jurisdictions called customary courts. These courts also have jurisdiction in all matters of personal status and inheritance. ”

“ When she died, as Frederic, engaged in perpetual strife, could not look after his daughter, she had been adopted by Charles VIII. when about ten years old, and lived at court ever since.308 She had a complete household, a litter, mule, and several horses, being335 treated as a royal princess,309 and was demoiselle d’honneur to the Queen. She grew up into a most attractive girl—pretty, clever, amusing, kind-hearted; the favourite of the whole court. ”

“ It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of enlarged and benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for abolishing war in Europe. The plan consisted in constituting an European Congress, or as the French authors style it, a Pacific Republic; by appointing delegates from the several Nations who were to act as a Court of arbitration in any disputes that might arise between nation and nation. ”

“ If you pass over to France, where certainly the judicature is admirably arranged on principles of science, where I believe justice is assured, you have the highest court, known as the Court of Cassation, composed of persons set apart exclusively for appeals,—never leaving Paris, and never hearing any other business except that which comes before them on appeal. ”

“ On the 5th of April, 1852, this is what was witnessed at the Tuileries. About eight in the evening, the ante-chamber was filled with men in scarlet robes, grave and majestic, speaking with subdued voices, holding in their hands black velvet caps, bedecked with gold lace; most of them were white-haired. These were the presidents and councillors of the Court of Cassation, the first presidents of the Courts of Appeal, and the procureurs-general: all the superior magistracy of France. These persons were kept waiting in the ante-chamber. ”

“ The man who, a hundred and fifty years ago, did so much for New France. How well his picture sets off the east hall near the main entrance! The long, wavy locks of his court headdress well suit the keen, dark eyes and clear-cut features; while the ruffles and sword, and gaiters depict him every inch the courtier as well as the gentleman. ”

“ The study of any court is sure to teach wisdom and indifference to human glories. In our France of the nineteenth century, fickle as it has been, inconstant, fertile in revolutions, recantations, and changes of every sort, this lesson is more impressive than it has been at any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more clearly the nothingness of this world's grandeur and magnificence. ”

“ MY LORD:—Those who only are informed of the pageantry of our Court, of the expenses of our courtiers, of the profusion of our Emperor, and of the immense wealth of his family and favourites, may easily be led to believe that France is one of the happiest and moat prosperous countries in Europe. ”

“ During all her life the court of France was a cobweb of intrigue, in which no one was safe, and a man or woman became powerful only to be secretly put out of the way lest he or she should grow too strong. ”

“ The young, lively, unaffected Creole had cherished an invincible horror for the stiff court-etiquette, for the ceremonial court-dress of gold brocade, with the court-mantle strictly embroidered after the established pattern, and which terminated in a long, heavy train, for the majestic head-gear of feathers, flowers, laces, and veils, all towering up nearly a yard high, and, above all things, for those rules and laws which regulated and fixed every word, every step, every movement, at a solemn presentation at court. ”

“ The Court of France is no longer the focus of the great men of the country, but a band of profligates that have driven away the great. This state of things, however, cannot last long, the reign of the Pompadours must draw to an end, and Frenchmen will one day take a terrible revenge for the insults which they suffer in being regarded only as the materials of those who pander to the prodigality of the Court. ”

“ The continental method is so entirely different, that it is shocking. In the courts in France the judge practically says for his charge, "You've heard the evidence, now go on out and do what's right." This again illustrates the difference between the old and the new ideas of courts. The old is a battle ground where the issues are defined, the courts are kept within narrow limits and the rules of the ordeal observed strictly, and the modern, merely an investigation of a dispute with the glamor of a contest left out. ”

“ When they are told of the diffusion of wealth in England, the immense fortunes made by many individuals, the affluence of those of middle rank, the security and easy situation of the common people; instead of being mortified by the comparison which might naturally occur to their imaginations, they comfort themselves with the reflection, that the court of France is more brilliant than the court of Great Britain, and that the duke of Orleans and the Prince of Condé have greater revenues than any of the English nobility. ”

“ Henry transformed it from an occasional assembly of warlike nobles into a regular body of trained lawyers, and at the same time opened its doors to all except serfs. In the king's court any freeman could find a justice that was cheaper and speedier than that dispensed by the feudal lords. The higher courts of England have sprung from this institution. ”

“ The lowest in rank of the four great courts, though from antient times one of the greatest importance, is the court of Exchequer, whose business was to collect in the several debts, fines, amerciaments, or other duties or properties belonging or accruing to the king, and likewise, to issue money by his orders ”

“ It has been said already that the court governed France in the reign of Louis XIV.; and what was, in fact, the court? The men who lived about the king, depending on, his favor, the source or arbiter of their fortunes. The great lords served in the army, with lustre, when they bore the name of Conde, Turenne, or Luxembourg ”

“ The Court at the Louvre, under a King impatient of etiquette—except when Parliament or Protestants had to be awed, or foreign ambassadors received—seems to have been lacking in dignity. It had not the splendour, the mystery, the romance and cultivation, however evil, of the Valois; nor had it the stiff magnificence of an absolute Louis XIV. The tone of the Court, in fact, was bourgeois; and it is curious enough that the early seventeenth century in England, as well as in France, had this intimate flavour of something like vulgarity. ”

“ We are (I believe) to be presented at Court to-morrow. We shall see some company and visit the King's palaces and manufactures, but I hardly think we shall extend our stay here beyond the fortnight we talked of at first. Every thing follows the example of the Court, which from one of the most polite in Europe is become bigotted, gloomy and covetous. Guise and I seem as yet very well satisfied with each other. Such a society is desirable both as to entertainment and lessening the expence. ”

“ It is true that the great Emperor Charlemagne took great delight in maintaining a splendid and overflowing Court, with many peers, dukes, counts, paladins, barons, and chevaliers of France, with their wives and daughters, and many from other countries to keep their company at Court--as we read in many of the old romances of the time--and that there were many jousts, tourneys and magnificent pageants. ”

“ That nobleman never practised in an Equity Court, nor received a solid classic education, whence he might extract those literary powers, which render profound legal research a matter of real amusement, and enable barristers to unravel and retain law's subtlest intricacies with electric rapidity and philosophic strength. ”

“ By the law of France, settled by a series of uniform decisions of the court of cassation, the highest judicial tribunal, for more than half a century, no foreign judgment can be rendered executory in France without a review of the judgment au fond (to the bottom) , including the whole merits of the cause of action on which the judgment rests. Pard. Droit Commer. § 1488; Bard, Pr ecis de Droit International (1883) Nos. 234-239; Story, Confl. Laws, §§ 615-617; Pig. Judgm. 452; Westl. Priv. Int. Law (3d Ed., 1890) 350. ”