XVI Inaugural Address. 
lors or Members in each Parliament to assist the President, ( i} 
and, in imitation of the Seigneurial Courts and those of the 
Dukes and Counts, in which the suitors had been accustomed 
to the trial by peers, they required the Baillis to summon to 
their assistance, a certain number of discreet persons (prodes 
homines,) and to decide according to their counsel and ad- 
vice.(2) The people also were permitted, in the dialect of 
the times, “ de veignir a la Cort du Roi, par ressort, par ap- 
«* pel, ou par defaute de Droit, ou par faux Jugement, ou par 
“© recréance nie, ou par Grief, ou par veer le droit de sa 
“© Cort,(3) and, under the sanction of this authority, the 
Royal Judges took advantage of every defect in the rights of 
the Seigneurs, and of every error in their proceedings, they 
brought before them, in their respective Jurisdictions, all 
causes which it was possible for them to remove, and held 
cognizance over all which it was possible for them to retain, 
at the same time, they laboured to render the practice of their 
Courts regular, and their judgments consistent, by which 
means they ultimately obtained the confidence of the people, 
and were generally respected. Suitors then began to abandon 
the Seigneurial Courts, (in which the will of the feudal Lord 
was, buttoo frequently, the Law by which the case of his 
vassal was decided,) and took refuge in the more discerning 
and more equitable Tribunals of the Crown.(4) The King 
was again universally recognised to be the source of Justice, 
and the Seigneurs were deprived of every Jurisdiction to 
which they could not shew title, derived by grant from the 
Crown.(5) 
The ecclesiastics, who, in the reign of Charlemagne, were 
altogether subject to the temporal power(6), had, in com- 
mon 
(1) Répertoire, verbo “ Parlement,” vol. 44, p. 294. 
(2) Montesquieu, Liber. 27, cap. 42, vol. 2. p. 320. , 
(3) Etablissemens de St. Louis, cap. 15, lib. 2, Ordonnances des Rois 
a France, de Imprimerie Royale, Tom. 1, p. 107. Dict, deJurispr. vol. 
3d. p. 21. 
(4) Robertson’s Charles V. vol. ist. p. 309. 
(5) Bacquet’s Droit de Justice, vol. ist. p. 9 & 10. 
(6) Loyseau des Seigneuries, chap. 15, sec. 29 to 39% 
