Colbert's Ordinance. 193 



time. As one of the historians (Jonbain) puts it, "the 

 commissioners did not recoil before long hours of in- 

 spection nor high influence, they neither hesitated to 

 declare against nor prosecute great and small alike, nor 

 to pronounce a most serious sentence." 



By this ordinance three special courts of adjudication ^ 

 in matters pertaining to the forests were established 

 with -special ofiBcers whose duties were carefully de- 

 fined, namely the courts of the Gruries, of the MaiU 

 rises and the Tables de Marbre. The first named 

 lower grade courts took cognizance of the lesser 

 offences, abuses, wastes and malversations, disputes 

 in regard to fishing or chase, and murders arising 

 out of these; gruries being the woods belonging to in- 

 diriduals in which the jurisdiction and the profit from 

 such jurisdiction belonged to the king, or at least to the 

 seigneurs. The courts of the maitrise referred to the 

 forest territory placed under administration of the 

 maitres particuliers (Forstmeister) and were estab- 

 lished near the many royal forests as courts of appeal in 

 forest matters. A final appeal could be made to the 

 tables de marbre (courts of the marble table), which 

 also decided on the more weighty questions of proprie- 

 torship by whatever term held, and especially civil and 

 criminal cases relating to the eaux et forets; the wrong 

 doings in the discharge of official duties (abus), con- 

 traventions to the orders and regulations, misdemeanors 

 or depredations (delit) ; and all kinds of fraud not in- 

 cluded under those cited (malversations) . 



The whole country was divided into 18 arrondisse- 

 ments of grandes-maitrises des eaux et forets and these 

 were divided into 134 maitrises, each under a maitre par- 



