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It appears from the Ordinances made at different times that in France, as in England, the law has never fixed generally in what manner the defect of the Royal authority is to be supplied. The King frequently provided for the expected event of a minority after his decease, by declaring at what age the majority of his successor should commence, and by whom the Royal authority should be in the mean time exercised. But little regard was paid to such Ordinances the Princes of full age took possession of the Government, agreeing among themselves as to the distribution of its powers; or some one of more capacity and more influence than the rest engrossed the whole to himself. When the reigning Sovereign was disabled by absence or sickness, the heir apparent either took upon himself the Government, or was, if young and inexperienced, controlled by one or more of the Princes. Sometimes recourse was had to the States General or to the Parliament of Paris for their sanction both in the case of disputed succession to the Regency, and in that of the heir apparent claiming it. Sometimes every thing was transacted without any such appeal. In England, no rule had been laid down either by the declaration of the Sovereign's pleasure in the particular case, or by an Act of Parliament to settle the course of proceeding generally. The proceeding in Henry VI.'s time formed, as we have seen, the precedent most relied on in all the discussions to which the King's illness in 1788 gave rise.1

1 Note LXIV.

The last Ordinances on the subject before Henry V.'s invasion were those of Charles VI. in 1403 and 1407, the latter having been registered by the Parliament after a hot dispute. The King is thereby declared to be of full age, whatever years he may have attained on the King's decease; but if an infant, then the Government is to be carried on in his name by the Queen-mother, with the concurrence of the Princes of the Blood, and of a Council who are to have the whole authority in the event of her death or incapacity. These Ordinances were entirely the work of the Queen and Orleans: that of 1403 was made while the King had a lucid interval, by a Council of the Princes and officers of State; that of 1407 was made by the Queen, with the consent of the Parliament, while the King was in confinement. All the sons were at both periods infants of a few years old. This arrangement, however, was never acted upon. The custody of the King's person, and the power of governing in his name, were assumed by the chiefs of whichever of the two factions had the preponderance for the time. At length the Queen, having quarrelled with the Dauphin Charles, threw herself into the hands of the Burgundian; and, on his death, continued her hostility to her son, siding with the Burgundian's successor. By the Treaty of Troyes, which the States General ratified, Henry V. was declared Regent on Charles VI.'s decease; but during the remaining part of that unhappy Prince's reign he exercised the Royal au

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Oct. 2,

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thority in his name, under the title of Regent. The King survived him only a few weeks. Meanwhile, Charles, the son, assumed the Regency, and the Parliament of Toulouse registered his Letters proclaiming it. He sets forth in these his title as heir apparent, and as alone having the right to exercise the Royal authority in respect of the "well known incapacity" of his father. Upon the death of the latter, he succeeded of course to the Crown; but in his embarrassing situation he judged it prudent to obtain the recognition even of that clear right from the States at Bourges. Bedford, on the other hand, rested upon the former recognition, by the States, of the Treaty of Troyes, and upon Henry's gift of the Regency, which he advised him to offer the Duke of Burgundy, and which he had refused. Nothing further passed upon the subject during the continuance of the Lancastrian dynasty in France; and no objection appears to have been raised against Henry's exercising the power on his death-bed to appoint a Regent, although it may be observed that he was then only heir apparent, and under the Treaty, or Law of the Monarchy (as it had been made by the States), he had no power whatever to name a Regent.1

The infirm title of the Lancaster princes proved highly advantageous to the parliamentary constitution

1 Note LXXII.

of England, but their reign in France was not attended with such important results to the government of that state. Their power was founded upon their military possession; they held only a part, though the greater part of the kingdom, which was distracted by civil war and in the occupation of rival sovereigns; and the popular assemblies had not acquired, in any portion of the country, the same form and consistency which they had for ages been gradually but steadily attaining in England. Those assemblies existed at every period of the French monarchy, but imperfectly, irregularly, with many alternations of power and weakness, never extinguished, though their action was often changed, often suspended. These bodies were the Parliament, which had become judicial in its ordinary functions, but with some claims to an indirect political interference by remon strance, some weight from being occasionally consulted in great emergencies;-and the States-General, which had no defined office, nor any recognised privileges, above all, had no appointed periods of meeting, but were convoked in seasons of public embarrassment rather to help by their connexion with the country when the treasury wanted money, or the army men, than to assist with their advice. The fundamental maxims of the feudal polity, and which had prevailed in France long before the formal and complete introduction of the system, that the community should share in the administration of justice, and in granting the sovereign whatever aids he re

quired beyond the services incident to the vassal's tenure, had enabled the people of England,' taking advantage of the Crown's necessities, gradually to establish their mixed government: But a most imperfect form of it alone remained in France, although the principles never were lost sight of; and some progress had been made in improving both the judicial and the legislative systems during the two centuries that preceded the times of which we treat. The great difficulties which the English invasion created to the French government, the almost inextricable embarrassments of the rival court after the conquest, and the dreadful condition of the country from the consequences of the war, as well as from its immediate operations, produced a sensible effect upon the manner of conducting state affairs, and may be justly said to have somewhat affected the position of the Crown in relation to the people.

Upon the approach of Henry's invasion the Dauphin Louis, exercising the powers of go- 1415. vernment for his father, levied a taille,3 and laid a tenth upon the clergy, by his own mere authority, and without any assembling of the States. The collection was made by main force, a multitude of tax-gatherers being sent all over the country to employ every kind of violence-among others, that of seizing the persons of the peasantry to compel a ran

I Note LXV.

2 Note LXVI.

3 A tax on the land and farmers' profits, generally estimated by their stock, and from which the nobles and clergy were exempt, unless in certain districts.-Note LXVIII.

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