as regards their interference with state affairs, the period at which the Parliament became confined to merely judicial functions, retaining only the right of remonstrance as regarded general legislation, and the time at which the States-General were first assembled. The common opinion considers Philip IV. (the Fair) as the first prince who convoked them, when in 1302 he was desirous of their support against Boniface VIII., with whom he had quarrelled for his interference with the church patronage of the Crown. But it is probable that St. Louis half a century earlier had held a meeting at Beaucaire (1254) of Prelates, Barons, and Burgesses; it is at least certain that his Ordinance upon the export trade addressed to the Seneschal of Beaucaire recognises those bodies by making their assent in a council necessary before the Ordinance could be suspended. There is, however, no doubt that Philip IV. first gave the States General the name, and conferred upon them a regular character by requiring the towns to send deputies, while the Prelates and Barons should attend in person. Beside assembling them at Paris in 1302 against the Pope, he convoked them at Tours in 1308 to sanction his atrocious persecution of the Templars, and again in 1314 at Paris to advise him-that is to have the appearance of supporting him in his tampering with the currency, and to join him in levying a tax upon all sales of personal chattels. The States thus assembled were those of the Langue d'Oil, or the provinces in the north and centre of France, living under customary law; but probably he took the same proceedings with the States of the Langue d'Oc, or the southern provinces, living under the written law-that is, the Roman law, the law of the Barbaric Codes. That Philip IV., the most absolute of all the French Kings, and the one who went furthest in levying taxes by his own mere authority, should have been, if not the first to assemble the States, yet certainly the first to clothe them with the authority derived from the manner of their composition being fixed, is a clear proof how little those assemblies in that age afforded a check to the power of the crown.

His son, Louis X. (IIutin), a prince of very inferior capacity,

took part with the Barons, as Philip had with the community, and revoked the greater part of the Ordinances for restricting their privileges, and rendering the administration of justice independent of their authority. But, probably to avoid exciting the jealousy of those Barons, he did not convoke the States General, and only answered the complaints of the provinces through their States separately. His concessions to those provinces, made in consequence of their States representing their grievances, were most important, although chiefly in favour of the Barons, and in their immediate effects injurious by abrogating wholesome Ordinances of the three preceding reigns. The charter to the Normans especially was of great value, because, beside restraining the use of torture, it pledged the sovereign to abstain from tampering with the coin, limited the right of purveyance, prohibited the removal of causes from the Norman Exchequer to the Parliament of Paris, and, above all, declared that no tenth or other tax should be levied, and no service of any kind exacted, beyond those established by ancient usage. This is by some writers represented as an Ordinance of the States General. (Mezeray; Boulainvilliers, ii. 468, who gives it as made in Philip VI.'s reign; Encyc., vi. 22; Thib., i. 96, 110.) Other concessions were made to satisfy the Barons, as restoring the right of private war. The States of Languedoc obtained at the same time a compliance with their demands, though they were more reasonable, and made no reference to private war. Most of the other provinces succeeded likewise in their application to the King; and the whole of these proceedings must be allowed to have raised the States in importance as deliberative bodies, although the probability is that Louis X. never assembled the States General at all. His death leaving only a posthumous son, opened the succession to his brother, Philip V. (le Long), who assembled the States (1317) in order to obtain the recognition of his title, and the exclusion of his niece as far as any law goes.

This was

the origin of the exclusion of females.-(See Note LXXII., infra.) He again in 1319 convoked them on account of the confusion in the finances, and in 1321 to consider the grievances of

which the country complained; but no particulars are preserved of the proceedings at those meetings. Thus much is certain, that while he in his proclamations admitted the subject's right to be free from all but the established burthens, and from all tampering with the currency, his conduct set such principles at defiance, quite as much as his father's had done. Charles IV., whose reign is described in detail by no historian, commenced it with frauds upon the currency, apparently consented to by the Third Estate, in 1322; and he afterwards revoked all the grants of crown lands made by his father and his brothers. The race of Capet ended in him, and the family of Valois succeeded.

Philip VI. (de Valois) finding that the expenses occasioned by the English invasion in the north, and by the extravagance of his own court, required extraordinary supplies, convoked the States General at Paris in 1343. They granted him the alcavala, lately introduced into Castille-by far the worst tax that ever was invented; it was fixed at two-fifths per cent. on all sales whatever. He had already established the salt-tax (gabelle) without any consultation of the States; and in return for the alcavala he promised a redress of their grievances, particularly a restoration of the coinage to its former standard. But he soon after reduced it, by several operations, to one-fifth of its value, pretending to have obtained the consent of the States, whom he never had assembled upon the subject. He made other Ordinances of his own mere authority, deserving of great commendation. One of them encouraged the resort of foreign merchants to the fairs of Champagne, by giving them freedom from all duties, perfect security for their persons, and a court composed partly of judges, partly of merchants, for the summary decision without appeal of all disputes.' Another Ordinance (1344) regulated the appellate jurisdiction of the Parliament, abridging the delays of its proceedings, and requiring that each cause should be heard and disposed of in its turn.

1 It was a bad addition to this wholesome Ordinance that required all the clothiers in the great towns to expose their goods at the fairs before they were suffered to sell them in their own shops.

Philip also confirmed the Norman charter of Louis X. on the demand of the Norman States; and historians represent the declaration which he made (1338 or 1339) against levying taxes without consent, generalising the most important provision of that charter, as having been obtained from him by the remonstrances of the States General.

The invasion of Edward III. had in part occasioned the calling of the States in 1343; but the progress of his arms in Gascony, and the expectation of a more formidable descent in the north, made Philip convoke the estates of the Langue d'Oil at Paris and those of the Langue d'Oc at Toulouse early in 1346, to meet the complaints which had everywhere arisen from the forced loans, the grievance of purveyance, and still more, the gabelle and the alcavala. Some relief was given from those oppressions by stopping the loans, regulating the purveyance, suppressing certain places, and prohibiting the grant of protection to courtiers against their creditors. But the principal concession was a promise that the gabelle and the alcavala should cease with the exigencies of the war, and that the States should be soon assembled to abolish those taxes. The southern States granted a hearth-duty for the expenses of the war; and all the promises made were immediately forgotten by the King, who to the other burthens added that of further depreciating the currency. After the battle of Crécy, when his difficulties had greatly increased, he had recourse, not to the States, but to new tampering with the coin, collecting the gabelle more rigorously, levying a tax on all persons not noble, and extorting money from the Jews and Lombards. He also disbanded his army both in the north and in the south, to save the cost of maintaining them during the winter; they were chiefly maintained by plundering the country until he again mustered them for the field.

In the following campaign he did not improve his position; but both parties were exhausted by the war, and a truce was agreed on, which lasted during the remaining three years of Philip's life. In the course of that time he repeatedly debased the currency or raised its denomination-in

1349, 1350.

one year no less than nine times; but he obtained from the city of Paris an aid in the shape of a duty on all goods sold within the town. He also exposed to sale the magisterial offices, which had the right of imposing fines for offences. He obtained from the States of the Langue d'Oc, which always met more frequently than those of the Langue d'Oil, some aids in return for the extraordinary grants made to them through his commissioners, who were authorized to pardon all crimes, treason excepted, to ennoble persons of base condition, to give letters of legitimacyin short, to exercise all the powers of the crown, so they only obtained supplies.

The assembling of the States during the following reign was both more frequent and more important, in consequence of the Crown's difficulties being increased by the extravagance of the court, and still more by the disasters of the war. As the truce was to expire in August, 1351, John applied to the States of the Langue d'Oc, but summoned them to Paris with those of the Langue d'Oil in February; and being unable to obtain from their combined resolutions the help required, he treated with the States of each province separately. From some, as Normandy, he obtained a duty on sales, and in return gave a renewed prohibition of private war. From others he received the same duty, and in return gave the Barons a restoration of the right of private war and a restriction of purveyance. The States of Languedoc gave a fixed sum for each sénéchaussée on condition that nothing more should be demanded during the year, and so of other provinces. But all the while the King was making constant changes in the currency, insomuch that in the very same year (1351) he altered it no less than eighteen times; and by such operations and other exactions drove the Lombard bankers out of the country. The truce was renewed for another year, and by such exactions and such dealings with the coin he contrived to carry on his government without any meeting of the States till 1355, when the renewal of the war compelled him to assemble them. The proceedings of this meeting were by much the most important that had as yet taken place. There were voted thirty thousand men and