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The power to disgrace was not limited to individuals and it formed an essential part of the king’s strategy for managing the great corporations of the realm. The episcopate, cities, and provincial estates were all examples of institutions or corps that felt the effects of royal displeasure, but nothing better illustrated the phenomenon than the treatment of the parlements. This chapter explains the structure of judicial politics under the Bourbon monarchy, and looks at the many ways in which the king could use imprisonment, the internal exile or transfers of individuals or groups of magistrates from one city to another, disciplinary edicts, and many other often subtle techniques to impose his authority. It also considers the limitations of disgrace, how it could sometimes rebound to the disadvantage of the crown and the obstacles to the settlement of political crises resulting from the act of disgrace.

This chapter sketches the state of affairs during which the regent Philippe d'Orléans suppressed the last traces of dissidence in the Parlement of Rennes, kept his thumb on the Parlement of Paris and settled augmentations de gages on terms of his choosing. During this time, he resolved the political and financial questions left over from the preceding reign. At every key point involving these intertwined issues, d'Orléans got his way by resorting to coercion and by overriding the wishes of the majority of the judges, damaging their constitutional and socio-economic interests along the way. On the most important issues involving the parlements, the past reign flowed into its successor, after the brief interlude in which Orléans had vainly practised conciliation. Thus the regency not only benefited from the gains Louis XIV made at the expense of the parlements; it ratified and perpetuated those gains, passing them down the century.

In this chapter, the attitude toward slavery in France is discussed. The government was not completely consistent in its application of the Freedom Principle. A new law was drafted to deal with the problem of colonial slave owners who wanted to bring their slaves to France. This is known as the Edict of October 1716, which set conditions whereby slave owners could bring their slaves to France without fear of losing. According to the edict, there were two legitimate purposes for bringing slaves to France: to give them religious instruction or to teach them a trade. Based on Lemerre's report, Joly de Fleury and de Chauvelin decided that the Parlement of Paris should not register the Edict of October 1716. The fact that it was never registered by the Parlement of Paris created a legal limbo for slaves who came to Paris or other cities within the parlement's jurisdiction.

The impact of the Declaration of December 15, 1738 is presented in this chapter. It was discussed that when masters neglected to complete the required formalities, such as registration of their slaves with the nearest clerk of the Admiralty, the slaves would be confiscated au profit du roi and returned as slaves to the colonies. The Parlement of Paris and the Admiralty Court of France refused to confiscate slaves. However, the case of Catherine Morgan, who was brought to Nantes by her master in 1746, shows how the courts of Brittany enforced the Declaration of 1738. The Admiralty Court of France never recognized the validity of either the Edict of October 1716 or the Declaration of December 15, 1738, because they had not been registered by the Parlement of Paris. As a result, they relied on the maxim that any slave who entered the French soil was free.

Louis XVI issued the third and final major piece of legislation regulating the entry of black subjects to the kingdom of France on August 9, 1777, known as the Police des Noirs. This royal declaration varied considerably from the Edict of October 1716 and the Declaration of December 15, 1738, since this prescribed actions based on skin color alone, rather than the slave status. The Police des Noirs was also registered by the Parlement of Paris. Minister of the Marine Sartine intentionally advocated the use of racial language as a way to avoid the parlement's opposition to legislation with the word slave. The Police des Noirs was prompted by court cases in which slaves sued for their freedom.

In 1759, the Parlement of Paris made a decision that established the status of slaves who sued for their freedom within the jurisdiction of this court and, consequently, the Admiralty Courts within its domain. This was the case of Francisque, which set an important example for the suits that would follow it in the same jurisdiction, as well as across the channel in England's Somerset case. It also provided an opportunity for French thinking on racial difference in the middle of the eighteenth century. The lawyers revealed assumptions about the meaning of the term negre and the foundations of racism in eighteenth-century France due to their attempts to argue that Francisque was not a negre, and thus not subject to the laws of 1716 and 1738.

The Declaration of 1738 stayed unregistered by the Parlement of Paris and the Admiralty Court of France. The Admiralty clerk duly recorded the declarations of slave owners who brought their slaves to Paris. These declarations reveal a small portion of blacks living in Paris, but nonetheless offer information about these individuals. The aim of this chapter is to gauge the size and the sociological makeup of the black population in Paris and the administration's efforts to control them. The case of Louis v. Jean Jacques Le Fevre prompted the officers of the Admiralty of France to prepare an ordinance that required all blacks in Paris to be registered by the Admiralty's clerk. The registration drive was a one-time event, designed to give the Admiralty an report of how many blacks were residents in Paris.

The Parlement of Paris is undoubtedly the first, the most important and most influential Court of Law of the Kingdom of France, from the triple point of view of politics, judicial action and legal evolution. After depicting the Parlement of Paris on the basis of its sources, this contribution demonstrates, looking particularly at the archives of the King's general Prosecutor, how the Parisian Parliament served to bring about a subtle alchemy in the progress of criminal Law, probably since 1670, and especially since the Chancellor d’Aguesseau (1717). A collaboration between the Court and the King's Council was established, which brought about a real and mutual influence in the practice of criminal and civil Justice in the Parliament on the evolution of the conception of Law and the regularization of legal procedure.

The court of Louis XV has been depicted as if it was a dusty museum, re-enacting the rituals and ceremonies of the Sun King, but without any vitality as cultural pre-eminence passed to Paris. Using the perspective of disgrace, this chapter takes a fresh look at the court in the eighteenth century, and argues that Louis XV showed dexterity in managing his court using intermediaries and access to his person in intimate settings such as his famous supper parties. Versailles was not immune to change, and in the course of the king’s reign the court experienced a form of ‘politicization’ resulting from changing patterns of ministerial recruitment and the influence of the political crises in the parlements. The infamous Revolution of 1771 demonstrates how Louis XV used his power to divide the opposition to his policies and to uphold his position as the head of the House of Bourbon.

The chapter follows the progressive politicization of Colson and his neighbors during the so-called pre-Revolutionary period (1787–89), taking note of the extent to which he and they were taken totally by surprise by the events of that period. It examines, notably, Colson’s reaction to the Assembly of Notables of 1787; to the long struggle between Louis XVI and the Parlement of Paris; to the convocation of the Estates General for May 1789; and to the electoral assemblies and the statements of grievances (cahiers de doléances) drawn up in those assemblies. It also emphasizes Colson’s descriptions of the “hurricane” of July 1788 that destroyed a large proportion of the crops in northern France, and of the terrible winter of 1788–89 and its effects on the population of Paris.