Lit de justice

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In France under the Ancien Régime, the Bed of Justice (Lit de justice) was a particular formal session of the Parlement of Paris, under the presidency of the king, for the compulsory registration of the royal edicts. In the Middle Ages, not every appearance of the King of France in parlement occasioned a formal lit de justice. It was the custom of Philip IV and his three sons of Charles V and Charles VI and Louis XII to attend sessions of various parlements regularly.

A lit de justice in Paris was normally held in the Grand Chambre du Parlement of the former royal palace on the Île de la Cité, which remains the Palais de Justice even today. The king, fresh from his devotions in Sainte-Chapelle, would enter, accompanied by his chancellor, the princes of the blood, dukes and peers, cardinals and marshals, and take his place upon the cushions on a dais under a canopy of estate (the lit) in a corner of the chamber. Five cushions formed the lit: the king sat on one, another formed a back, two more supported his arms and a cushion lay under his feet. Peers and prelates were ranged on benches at his right and left. Before the king a large space was kept empty, that the king might discuss matters privately. To preserve order, it was forbidden for anyone to leave his seat or approach the lit without being called.

The enregistration of a lit de justice of Charles V, May 21, 1375, gives an impression of the panoply of personages: the Dauphin, the duc d'Anjou brother of the King, the Patriarch of Alexandria, 4 archbishops, 7 bishops, 6 abbots, the rector and several members of the University of Paris, the Chancellor of France, 4 princes of the blood, several comtes and seigneurs, the Provost of Merchants and the echevins of the city of Paris, "several other wise and notable folk and a great crowd of people" (Encyclopédie).

The king needed only to speak a few preliminary words, followed by the formula mon chancelier vous dira le reste, whereupon the chancellor seated at his feet would read aloud the rest of the royal declaration, such as the declaration of a regency or of a king's majority, or declarations of war or peace. The lit de justice equally served to cow recalcitrant parlements, imposing the sovereignty of the king. In the Middle Ages, a lit de justice was the setting for major trials of great aristocrats for major crimes. In the 17th century it was rarely used, but was revived under Louis XV.

The lit de justice was an expression of royal justice, with hazy and immemorial antecedents in the open-air gathering of nobles presided over by enthroned Merovingian kings. In the King's presence the Parlement lost its usual quality of judge to take the role of consellor, following the principle adveniente principe, cessat magistratus ("with the arrival of the king, magistratures cease").

A lit de justice in its origins could take place before any parlement, though in practice from the reign of Louis XIII it was confined to the Parlement de Paris. The last such session was in 1787, under Louis XVI, at Versailles. The whole body, now "refractory, rolled out, in wheeled vehicles, to receive the order of the king."