PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PROFESSIONAL ATTACHMENTS

"So much of our fine youth lives uselessly," complained the military nobleman Blaise de Monluc, in the early 1570's, "although these youths would be very capable of bearing arms. Entering from time to time the Parlements of Toulouse and Bordeaux, ... I have continually been astounded that so many young men could thus amuse themselves in a law court, since ordinarily youthful blood is boiling." Monluc's comments reflect the disdain with which the nobility of the sword regarded the nobility of the robe. His comments also point to the complex reasons which underlay the nobility's feeling. He did not complain about the low birth or excessive powers of the magistrates; on the contrary, he was disturbed that such "fine youth," well suited to more aristocratic pursuits, should devote themselves to so unlikely a profession. The tension between robe and sword, as Monluc perceived it, was not one between disparate castes, but rather between differing professional mentalities.

Some of the issues which Monluc's comments raise — in particular the question of whether robe and sword nobilities were in fact distinct castes — must await consideration in later chapters. The central question which his comments pose concerns the nature of the special professional outlook which membership in the magistracy created. What were the daily professional demands that magistracy imposed? How seriously were members of the Parlement affected by them? What effects did their particular outlook have on their relationship with the surrounding society? These are the questions to which the present chapter is directed.

Nearly all of the Norman magistrate's professional life took place in Rouen's Palace of Justice, a magnificent flamboyant Gothic building set in the center of the city. Construction on it was begun shortly after the Parlement's foundation, in 1499, and it was completed in the second decade of the sixteenth century. The Palace was a scene of enormous activity in the sixteenth century, in which the magistrates were only the central figures. The arcades along its first floor were filled with shops, rental from which helped to pay for the building's maintenance. Book and paper sellers had regular positions in the corridors inside. A special room housed the attorneys (procureurs), who numbered about fifty in the later sixteenth century and who needed always to be present in case something affecting their clients arose. A more motley collection was made up by the clerks and mere "practitioners," men who lacked both legal education and office but who were ready to undertake legal chores and who usually survived as clerks for lawyers and judges. They, together with the sergeants and other lesser figures, formed the notoriously rowdy world of the basoche. Despite periodic repression, each year they performed satirical, sometimes scandalous, plays, and they seem to have been the leading participants in the brawls which occasionally took place in the halls of the Palace: as in 1583, when a paper seller assaulted a clerk in pursuit of an unpaid debt. One of those charged with managing such disorders, the sergeant and poetaster Jacques Sireulde, described the scene in about 1550: "Ought one to see in a Palace of Justice so many hawkers, men and women alike? So many pages and valets? So many messengers? And then there are the fruit sellers, who come whether wanted or not. ... all of these have to be kept out to assure that the commonality stops coming to piss beneath this vault." Finally there were the litigants and all those who had requests to make of the magistrates, whether as part of a lawsuit or concerning administrative matters.

The magistrates' appearance was eagerly awaited. They were expected to arrive early in the morning, usually at 6:00, clothed in the black robes that they were required to wear everywhere in the city and riding the mules that were equally the mark of their position (but which in the late sixteenth century fell victim to the new vogue for carriages). The magistrates' arrival must have been an impressive sight, for this was the moment for petitioners to present their grievances or other papers. The magistrates then moved to the court's different chambers. As the court was organized in 1600, the twenty-three senior councillors made up the Grand' Chambre, forty-five junior councillors made up the Chambre des Enquêtes, and eight specially designated councillors made up the Chambre des Requêtes; in addition, members of the Grand' Chambre and the Chambre des Enquêtes served on a rotating basis on the Tournelle, the court's criminal chamber, and in the Chambre de l'Edit, created by the Edict of Nantes to try cases concerning Protestants. Most of their work was devoted to appeals, cases from the province's royal and seigneurial jurisdictions, but privileged individuals and institutions might begin their cases in the Chambre des Requêtes.

For some hours these chambers worked in closed session, hearing witnesses, examining documents, and voting decisions. The dominant figures in this work were the four presidents, of whom two presided over the Grand' Chambre, one over the Enquêtes, and one over the Tournelle; the three king's attorneys, who were expected to intervene whenever the king's interests seemed to be involved in a case; and the reporter, the councillor chosen by the presidents to summarize the evidence in a case, lead discussion of it, and recommend a decision. Mid-mornings on most days, litigants and their lawyers were admitted for oral arguments, usually in public sessions. Such arguments in principle were limited to the Grand' Chambre, though apparently arguments were sometimes also heard in the Chambre des Enquêtes. These were dramatic moments in the routine of the Parlement, for the closing arguments of well-known lawyers were greatly appreciated by contemporaries. "There is nothing which more greatly flatters our senses or tickles our minds than to hear a learned and eloquent lawyer argue the merits of a case," wrote the Parisian magistrate and political conspirator Louis D'Orléans of his former profession: "It is a marvelous thing to see him command all those present with powerful and imperious words; it is...