Part 32

The first president received 4 livres, 22 solis parisis--about 140 francs--per day; a clerical councillor 25 sols parisis--about 40 francs--and a lay councillor 20 sols--about 32 francs. This was an increase of a fifth on the preceding year. Charles VIII., in thus improving the remuneration of the members of the first court of the kingdom, reminded them of their duties, which had been too long neglected; he told them "that of all the cardinal virtues justice was the most noble and most important;" and he pointed out to them the line of conduct they were to pursue. The councillors were to be present daily in their respective chambers, from St. Martin's day to Easter, before seven o'clock in the morning; and from Easter to the closing of Parliament, immediately after six o'clock, without intermission, under penalty of punishment. Strict silence was enforced upon them during the debates; and they were forbidden to occupy themselves with anything which did not concern the case under discussion. Amidst a mass of other points upon which directions are given, we notice the following: the necessity of keeping secret the matters in course of deliberation; the prohibition to councillors from receiving, either directly or indirectly, anything in the shape of a douceur from the parties in any suit; and the forbidding all attorneys from receiving any bribe or claiming more than the actual expenses of a journey and other just charges.

The great charter of the Parliament, promulgated in April, 1453, was thus amended, confirmed, and completed, by this code of Charles VIII., with a wisdom which cannot be too highly extolled.

The magistrature of the supreme courts had been less favoured during the preceding reign. Louis XI., that cautious and crafty reformer, after having forbidden ecclesiastical judges to examine cases referring to the revenues of vacant benefices, remodelled the secular courts, but he ruthlessly destroyed anything which offended him personally. For this reason, as he himself said, he limited the power of the Parliaments of Paris and Toulouse, by establishing, to their prejudice, several other courts of justice, and by favouring the Châtelet, where he was sure always to find those who would act with him against the aristocracy. The Parliament would not give way willingly, nor without the most determined opposition. It was obliged, however, at last to succumb, and to pass certain edicts which were most repugnant to it. On the death of Louis XI., however, it took its revenge, and called those who had been his favourites and principal agents to answer a criminal charge, for no other reason than that they had exposed themselves to the resentment of the supreme court.

The Châtelet, in its judicial functions, was inferior to the Parliament, nevertheless it acquired, through its provost, who represented the bourgeois of Paris, considerable importance in the eyes of the supreme court. In fact, for two centuries the provost held the privilege of ruling the capital, both politically and financially, of commanding the citizen militia, and of being chief magistrate of the city. In the court of audiences, a canopy was erected, under which he sat, a distinction which no other magistrate enjoyed, and which appears to have been exclusively granted to him because he sat in the place of Monsieur Saint Loys (Saint Louis), dispensing justice to the good people of the City of Paris. When the provost was installed, he was solemnly escorted, wearing his cap, to the great chamber of Parliament, accompanied by four councillors.

After the ceremony of installation he gave his horse to the president, who had come to receive him. His dress consisted of a short robe, with mantle, collar turned down, sword, and hat with feathers; he also carried a staff of office, profusely ornamented with silver. Thus attired he attended Parliament, and assisted at the levees of the sovereign, where he took up his position on the lowest step of the throne, below the great Chamberlain. Every day, excepting at the vintage time, he was required to be present at the Châtelet, either personally or by deputy, punctually at nine in the morning. There he received the list of the prisoners who had been arrested the day before; after that he visited the prisons, settled business of various kinds, and then inspected the town. His jurisdiction extended to several courts, which were presided over by eight deputies or judges appointed by him, and who were created officers of the Châtelet by Louis XII. in 1498. Subsequently, these received their appointments direct from the King. Two auditing judges, one king's attorney, one registrar, and some bailiffs, completed the provost's staff.

The bailiffs at the Châtelet were divided into five classes: the king's sergeant-at-arms, the sergeants de la douzaine, the sergeants of the mace, or foot sergeants, the sergeants fieffés, and the mounted sergeants. The establishment of these officers dated from the beginning of the fourteenth century, and they were originally appointed by the provost, but afterwards by the King himself. The King's sergeants-at-arms (Fig. 310) formed his body-guard; they were not under the jurisdiction of the high constable, but of the ordinary judges, which proves that they were in civil employ. The sergeants de la douzaine were twelve in number, as their name implies, all of whom were in the service of the provost; the foot sergeants, who were civilians, were gradually increased to the number of two hundred and twenty as early as the middle of the fifteenth century. They acted only in the interior of the capital, and guarded the city, the suburbs, and the surrounding districts, whereas the mounted sergeants had "to watch over the safety of the rural parishes, and to act throughout the whole extent of the provost's jurisdiction, and of that of the viscount of Paris."

In the midst of the changes of the Middle Ages, especially after the communes became free, all those kings who felt the importance of a strict system of justice, particularly St. Louis, Philippe le Bel, and Charles VIII., had seen the necessity of compiling a record of local customs. An edict of 1453 orders that "the custom shall be registered in writing, so as to be examined by the members of the great council of the Parliament." Nevertheless, this important work was never properly carried out, and to Louis XII. is due the honour of introducing a customary or usage law, and at the same time of correcting the various modes of procedure, upon which customs and usages had been based, and which had become singularly antiquated since the edict of 1302.

No monarch showed more favour to Parliament than Louis XII. During his reign of seventeen years we never find complaints from the magistracy for not having been paid punctually. But in contrast with this, on the accession of Francis I., the court complained of not having been paid its first quarter's salary. From that moment claims were perpetually being made; there were continually delays, or absolute refusals; the members were expecting "remuneration for their services, in order absolutely to enable them to support their families and households." We can thus judge of the state of the various minor courts, which, being less powerful than the supreme tribunals, and especially than that of Paris, were quite unable to get their murmurings even listened to by the proper authorities. This sad state of things continued, and, in fact, grew worse, until the assembly of the League, when Mayenne, the chief of the leaguers, in order to gratify the Parliament, promised to double the salaries, although he was unable to fulfil his promise.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century the highest French tribunal was represented by nine superior courts--namely, the Parliament of Bordeaux, created on the 9th of June, 1642; the Parliament of Brittany, which replaced the ancient Grands-Jours, in March, 1553, and sat alternately at Nantes and at Rennes; the Parliament of the Dauphiné, established at Grenoble in 1451 to replace the Delphinal Council; the Parliament of Burgundy, established at Dijon in 1477, which took the place of the Grands-Jours at Beaune; the movable Parliament of Dombes, created in 1528, and consisting at the same time of a court of excise and a chamber of accounts; the Parliament of Normandy, established by Louis XII. in April, 1504, intended to replace the Exchequer of Rouen, and the ancient ducal council of the province; the Parliament of Provence, founded at Aix in July, 1501; the Parliament of Toulouse, created in 1301; and the Parliament of Paris, which took precedence of all the others, both on account of its origin, its antiquity, the extent of its jurisdiction, the number of its prerogatives, and the importance of its decrees. In 1551, Henry II. created, besides these, an inferior court in each bailiwick, the duties of which were to hear, on appeal, all matters in which sums of less than two hundred livres were involved (Fig. 311). There existed, besides, a branch of the Grands-Jours, occasionally sitting at Poitiers, Bayeux, and at some other central towns, in order to suppress the excesses which at times arose from religious dissensions and political controversy.

The Parliament of Paris--or Great French Parliament, as it was called by Philip V. and Charles V., in edicts of the 17th of November, 1318, and of the 8th of October, 1371--was divided into four principal chambers: the Grand Chamber, the Chamber of Inquiry, the Criminal Chamber, and the Chamber of Appeal. It was composed of ordinary councillors, both clerical and lay; of honorary councillors, some of whom were ecclesiastics, and others members of the nobility; of masters of inquiry; and of a considerable number of officers of all ranks (Figs. 312 to 314). It had at times as many as twenty-four presidents, one hundred and eighty-two councillors, four knights of honour, four masters of records; a public prosecutor's office was also attached, consisting of the king's counsel, an attorney-general and deputies, thus forming an assembly of from fifteen to twenty persons, called a college. Amongst the inferior officers we may mention twenty-six ushers, four receivers-general of trust money, three commissioners for the receipt of goods which had been seized under distress, one treasurer and paymaster, three controllers, one physician, two surgeons, two apothecaries, one matron, one receiver of fines, one inspector of estates, several keepers of refreshment establishments, who resided within the precincts of the palace, sixty or eighty notaries, four or five hundred advocates, two hundred attorneys, besides registers and deputy registers. Down to the reign of Charles VI. (1380--1422) members of Parliament held their appointment by commissions granted by the King, and renewed eaeh session. From Charles VI. to Francis I. these appointments became royal charges; but from that time, owing to the office being so often prostituted for reward, it got more and more into disrepute.

Louis XI. made the office of member of the Parliament of Paris a permanent one, and Francis I. continued this privilege. In 1580 the supreme magistracy poured 140,000,000 francs, which now would be worth fifteen or twenty times as much, into the State treasury, so as to enable members to sit permanently sur les fleurs de lis, and to obtain hereditary privileges. The hereditary transmission of office from father to son dealt a heavy blow at the popularity of the parliamentary body, which had already deeply suffered through shameful abuses, the enormity of the fees, the ignorance of some of the members, and the dissolute habits of many others.

The Châtelet, on the contrary, was less involved in intrigue, less occupied with politics, and was daily engaged in adjudicating in cases of litigation, and thus it rendered innumerable services in promoting the public welfare, and maintained, and even increased, the respect which it had enjoyed from the commencement of its existence. In 1498, Louis XII. required that the provost should possess the title of doctor in utroque jure, and that his officers, whom he made to hold their appointments for life, should be chosen from amongst the most distinguished counsellors at law. This excellent arrangement bore its fruits. As early as 1510, the "Usages of the City, Provosty, and Viscounty of Paris," were published in extenso, and were then received with much ceremony at a solemn audience held on the 8th of March in the episcopal palace, and were deposited among the archives of the Châtelet (Fig. 315).

The Parliament held a very different line of policy from that adopted by the Châtelet, which only took a political part in the religious troubles of Protestantism and the League with a view to serve and defend the cause of the people. In spite of its fits of personal animosity, and its rebellious freaks, Parliament remained almost invariably attached to the side of the King and the court. It always leaned to the absolute maintenance of things as they were, instead of following progress and changes which time necessitated. It was for severe measures, for intimidation more than for gentleness and toleration, and it yielded sooner or later to the injunctions and admonitions of the King, although, at the same time, it often disapproved the acts which it was asked to sanction.

Secret Tribunals.

The Old Man of the Mountain and his Followers in Syria.--The Castle of Alamond, Paradise of Assassins.--Charlemagne the Founder of Secret Tribunals amongst the Saxons.--The Holy Vehme.--Organization of the Tribunal of the Terre Rouge, and Modes adopted in its Procedures.--Condemnations and Execution of Sentences.--The Truth respecting the Free Judges of Westphalia.--Duration and Fall of the Vehmic Tribunal.--Council of Ten in Venice; its Code and Secret Decisions.--End of the Council of Ten.

During the Middle Ages, human life was generally held in small respect; various judicial institutions--if not altogether secret, at least more or less enveloped in mystery--were remarkable for being founded on the monstrous right of issuing the most severe sentences with closed doors, and of executing these sentences with inflexible rigour on individuals who had not been allowed the slightest chance of defending themselves.

While passing judgment in secret, they often openly dealt blows as unexpected and terrible as they were fatal. Therefore, the most innocent and the most daring trembled at the very name of the Free Judges of the Terre-Rouge, an institution which adopted Westphalia as the special, or rather as the central, region of its authority; the Council of Ten exercised their power in Venice and the states of the republic; and the Assassins of Syria, in the time of St. Louis, made more than one invasion into Christian Europe. We must nevertheless acknowledge that, terrible as these mysterious institutions were, the general credulity, the gross ignorance of the masses, and the love of the marvellous, helped not a little to render them even more outrageous and alarming than they really were.

Marco Polo, the celebrated Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, says, "We will speak of the Old Man of the Mountain. This prince was named Alaodin. He had a lovely garden full of all manner of trees and fruits, in a beautiful valley, surrounded by high hills; and all round these plantations were various palaces and pavilions, decorated with works of art in gold, with paintings, and with furniture of silk. Therein were to be seen rivulets of wine, as well as milk, honey, and gentle streams of limpid water. He had placed therein damsels of transcendent beauty and endowed with great charms, who were taught to sing and to play all manner of instruments; they were dressed in silk and gold, and continually walked in these gardens and palaces. The reasons for which the Old Man had these palaces built were the following. Mahomet having said that those who should obey his will should go to paradise, and there find all kinds of luxuries, this prince wished it to be believed that he was the prophet and companion of Mahomet, and that he had the power of sending whom he chose to paradise. No one could succeed in entering the garden, because an impregnable castle had been built at the entrance of the valley, and it could only be approached by a covered and secret way. The Old Man had in his court some young men from ten to twenty years of age, chosen from those inhabitants of the hills who seemed to him capable of bearing arms, and who were bold and courageous. From time to time he administered a certain drink to ten or twelve of these young men, which sent them to sleep, and when they were in deep stupor, he had them carried into the garden. When they awoke, they saw all we have described: they were surrounded by the young damsels, who sang, played instruments together, caressed them, played all sorts of games, and presented them with the most exquisite wines and meats (Fig. 317). So that these young men, satiated with such pleasures, did not doubt that they were in paradise, and would willingly have never gone out of it again.

"At the end of four or five days, the Old Man sent them to sleep again, and had them removed from the garden in the same way in which they had been brought in. He then called them before him, and asked them where they had been. 'By your grace, lord,' they answered, 'we have been in paradise.' And then they related, in the presence of everybody, what they had seen there. This tale excited the astonishment of all those who heard it, and the desire that they might be equally fortunate. The Old Man would then formally announce to those who were present, as follows: 'Thus saith the law of our prophet, He causes all who fight for their Lord to enter into paradise; if you obey me you shall enjoy that happiness.' By such words and plans this prince had so accustomed them to believe in him, that he whom he ordered to die for his service considered himself lucky. All the nobles or other enemies of the Old Man of the Mountain were put to death by the assassins in his service; for none of them feared death, provided he complied with the orders and wishes of his lord. However powerful a man might be, therefore, if he was an enemy of the Old Man's, he was sure to meet with an untimely end."

In his story, which we translate literally from the original, written in ancient French, the venerable traveller attributes the origin of this singular system of exercising power over the minds of persons to a prince who in reality did but keep up a tradition of his family; for the Alaodin herein mentioned is no other than a successor of the famous Hassan, son of Ali, who, in the middle of the eleventh century, took advantage of the wars which devastated Asia to create himself a kingdom, comprising the three provinces of Turkistan, Djebel, and Syria. Hassan had embraced the doctrine of the Ishmaelian sect, who pretended to explain allegorically all the precepts of the Mahometan religion, and who did away with public worship, and originated a creed which was altogether philosophical. He made himself the chief exponent of this doctrine, which, by its very simplicity, was sure to attract to him many people of simple and sincere minds. Attacked by the troops of the Sultan Sindgar, he defended himself vigorously and not unsuccessfully; but, fearing lest he should fall in an unequal and protracted struggle against an adversary more powerful than himself, he had recourse to cunning so as to obtain peace. He entranced, or fascinated probably, by means analogous to those related by Marco Polo, a slave, who had the daring, during Sindgar's sleep, to stick a sharp dagger in the ground by the side of the Sultan's head. On waking, Sindgar was much alarmed. A few days after, Hassan wrote to him, "If one had not good intentions towards the Sultan, one might have driven the dagger, which was stuck in the earth by his head, into his bosom." The Sultan Sindgar then made peace with the chief of the Ishmaelians, whose dynasty lasted for one hundred and seventy years.

The Castle of Alamond, built on the confines of Persia, on the top of a high mountain surrounded with trees, after having been the usual residence of Hassan, became that of his successors. As in the native language the same word means both prince and old man, the Crusaders who had heard the word pronounced confounded the two, and gave the name of Old Man of the Mountain to the Ishmaelian prince at that time inhabiting the Castle of Alamond, a name which has remained famous in history since the period when the Sire de Joinville published his "Mémoires."

Ancient authors call the subjects of Hassan, Haschichini, Heississini, Assissini, Assassini, various forms of the same expression, which, in fact, has passed into French with a signification which recalls the sanguinary exploits of the Ishmaelians. In seeking for the etymology of this name, one must suppose that Haschichini is the Latin transformation of the Arabic word Hachychy, the name of the sect of which we are speaking, because the ecstacies during which they believed themselves removed to paradise were produced by means of haschisch or haschischa. We know that this inebriating preparation, extracted from hemp, really produces the most strange and delicious hallucinations on those who use it. All travellers who have visited the East agree in saying that its effects are very superior to those of opium. We evidently must attribute to some ecstatic vision the supposed existence of the enchanted gardens, which Marco Polo described from popular tales, and which, of course, never existed but in the imagination of the young men, who were either mentally excited after fasting and prayer, or intoxicated by the haschischa, and consequently for a time lulled in dreams of celestial bliss which they imagined awaited them under the guidance of Hassan and his descendants.

The Haschischini, whom certain contemporary historians describe to us as infatuated by the hope of some future boundless felicity, owe their melancholy celebrity solely to the blind obedience with which they executed the orders of their chiefs, and to the coolness with which they sought the favourable moment for fulfilling their sanguinary missions (Fig. 318). The Old Man of the Mountain (the master of daggers, magister cultellorum, as he is also called by the chronicler Jacques de Vintry), was almost continually at war with the Mussulman princes who reigned from the banks of the Nile to the borders of the Caspian Sea. He continually opposed them with the steel of his fanatical emissaries; at times, also, making a traffic and merchandise of murder, he treated for a money payment with the sultans or emirs, who were desirous of ridding themselves of an enemy. The Ishmaelians thus put to death a number of princes and Mahometan nobles; but, at the time of the Crusades, religious zeal having incited them against the Christians, they found more than one notable victim in the ranks of the Crusaders. Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, was assassinated by them; the great Salah-Eddin (Saladin) himself narrowly escaped them; Richard Coeur de Lion and Philip Augustus were pointed out to the assassins by the Old Man, who subsequently, on hearing of the immense preparations which Louis IX. was making for the Holy War, had the daring to send two of his followers to France, and even into Paris, with orders to kill that monarch in the midst of his court. This king, after having again escaped, during his sojourn in Palestine, from the murderous attempts of the savage messengers of the Prince of Alamond, succeeded, by his courage, his firmness, and his virtues, in inspiring these fanatics with so much respect, that their chief, looking upon him as protected by heaven, asked for his friendship, and offered him presents, amongst which was a magnificent set of chessmen, in crystal, ornamented with gold and amber.

The successors of Hassan, simultaneously attacked by the Moguls under Houlayon, and by the Egyptians commanded by the Sultan Bibars, were conquered and dispossessed of their States towards the middle of the thirteenth century; but, long after, the Ishmaelians, either because their chiefs sought to recover their power, or because they had placed their daggers at the disposal of some foreign foe, continued notorious in history. At last the sect became extinct, or, at least, retired into obscurity, and renounced its murderous profession, which had for so long made its members such objects of terror.

We have thus seen how a legion of fanatics in the East made themselves the blind and formidable tools of a religious and political chieftain, who was no less ambitious than revengeful. If we now turn our attention to Germany, we shall here find, almost at the same period, a local institution which, although very different from the sanguinary court of the Old Man of the Mountain, was of an equally terrible and mysterious character. We must not, however, look at it from the same point of view, for, having been founded with the object of furthering and defending the establishment of a regular social state, which had been approved and sanctioned by the sovereigns, and recognised by the Church, it at times rendered great service to the cause of justice and humanity at a period when might usurped right, and when the excesses and the crimes of shameless evil-doers, and of petty tyrants, entrenched in their impregnable strongholds, were but too often made lawful from the simple fact that there was no power to oppose them.

The secret tribunal of Westphalia, which held its sittings and passed sentence in private, and which carried out its decrees on the spot, and whose rules, laws, and actions were enveloped in deep mystery, must unquestionably be looked upon as one of the most remarkable institutions of the Middle Ages.

It would be difficult to state exactly at what period this formidable institution was established. A few writers, and amongst these Sebastian Munster, wish us to believe that it was founded by Charlemagne himself. They affirm that this monarch, having subjugated the Saxons to his sway, and having forced them to be baptized, created a secret tribunal, the duties of which were to watch over them, in order that they might not return to the errors of Paganism. However, the Saxons were incorrigible, and, although Christians, they still carried on the worship of their idols (Figs. 319 and 320); and, for this reason, it is said by these authorities that the laws of the tribunal of Westphalia were founded by Charlemagne. It is well known that from the ninth to the thirteenth century, all that part of Germany between the Rhine and the Weser suffered under the most complete anarchy. In consequence of this, and of the increase of crime which remained unpunished, energetic men established a rigorous jurisdiction, which, to a certain extent, suppressed these barbarous disorders, and gave some assurance to social intercourse; but the very mystery which gave weight to the institution was the cause of its origin being unknown. It is only mentioned, and then cursorily, in historical documents towards the early part of the fifteenth century. This court of judicature received the name of Femgericht, or Vehmgericht, which means Vehmic tribunal. The origin of the word Fem, Vehm, or Fam, which has given rise to many scientific discussions, still remains in doubt. The most generally accepted opinion is, that it is derived from a Latin expression--vemi (vae mihi), "woe is me!"

The special dominion over which the Vehmic tribunal reigned supreme was Westphalia, and the country which was subjected to its laws was designated as the Terre Rouge. There was no assembly of this tribunal beyond the limits of this Terre Rouge, but it would be quite impossible to define these limits with any accuracy. However, the free judges, assuming the right of suppressing certain crimes committed beyond their territory, on more than one occasion summoned persons living in various parts of Germany, and even in provinces far from Westphalia, to appear before them. We do not know all the localities wherein the Vehmic tribunal sat; but the most celebrated of them, and the one which served as a model for all the rest, held its sittings under a lime-tree, in front of the castle-gate of Dortmund (Fig. 321). There the chapters-general of the association usually assembled; and, on certain occasions, several thousands of the free judges were to be seen there.