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Updated: May 4, 2025
Not only did the provincial Parlements support that of Paris in its resistance to the Court, but the provinces themselves began to stir, and finally, a month after d'Éspréménil's arrest, a large meeting at Grenoble decided to call together the old Estates of the province, the province of Dauphiné.
To make way for the "supremacy of the general will," they abolished the Parlements, which had maintained the old laws, customs, and privileges of their several provinces, and had frequently interfered in purely political matters.
In competition with its power all older bodies became weak. The Estates General did not meet again after 1614; the parlements humbled themselves; provincial, municipal, and communal governments dropped into obscurity; the individual man, unless he was a functionary, lost all habit of political initiative, independence, or criticism.
Some of the provinces became very apprehensive when they learned that the king proposed to take from the local parlements the right to examine edicts before registering them.
He was very popular at first with king and courtiers, for he spent the public funds far more recklessly than his predecessors. But, naturally, he soon found himself in a position where he could obtain no more money. The parlements would consent to no more loans in a period of peace, and the taxes were as high as it was deemed possible to make them.
Encouraged by popular approval, the Parlement went on to draw up a declaration of rights, and to assert that subsidies could constitutionally be granted only by the nation's representatives the ancient Estates-General. This sounded to the government like revolution, and the Parlements were again abolished.
The abolition of the Parlements raised a great cry of indignation; excited crowds assembled in Paris and other cities; and the soldiers refused to arrest the judges. Here was real revolution, and Louis XVI, frightened and anxious, yielded to the popular demand for the Estates- General.
The parlement would then reluctantly obey, but as the Revolution approached it began to claim that a decree registered against its will was not valid. Struggles between the parlements and the ministers were very frequent in the eighteenth century.
Meanwhile the ministers were becoming very hard pressed for funds to meet the regular expenses of the government. The parlements had not only refused to register taxes but had done everything that they could to embarrass the ministers and destroy the confidence of those who might otherwise have lent money to the government.
The next great undertaking of the National Assembly was the establishment of a new and uniform administrative system in France. The ancient and confusing "provinces," "governments," "intendancies," "pays d'etat" "pays d'election" "parlements," and "bailliages" were swept away.
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