Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
The learned and virtuous Malesherbes and many another distinguished member of the suppressed parlements warned the king of the dangers menacing the crown, but so sunk was its wearer in sensual stupefaction that he only murmured: "Well, it will last my time," and with his flatterers and strumpets uttered the famous words "Après nous le déluge."
The time was now come when France should be France, and its inhabitants Frenchmen, and no longer Bretons, Normans, Gascons, Provençals. The Assembly by a single decree redivided the country into eighty-three departments. It wiped out at a stroke the separate administrations, the separate parlements, the peculiar privileges, and even the historic names of the old provinces.
In fact, the powers of the Prefects were, on the whole, much greater than those of the royal Intendants: for while the latter were hampered by the provincial Parlements, the nominees of the First Consul had to deal with councils that retained scarce the shadow of power. The real authority in local matters rested with the Prefects.
There was no chance, however, as matters stood, of persuading the Parlements to register decrees for these purposes, so Calonne proposed that the King should summon an assembly of the notables of France to give their support to these reforms.
Might not the tyrannically inclined ministers proceed to make new laws for the whole realm and ignore the special privileges which the king had pledged himself to maintain when Brittany, Dauphiny, Bearn, and other important provinces were originally added to France? The cause of the parlements became in this way the cause of the people.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking