Disgrace without dishonour: the internal exile of magistrates in eighteenth century France

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DISGRACE WITHOUT DISHONOUR:THE INTERNAL EXILE OF FRENCH

MAGISTRATES IN THE EIGHTEENTHCENTURY*

In the early hours of Monday 21 January 1771, the elderlyParisian magistrate, Ambroise-Julien Clement de Feillet, waswoken from his slumbers by two of the king’s musketeers ham-mering at his door.1 They had come to present him with a royallettre de cachet, which when opened contained the following briefcommand: ‘monsieur Clement de Feillet, I send you this letter toorder you to leave my good city of Paris within the day, withoutreceiving or visiting anyone, and to go without delay to Croc enCombrailles and remain there until further orders . . .under painof [condemnation for] disobedience’. He was not alone in hisdisgrace. His two sons received similar orders, as did more thana hundred of their colleagues in the Parlement of Paris, who werescattered to towns and villages across the length and breadth ofthe immense jurisdiction of the court. For many, it would prove tobe a long and dispiriting experience, and a small number wouldnever return to the capital alive. It was a pattern that was repeatedelsewhere in France, as Louis XV’s chancellor, Rene-Nicolas-Charles-Augustin de Maupeou, implemented radical measuresdesigned to break the political powers of the parlements.2

To gauge the shock caused by Maupeou’s coup, it is worthremembering that the parlements, especially that of Paris, weremore than just France’s highest courts of appeal. They also

* The author would like to thank Yves Charbit, Thomas Kaiser and Munro Price fortheir helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. He would also like to thankthe Leverhulme Trust for a Research Fellowship, which made the article possible.

1 An account of these events and of his journey into exile is provided in theBibliotheque de Port-Royal, Paris (hereafter BPR), Collection Le Paige 569, fo. 38:‘Voyage de Croc en Combrailles (de m. Clement de Feillet, le pere)’.

2 For details of Maupeou’s policies, see William Doyle, ‘The Parlements of Franceand the Breakdown of the Old Regime, 1771–1788’, French Hist. Studies, vi (1970);Durand Echeverria, The Maupeou Revolution: A Study in the History of Libertarianism,France, 1770–1774 (Baton Rouge and London, 1985); Jean Egret, Louis XVet l’oppo-sition parlementaire (Paris, 1970); Jules Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et lesparlements (Paris, 1883); Julian Swann, Politics and the Parlement of Paris under LouisXV, 1754–1774 (Cambridge, 1995).

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possessed extensive administrative powers, regulating marketsfor bread and firewood, supervising hospitals and schools, over-seeing the activities of municipal authorities, and much elsebesides. Perhaps more importantly, their rights of registrationof new laws and of remonstrance meant that they had long beenrecognized as an integral part of the governing process.Montesquieu had described the parlements as ‘intermediarypowers’, forming a bulwark against despotism, and to exile magis-trates on any occasion was a matter of the gravest importance;when implemented on the scale of 1771, contemporaries had noqualms about terming it a ‘revolution’.

With hundreds of magistrates banished, the events of 1771were clearly exceptional, but the practice of exiling thosewho had attracted the king’s displeasure was very much afeature of political life in eighteenth-century France. Princesof the blood, great aristocrats, ministers and bishops all suf-fered political disgrace, but the prominence of the parle-ments and their involvement in religious, financial andjurisdictional quarrels with the crown meant that magistrateswere particularly vulnerable to such punishment. There is arich historical literature studying the parlements, and manyof the crises that preceded the disgrace of the magistrateshave been analysed in great detail.3 What these worksdemonstrate is the immensely complex nature of judicialpolitics and that the crown usually employed exile as apolicy of last resort, when other methods of exerting pres-sure had failed.

3 The following list is by no means exhaustive, but, in addition to those works citedabove, see Francois Bluche, Les Magistrats du Parlement de Paris au xviiie siecle, 2nd edn(Paris, 1986); Olivier Chaline, Godart de Belbeuf: le parlement, le roi et les normands(Luneray, 1996); William Doyle, The Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the OldRegime, 1771–1790 (London, 1974); Joel Felix, Les Magistrats du parlement de Paris,1771–1790: dictionnaire biographique et genealogique (Paris, 1990); J. H. Shennan, TheParlement of Paris, 2nd edn (London, 1998); Bailey Stone, The French Parlements andthe Crisis of the Old Regime (Chapel Hill and London, 1986). For in-depth studies of themechanics of individual crises, see David A. Bell, Lawyers and Citizens: The Making of aPolitical Elite in Old Regime France (New York, 1994); Peter R. Campbell, Power andPolitics in Old Regime France, 1720–1745 (London, 1996); David Hudson, ‘TheParlementary Crisis of 1763 in France and its Consequences’, Canadian Jl Hist., vii(1972); Jeffrey Merrick, ‘ ‘‘Disputes over Words’’ and Constitutional Conflict inFrance, 1730–1732’, French Hist. Studies, xiv (1986); Julian Swann, ‘Parlementsand Political Crisis in France under Louis XV: The Besancon Affair, 1757–1761’,Hist. Jl, xxxvi (1994); Julian Swann, ‘Power and Provincial Politics in Eighteenth-Century France: The Varenne Affair, 1757–1763’, French Hist. Studies, xxi (1998).

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Yet, while the paths leading to the decision to exile have beenclearly mapped, almost nothing has been written about theexperience of banishment itself. In the nineteenth century,Sigismond Ropartz published an account of the transfer of theParlement of Rennes to Vannes, but it was little more than a briefcollection of anecdotes and official documents.4 The studiesof later exiles have tended to follow the same pattern. At thebeginning of the last century two works appeared on thesubject: one written by Leon Lecestre, examining the transferof the Parlement of Paris to Pontoise in 1720; and anotherby Andre Grellet-Dumazeau, documenting the exile of agroup of Parisian magistrates to Bourges in 1753–4.5 In bothcases, the authors presented important diaries written by mem-bers of the displaced court, but without any detailed analysis ofthe material. More recent works, such as that of John Rogister,who has studied the exile of 1753–4, are scarcely more helpful,since they give little more than an antiquarian survey of the tor-tuous negotiations leading to the recall of the parlement.6

The aim of the present article is to investigate disgrace andinternal exile, an important and almost wholly neglected subject,which offers new insights into both the social and culturalworld ofthe robe nobility and the wider political culture of the AncienRegime. Magistrates were forced to leave their homes withinhours of receiving a lettre de cachet, and they were expected toestablish themselves in an often-alien environment and to awaitthe restoration of the king’s favour. In so doing, they were con-fronted by a host of practical problems such as finding accom-modation and looking after personal affairs from a distance, whileattempting to establish cordial relations with new neighbours

4 Sigismond Ropartz, Exil du Parlement de Bretagne a Vannes, 1675–1690(Saint-Brieuc, 1875).

5 Leon Lecestre, ‘Journal inedit du Parlement de Paris exile a Pontoise(21 juillet – 17 decembre 1720)’, Extrait de l’Annuaire-Bulletin de la Societe del’Histoire de France (Paris, 1924); Andre Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles deBourges, 1753–1754: d’apres des documents inedits et le journal anecdotique dupresident de Meinieres (Paris, 1892). Grellet-Dumazeau uses the accounts of agroup of magistrates at Bourges, including president Durey de Meinieres,Robert de Saint-Vincent and Claude-Guillaume Lambert. Grellet-Dumazeauhas rearranged the order of the original text, which is housed in theArchives nationales, Paris (hereafter AN), KK 821, but without distorting itsactual content.

6 John Rogister, Louis XVand the Parlement of Paris, 1737–1755 (Cambridge, 1995),chs. 6–8.

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whose attitudes were not always benign. Historians have rightlystressed that honour was central to noble identity and culture, aswas a belief in an almost religious bond between the king and hisaristocratic subjects.7 At court, aristocrats jostled to keep them-selves before the eyes of the monarch, not only as part of a com-petition for preferment but also from a sense of a deep personalbond, the breaking of which would leave them ostracized andpowerless. In theory, therefore, to incur the sovereign’s disgracewas a form of secular malediction, a fate comparable to that of aChristian denied God’s grace.8 The parlementaires certainlyshared these sentiments, and for many their punishment was aterrible blow. However, as we shall see, while most were preparedto accept their exile, they were far less convinced that it was mer-ited; their disgrace, far from imposing a crushing burden, was formany a sign of the virtuousness of their actions. Both the exilesand their supporters sought to justify their conduct through pub-lished pamphlets and remonstrances, and by the reign of LouisXVI this increasingly vocal critique of punishment by lettre decachet had begun to threaten the authority of the absolutemonarchy.

I

PUNISHING THE PARLEMENTS

Judicial politics in ancien regime France functioned according to ahighly sophisticated and flexible set of unwrittenrules and conventions.9 In a society where government was

7 See, for example, Stuart Carroll, ‘The Peace in the Feud in Sixteenth- andSeventeenth-Century France’, Past and Present, no. 178 (Feb. 2003); JonathanDewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570–1715(Berkeley, 1993); Arlette Jouanna, Le Devoir de revolte: la noblesse francaise et la gestationde l’Etat moderne, 1559–1661 (Paris, 1989); Kristen B. Neuschel, Word of Honor:Interpreting Noble Culture in Sixteenth-Century France (Ithaca and London, 1989);Ellery Schalk, From Valor to Pedigree: Ideas of Nobility in France in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries (Princeton, 1986); Jay M. Smith, The Culture of Merit: Nobility,Royal Service, and the Making of Absolute Monarchy in France, 1600–1789 (Ann Arbor,1996).

8 I am currently writing a book, provisionally entitled ‘Disgrace, PoliticalPunishment and Internal Exile in France, 1610–1789’, which will deal with thesethemes in greater detail.

9 The functioning of judicial politics has been discussed by, among others,Campbell, Power and Politics in Old Regime France, chs. 11–13; William Doyle,‘The Parlements’, in Keith Michael Baker (ed.), The French Revolution and theCreation of Modern Political Culture, i, The Political Culture of the Old Regime


(cont. on p. 91)


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carried out through both informal personal networks of kinshipand clientele as well as official bureaucratic channels, there wasgreat scope for negotiation. Whenever the king levied new taxa-tion or implemented controversial laws, he was expected toemploy threats, bribes, entreaties and much else in order toachieve his ends. In theory, the king could hold a lit de justice, aceremony where he personally attended the parlement in order toimpose his authority, but that could not always be guaranteed toovercome resistance, particularly on matters of conscience. Thesame was true of his right to punish, and it was only when othermethods had failed that the king would risk exiling or imprisoningmagistrates by means of lettres de cachet. Once that decision hadbeen taken, the king had a surprisingly wide selection of weaponsto choose from, with the severity of the punishment reflecting theextent of his anger. Thus, in both 1720 and 1787, the Parlementof Paris was transferred as a body to Pontoise and Troyes respec-tively, and a similar fate befell the Parlement of Bordeaux, whichwas moved to Libourne in 1787–8.10 These were not strictlyspeaking exiles, but for the magistrates to be obliged to transferthemselves and their professional lives to the cramped surround-ings of a provincial town for an indefinite period was highly incon-venient. As an alternative, the king could summon a parlement toVersailles for an audience, and then leave it in limbo by refusing toarrange a time for the reception of the deputation. This tactic wasparticularly useful when dealing with provincial magistrates, whofound themselves burdened with the cost of seeking accommoda-tion close to the court, while they awaited the king’s orders.

However, it was internal exile that offered the most strikingillustration of royal displeasure. In addition to the mass exile of1771, the majority of the Parisian magistrates were banished in

(n. 9 cont.)

(Oxford, 1987); Albert N. Hamscher, The Parlement of Paris after the Fronde,1653–1673 (Pittsburgh and London, 1976); Stone, French Parlements and theCrisis of the Old Regime; Swann, Politics and the Parlement of Paris under LouisXV, ch. 3. In a recent study, John J. Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements: TheAssertion of Royal Authority (Manchester, 2002), has argued that the monarchyemployed draconian measures to coerce the parlements into obedience. Forthe present author, Hurt fails to give sufficient weight to the many subtlemethods of exerting pressure, bargaining, obstructionism and much else thatwas so typical of judicial politics throughout the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.

10 Jean Egret, La Pre-Revolution francaise, 1787–1788 (Paris, 1962), ch. 4; Doyle,Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, ch. 17.



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1732, and sixteen of their number were similarly treated in1757.11 Some thirty members of the Parlement of Besanconwere exiled between 1758 and 1761, as were judges from Pau in1765 and Rennes in 1766, and many other examples could beadded to this list.12 Individual exile was not the only method used,and in 1753 Louis XV had divided the members of the Parlementof Paris into eight different groups, sending them to towns such asPoitiers, Montbrison and Vendome where they spent the nextfifteen months.13 Another variation on the theme was to confinethe parlementaires to their own city, as happened to the magistratesof Dijon in 1762 and to those of Rennes in 1765–6.14 In effect,they were imprisoned within the city walls, preventing them fromattending to the affairs of their country estates, something thatwas particularly frustrating during the judicial vacations or atharvest time. An even more rigorous fate befell the members ofthe Parlement of Toulouse in 1763, as they found themselvesunder house arrest throughout much of the autumn. Finally, ina number of exceptional cases, individual parlementaires werearrested and confined in prisons such as the Bastille or theMont-Saint-Michel as the ultimate sign of their deep disgrace.

From the king’s perspective, his personal expression of displea-sure was intended to exert moral and psychological pressure onthe parlementaires. Ideally, their disgrace would lead to regret,even repentance and subsequently a willingness to cease theirresistance to government policy. To try and encourage these sen-timents, the crown was generally anxious to divide the magis-trates, and its treatment of both groups and individuals variedaccordingly. Those who were blamed for fomenting oppositionwere singled out for harsh punishment. Thus the legendaryJansenist, abbe Rene Pucelle (who had led the resistance to car-dinal de Fleury’s decision to declare the papal bull, Unigenitus, alaw of Church and State) was exiled to La Chaise Dieu in the

11 Campbell, Power and Politics in Old Regime France, chs. 11–12; Swann, Politics andthe Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, ch. 5.

12 See Swann, ‘Parlements and Political Crisis . . .The Besancon Affair’; Egret,Louis XV et l’opposition parlementaire, 140–7, ch. 4; Barthelemy Pocquet, LePouvoir absolu et l’esprit provincial: le duc d’Aiguillon et La Chalotais, 3 vols.(Paris, 1900–1).

13 Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles de Bourges, 373–80.14 Julian Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: The Estates General of

Burgundy, 1661–1790 (Cambridge, 2003), 267–70; Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu etl’esprit provincial, i, 546–7; ii, 2.



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Auvergne, and his zealous young colleague, Carre de Mongeron,was banished to neighbouring Vic.15

Jansenists were not the only ones to be treated rigorously, and in1771 Michau de Montblin and president Jean-Hyacinthe-Emmanuel Hocquart, two of the leading figures in the parlement,were exiled to the Ile d’Yeu and the Ile de Noirmoutier respec-tively. These were considered to be particularly grim destinationson account of the rudeness of the local climate and the fact thatboth men were reputed to suffer from respiratory ailments; it wassubsequently claimed that they died prematurely as a result.16

Others were far more fortunate. Their colleague the presidentLouis-Francois de Paule Lefevre d’Ormesson de Noiseau, forexample, who was well known to Louis XV, was exiled to hisestates at Orly, close to Paris. When the king was asked to sendhim further away, he refused, declaring: ‘he is my neighbour; Iwant him at home at Orly’.17 Indeed within weeks, d’Ormessonwas receiving gifts of game killed by the royal hunt, and whileothers struggled through the snows of the Auvergne he wasgiven tacit permission to visit Paris and even the court.18 It wasalso common for magistrates to receive a lettre de cachet with thedestination left blank, allowing the recipients to choose their placeof exile. Naturally enough, such treatment was seen as a realcourtesy and the more astute provincial governors or intendantscould win praise for their intercession if they succeeded in light-ening the blow in this way.19

15 BPR, Collection Le Paige 449: ‘Suite des Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques du 30Octobre 1732’. The source does not say which Vic, but it was almost certainly Vic-le-Comte.

16 Thiswas certainly the opinion of Saint-Vincent, who knew Hocquart well: Robertde Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 515, 526. All references to these memoirs are from aphotocopy of a typed version of the original kindly placed at the disposal of the authorby Dale Van Kley. The original is conserved by Michel Vinot. I would like to expressmy thanks to both of them. D’Ormesson de Noiseau, on the other hand, recounts anencounter between Montblin’s doctor and Chancellor Maupeou about the unsuit-ability of his place of exile: AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 9.

17 AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 4. The king hunted in the forests around Orly, which isclose to Fontainebleau. He clearly had considerable respect for d’Ormesson deNoiseau, whose brother was a senior intendant des finances.

18 AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 131. Similarly favourable treatment was accorded toothers such as president Bochart de Saron and the members of the powerful Joly deFleury clan.

19 The comte de Perigord won the plaudits of the parlementaires of Toulouse in 1771by leaving lettres de cachet blank, or by changing their destinations: BPR, Collection LePaige 570, fo. 80: ‘Lettre de Toulouse du 5 7bre 1771’.



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Through this blatantly unequal treatment, the governmenthoped to break the legendary corporate solidarity of the parlemen-taires, who were well aware of the danger and responded accord-ingly. In 1771, the octogenarian doyen of the Parlement of Paris,counsellor Ferme, who was bedridden through illness, was appar-ently overlooked when his colleagues were exiled. Conscious of apotential stain on his honour, he immediately wrote to the chan-cellor, informing him that ‘death and you have forgotten me’, andhe was promptly banished to Montmorency.20 Presidentd’Ormesson de Noiseau was also careful not to flaunt his privi-leged status, and he remained at Orly for over three years in a stateof ‘voluntary exile’, out of respect and solidarity with his collea-gues.21 D’Ormesson never wavered in his belief that the parle-ment would be recalled, and he had certainly calculated that hisself-sacrifice would assist him in his ambition to become firstpresident of the court, but such resolution suggests that some-thing more than just personal interest was at stake. Ultimately,d’Ormesson and his colleagues were bound together not only bytheir esprit de corps, but also by an unshakeable belief that theirpunishment was unwarranted.

II

WHY OBEY?

The political crises that invariably preceded the arrival of a lettre decachet meant that the parlementaires were rarely surprised by theirdisgrace. The Parisian magistrates were accurately informed oftheir impending banishment on the night of 20–1 January 1771,and Pierre-Augustin Robert de Saint-Vincent and his familyinvited their friends and neighbours to accompany them as theyawaited the fateful knock at the door.22 They were particularlyconcerned that his outspoken denunciations of Maupeou wouldwarrant imprisonment, and they reasoned that if he were to bearrested the musketeers would arrive between midnight and2 a.m. ‘to avoid creating disturbance in the neighbourhood’.23

20 The quotation was attributed to him by the abbe Courtepee: Bibliotheque muni-cipale de Dijon (hereafter BMD), MS 1233, fo. 11: ‘Recueil de la plus etonnanterevolution arrivee en France depuis 1769 a 1775’.

21 AN 156, microfilm 75, fos. 325, 403.22 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 518–20, 522.23 Ibid., 519.



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A simple exile, on the other hand, would be announced ‘justbefore dawn, at a time when the population was waking and pre-paring to leave for work’. Their analysis proved correct, and it wasnot until 5 a.m. that the musketeers arrived with a lettre de cachetexiling Robert de Saint-Vincent to Maurs in the Auvergne.

With such clear forewarning of what was to come, it is impor-tant to consider why the parlementaires chose to wait and obeyrather than take the opportunity to flee. The legal position wascertainly ambiguous in the sense that no law could be citedauthorizing such punishment. The comte de Mirabeau, a fiercecritic of lettres de cachet, made much of the edict of July 1705,which forbade those exiled by royal orders from fleeing onpain of ‘seizure of their persons and property’, describing it asthe ‘first monument of French legislation where the violationsof despotism have been established in law’.24 Yet the edict inquestion was specifically directed at Huguenots, who wereescaping from the kingdom, and it did no more than repeat theterms of earlier, presumably ineffectual, legislation of 1682and 1669. The law of 1705 thus offered a very tenuous legalbasis for internal exile, and in reality the position had neverbeen clarified because the king’s power to imprison or exile hissubjects without trial was intimately connected to his rights assovereign.

When, at the height of the Fronde, the parlement had sought toproscribe the use of lettres de cachet, it had been challenged byChancellor Seguier, who had made an impassioned defence ofthe principle of reason of state.25 He argued that since time imme-morial all governments, whether republican or monarchical, hadreserved the right to act arbitrarily on the basis of suspicion andwithout the normal legal formalities. As he interpreted matters, inordinary criminal affairs it was better that a hundred guilty menescape punishment than that one innocent man be condemned,whereas in affairs of state it was better that a hundred innocentssuffer than that the state should perish. Louis XVI echoed thesesentiments over a century later, declaring: ‘I will not tolerate myParlement rising up against a power that the . . . tranquillity of the

24 [A.-J.-L.] Jourdain et al., Recueil general des anciennes lois francaises, depuis l’an 420jusqu’a la revolution de 1789, 29 vols. (Paris, 1821–33), xxi, 467; [Honore-Gabriel deRiquetti] comte de Mirabeau, Des lettres de cachet et des prisons d’etat: ouvrage posthume,compose en 1778 (Hamburg, 1782), 23.

25 Jourdain et al., Recueil general des anciennes lois francaises, xvii, 92–7, n. 1.



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state often requires’.26 The idea that, in the last resort, the statehad the right to imprison without trial was as much a feature ofearly modern France as it is of modern liberal democracies — andit was no less contested.

For the influential first president of the Cour des Aides,Lamoignon de Malesherbes, the question of obedience to alettre de cachet could be explained partly by convention but alsoas a rational response to a difficult choice. During his own exile of1771–4, he wrote: ‘it is accepted that no one resists exile by lettre decachet, and this principle has established itself with so much easebecause those who resist such orders would normally have farworse things to fear from the powers that be’.27 By extension,those threatened with imprisonment had an equally rationalmotive to disobey. As he noted, prisoners in the Bastille werenever treated as rebels or as disobedient if they tried to escape,and those threatened with arrest ‘always attempt to take flight.Such orders are only obeyed if it is foreseeable that [imprison-ment] will be for a short period and less unpleasant than theprospect of expatriation’. The legendary escapes of the duc deBeaufort and the cardinal de Retz were clearly consistent with theinterpretation proposed by Malesherbes, although the reactionsof his colleagues were mixed.28 Thomas du Fosse, a senior figurein the Parlement of Rouen, found himself confronted by exactlythis dilemma in the autumn of 1772. Having been exiled to hisestates the previous year, he was accused of involvement in theprotests of the Norman nobility against the fiscal policies of abbeTerray.29 As punishment, he received a lettre de cachet banishinghim to the Ile de Noirmoutier, which he ignored on the groundsof ill-health, sending a letter of excuse to the chancellor.30

26 Remontrances du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe siecle, ed. Jules Flammermont, 3 vols.(Paris, 1888–98), iii, 713.

27 AN 162, microfilm 10, fo. 3: ‘Memoire importante’.28 Beaufort had escaped from the Bastille in May 1648. [Jean-Francois Paul de

Gondi] cardinal de Retz, Memoires, ed. Michel Pernot (Paris, 2003), 856–8, 864–6,882–97, wrote extensively about the right to flee from arrest or to escape once incaptivity.

29 M. A. [Aristide] Joly, Une conspiration de la noblesse normande au XVIIIe siecle,d’apres des documents inedits (Caen, 1865); Michael Kwass, Privilege and the Politics ofTaxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberte, Egalite, Fiscalite (Cambridge, 2000),194–204.

30 The following is based on the account of d’Ormesson de Noiseau, who claimed tohave been informed by a close relative of Thomas du Fosse: AN 156, microfilm 76, fo.430.



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His disobedience prompted the government to send an officer toarrest him, but rather than submit du Fosse fled and he was soonsaid to be abroad.

Du Fosse had thus put Malesherbes’s theory into practice, butnot all magistrates reached the same conclusion. As we have seen,Robert de Saint-Vincent waited patiently to see if he would faceimprisonment or exile, and others adopted a similarly resignedstance. Deciding whether or not to take flight was ultimately amatter for the individual conscience, but there were other verypowerful reasons to explain why the parlementaires accepted theirpunishment with equanimity. During the exile of 1732, the gov-ernment refused to allow any concessions to the magistratesunless they were prepared to sign the following declaration: ‘Iam in despair that my actions should have displeased the king. Ihave every possible regret for having incurred disgrace. There isnothing that I would not do to atone for my error, so intense andsincere is my repentance’.31 By trying to force the exiles to submitto the classic language of disgrace, the crown clearly wanted themto acknowledge that they had deserved punishment. Few magis-trates were prepared to accept such humiliating terms, and whenthe government sought to break their resistance in this fashion itusually failed dismally. Although the magistrates proclaimed that‘the most keen distress that the Parlement can have is to beremoved from the good graces of its master’ and to make count-less references to the need to ‘tremble’ in their disgrace, they werenot prepared to accept that their punishment was warranted.32

Instead, they treated it as an ordeal to be met with a mixture ofChristian resignation and stoicism.

Rolland de Challerange captured these sentiments in aletter written from exile in La Chatre, near Poitiers, duringApril 1771:

we are in God’s hands and he will not refuse us courage, fortitude orpatience of which we are in great need. We are in line with Providenceand our duties. I assure you, sir, that while my situation is bleak, I muchprefer in our present circumstances to be at La Chatre in Siberia than to be

31 Edmond-Jean-Francois Barbier, Chronique de la regence et du regne de Louis XV,1718–1763, 8 vols. (Paris, 1857–66), i, 462 n. 3. Barbier admitted that he was unsureof the precise wording, but this version was circulating in Paris, presumably with thegovernment’s blessing because it led to criticisms of those magistrates who were pre-pared to sign.

32 Remontrances du Parlement de Paris, ed. Flammermont, i, 120.



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in Paris or Rouen. It is not possible that this crisis will last long. But it isnecessary to await with resignation the movement [sic] of God.33

His colleague, Angran, simply noted that recent events confirmedhis belief that ‘it is necessary to tremble and to deliver everythinginto the hands of Providence, which desires to punish and chastiseus. We all merit it and we must accept our punishment in atone-ment for our sins’.34

Resignation to the will of Providence was inseparable fromobedience to the king. During the exile of 1753–4, it was said offirst president de Maupeou that ‘all he will say is obey and keepquiet’, while Robert de Saint-Vincent explained to a curiousauvergnat that ‘I am absolutely passive in all of this; I respectthe will of God in obeying the king’.35 Even in the dark daysafter January 1771, there was still plenty of professed respectfor Louis XV, and Francois-Louis de Villiers de La Berge,exiled to the wilds of the Morvan, spoke for many when hewrote that ‘we await not only with respect, but with confidencethe return of the good graces of a just and cherished master’.36 Yetexpressions of respect for the king, or of resignation to the mys-terious workings of Providence, should not be allowed to hide thecrucial fact that whatever the cause of their disgrace the parlemen-taires believed they were suffering in a just cause.

To understand how they could reach such a reassuring conclu-sion, it is important to consider the professional culture and men-tality of the robe nobility, which had internalized extremelypowerful sentiments of honour and duty. As he entered histhird year of exile, president Lamoignon de Basville expressedhis unbroken resolve, commenting: ‘the king is the master ofmy goods and of my liberty, but not of my duty, nor myhonour; and I would not fear telling him so to his face’.37 Suchbeliefs were commonplace and were intimately connected to theissue of conscience. As Durey de Meinieres explained matters, ‘itis the strict duty of magistrates never to betray their consciences;

33 BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 211: Rolland de Challerange toLe Paige, 21 Apr. 1771.

34 BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 201: Angran to Le Paige, 21 Mar. 1771.35 Bibliotheque nationale, Paris (hereafter BN), Collection Joly de Fleury 1497, fo.

236; and Joly de Fleury, fils to his father, 6 Dec. 1753; Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 575.36 AN 156, microfilm 75, fo. 348: Villiers de La Berge to d’Ormesson de Noiseau,

12 June 1772.37 AN 156, microfilm 76, fo. 475: Lamoignon de Basville to d’Ormesson de

Noiseau, 9 Jan. 1771.



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do you wish that I attest that what you say is just, when the oppo-site is clearly proven to me[?]’38 Just as it would be wrong tocondemn a man whom the judge knew to be innocent, it wasalso unacceptable to uphold a law that betrayed the public inter-est, and, as another leading exile, abbe d’Espagnac, defined mat-ters: they should never ‘adopt terms contrary to the constitutionof the state and to the true interests of the sovereign’.39 Anymagistrates tempted to forget these maxims risked being calledto account by their colleagues, relatives and especially by theirwives, some of whom were exiled for strengthening their hus-bands’ resolve.40 In Toulouse, the women were even preparedto demand lettres de cachet for their spouses in 1771, declaringthat they would ‘rather see them dead than dishonoured’.41

Exile was, for many, a form of secular martyrdom, a cross to beborne for the good of the state and of the laws. It was a traditionthat could be traced back at least as far as the sixteenth century,but it was undoubtedly reinforced by the influence of Jansenistthought in the wake of Unigenitus. The infamous papal bull wasthe most divisive theological and political issue of the early eight-eenth century, enraging many devout Catholic clergy and laityand, more damagingly still, breathing new life into the Jansenistmovement. Catherine Maire has noted how the avocats exiled fortheir opposition to Fleury’s religious policies rushed to the cem-etery of Saint-Medard ‘in order to thank the blessed deacon[Paris] for the grace of ‘‘suffering for justice’’ ’.42 Inspired by fig-urist theology, which taught that contemporary events were pre-figured by, and were in a sense no more than a replaying of, thosein the Bible, they equated their own persecution with that of theJews and early Christians. Louis-Adrien Le Paige, the intellectualpowerhouse behind much of the parlementaire opposition of theperiod, was personally a disciple of these figurist theologiansand he did much to promote the idea that the magistrates werejustified in obeying their consciences, not in opposition to, but inthe true interests of, the king. In a pamphlet written on behalf of

38 BN, MS Fr 7573, fo. 52.39 AN 156, microfilm 77, fo. 654: abbe d’Espagnac to d’Ormesson de Noiseau, 10

Aug. 1773.40 Doyle, Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, 147.41 BPR, Collection Le Paige 569, fos. 154, 156.42 Catherine Maire, De la cause de Dieu a la cause de la nation: le jansenisme au XVIIIe

siecle (Paris, 1998), 382.



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the exiled members of the Parlement of Besancon in 1761,he wrote:

when, as a result of the surprises to which injustice and importunity some-times expose the wisdom of princes, the order of things is overturned anddestroyed; when the laws fall silent and authority scorns their guidance,preferring to use force, we must tremble in a respectful silence and waitpatiently until the judgement of the monarch has been enlightened aboutwrongs whose remedy is to be found in the very constitution of the state.43

Figurist theologians, Le Paige, and Jansenist magistrates moregenerally all played a vital role in formulating and publicizingthe parlementaire interpretation of disgrace, but we should notforget that their ideas were only one current in a much olderand broader stream.

The model of the parfait magistrat in particular was vital in rein-forcing the ideal of the almost sacred vocation of the judge, an idealstressing the need for gravity, personal virtue and a willingness toput conscience and principle above personal interest.44 In thepantheon of judicial heroes stood such figures as Chancellord’Aligre, exiled for his refusal to be a mere cipher of cardinal deRichelieu. For Robert de Saint-Vincent, this ‘regrettable personaldisgrace . . . in no sense harmed his posterity, so true is it that cour-age and steadfastness in a magistrate are always rewarded either inhis own person or in that of his descendants’.45 Another to havebraved the wrath of Richelieu was president de Bellievre, who hadearned a respectful mention from no less an authority thanMontesquieu, in De l’esprit des lois, as well as from the Parlementof Grenoble in its remonstrances of January 1788.46 The infamoustrial of Fouquet was another source of inspiration. Olivierd’Ormesson, Louis Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain, and first presi-dent de Lamoignon, to name just a few, had all either risked orsuffered the disgrace of Louis XIV rather than deliver a deathsentence, and it is easy to imagine how their example would have

43 BPR, Collection Le Paige 556, fo. 29: Juste idee de l’affaire du parlement seant aBesancon ou justification complete des trente exiles, contre les sophismes et les fausses imputa-tions contenues dans la lettre d’un conseiller (Besancon, 1761). The pamphlet was printedanonymously, but Maire, De la cause de Dieu a la cause de la nation, 688, attributesauthorship to Le Paige and there is no reason to dispute her verdict.

44 Bluche, Les Magistrats du Parlement de Paris, pt 3, ch. 1; Chaline, Godart de Belbeuf,ch. 2.

45 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 24–5.46 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. and trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C.

Miller and Harold S. Stone (Cambridge, 1989), bk 6, ch. 5, p. 79; BMD, MS 5088,Remontrances du Parlement de Grenoble du 24 janvier 1788, 13.



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weighed on the consciences of their descendants.47 Finally, therevered figure of Chancellor d’Aguesseau could be cited to encou-rage steadfastness in the face of adversity. The story of his bravestance in the face of Louis XIV’s attempts to enforce acceptance ofUnigenitus in August 1715 was legendary. According to one con-temporary account, ‘he resisted with courage . . . that which LouisXIV demanded of him against his conscience and the good of thestate’.48 Not for nothing had d’Aguesseau written that he ‘whodoes not have courage enough to rise above ill-fortune and tostorm the ramparts of iniquity is unworthy to bear the name ofjudge; the magistrate who is not a hero is not even an uprightman’.49

Many parlementaires were, therefore, happy to embrace their dis-grace as a badge of honour. As abbe Pucelle arrived in La ChaiseDieu, he brushed aside the concerns of a local monk with the words‘come, come, Dom Tiroux — no human weakness here; I come toserveyouasacompanion inmisery, toohappy to suffer for justice’.50

Similar sentiments litter the correspondence of his fellow magis-trates, and some were even bold enough to inform their sovereignthat his disgrace was neither feared nor dishonourable. In a lettersent by the Parlement of Dijon to Louis XV in February 1771,drafted by Joly de Bevy, a man who had already spent somemonths in the Bastille for his overzealous defence of its interests,the court declared: ‘should you punish us, Sire, our sentencewould be glorious, and you would praise us one day for havingdone everything in our power to break the barriers that the ill-inten-tioned seek to raise between the throne and your Parlement’.51

47 In his memoirs, Olivier d’Ormesson frequently reflected upon the causes andconsequences of his own disgrace: Journal d’Olivier Lefevre d’Ormesson, et extraits desmemoires d’Andre Lefevre d’Ormesson, ed. M. [Adolphe] Cheruel, 2 vols. (Paris, 1860–1), ii, 290–595. For the impact on the Phelypeaux de Pontchartrain, see Sara E.Chapman, Private Ambition and Political Alliances: The Phelypeaux de PontchartrainFamily and Louis XIV’s Government, 1650–1715 (Rochester, NY, 2004), ch. 1.

48 Isabelle Storez, Le Chancelier Henri Francois d’Aguesseau, 1668–1751: monarchisteet liberal (Paris, 1996), 227.

49 Quoted admiringly in BMD, MS 5088, Remontrances du Parlement de Grenoble du24 janvier 1788, 12.

50 BPR, Collection Le Paige 449: ‘Coppie d’une lettre ecritte par Dom Tiroux,religieux de l’abbaye de Corbigny, le 23 May 1732’.

51 BMD, MS 22981, Lettre du Parlement de Dijon au roi, 6 fevrier 1771. On thisprinted copy of the remonstrances, someone has written that the author was Joly deBevy, and this is certainly very likely. He had been imprisoned in the Bastille in 1762for writing a pamphlet entitled Le Parlement Outrage attacking the local provincialestates: see Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy, 272–9.



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Such stern and inspiring models combined with the pressureimposed by the expectations of their families and peer groupsmake it easy to understand why the magistrates found it difficulttobreak ranks, even if theywerepersonallyunconvincedby thehigh-blown rhetoric of judicial self-sacrifice. In his diary, presidentd’Ormesson de Noiseau frequently referred to the problems ofMalesherbes and his family as they sought to dissuade his youngson-in-law, president Louis le Peletier de Rosambo, from abandon-ing the parlement in favour of a military career during the exile of1771 to 1774.52 As a young man in his twenties, Rosambo clearlydid not wish to pass his youth vegetating in exile, but he ultimatelyaccepted his fate. Many were no doubt obliged to do the same, andtheir actions offer further evidence of the strength of the ideal ofjudicial self-sacrifice.

Only those with the strongest personal or political motives wereprepared to put obedience to the king before solidarity with theircolleagues, and they risked a terrible backlash for that decision.53

When in 1765 twelve members of the Parlement of Brittanyrefused to follow the majority by resigning their offices in protestat government policy, they faced a vicious campaign of vilifica-tion. They quickly became known as the twelve IFs, after aninsulting engraving attacking their honour, in which the mottoJudex Fidelis was mockingly transformed into the colloquial insultof ‘stupid bugger’.54 Worse was to follow and Rennes was soonbeing entertained by poems and songs, whose flavour can begauged by the lines:

For M. de Caradeuc de KeranroyA literary insect,Magisterial shit,Who could not despise you?Your least vice is folly,One after another we have seen you betray,God, your brother and your patrie.55

All twelve faced a similar outpouring of bile, but Caradeuc deKeranroy was none other than the brother of Rene Caradeuc de

52 AN 156, microfilm 75, fos. 223, 403.53 For examples of some divisions following Maupeou’s coup, see Chaline, Godart de

Belbeuf, ch. 7; Doyle, Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, 144–58;Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements, ch. 10.

54 Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu et l’esprit provincial, ii, 12–39. The letters I and J werefrequently printed without distinction, but the intended sense of the engraving, ‘JeanFoutre’, did not require much decoding.

55 Ibid., 39.



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La Chalotais, the celebrated magistrate languishing in the dun-geons of the fortress of Saint-Malo, which added even greaterintensity to a traumatic split in the parlement that had led topublic insults, social ostracism and even the threat of physicalviolence.

If it is important to recognize the real divisions that existedwithin the parlements, most exiles nevertheless remained con-vinced that they were being persecuted for obeying their con-science and for carrying out an almost sacred duty to upholdthe law. The parlementaires drew great strength from theirChristian faith, classical culture and legal heritage. Exile was asign that they must suffer for their principles, but in so doing theywere acting virtuously and they could hope to acquire honour andglory. The magistrates were no less convinced that they, not theking or his ministers, were defending the true principles ofthe monarchy and that they were acting in its best interests.Yet their reaction to their punishment was purely passive.There is something distinctly Augustinian about parlementairereaction to disgrace, a sentiment that was reinforced by, butwas not exclusive to, the Jansenists in their ranks, as they waitedpatiently and obediently for the inscrutable workings ofProvidence to rescue them from their fate. Their role was toendure persecution in a just cause, and there were no goodworks that could be accomplished in order to speed the returnof the king’s good pleasure.

III

DAILY LIFE IN EXILE

Once the lettre de cachet had been delivered, there was little timefor the recipient to waste, as soldiers or spies were usually postedto ensure compliance with the king’s orders.56 Domestic deci-sions had to be taken quickly, notably about whether the exileshould travel alone, or with his wife, children and domestic ser-vants. Finding transport was an immediate priority, and Clementde Feillet reported that he spent the whole of 21 January 1771

56 Some magistrates were escorted to their destinations, and even permanentlyguarded, as was the case with abbe Pucelle in 1732. However, the majority weretrusted to make their own way to their place of exile, albeit under the watchful eyeof government officials.



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arranging a carriage, which was not ready to depart until 6 p.m.For the voyage to Croc, he was charged the substantial sum of 345livres paid in advance.57 His journey took ten days and was clearlysomething of an adventure. He narrowly avoided arrest as a sus-pected smuggler near Nevers, and he had to be rescued by thelocal intendant with whom he subsequently spent a pleasantSunday visiting local sites, including the tomb of the marechalde Montmorency. Once Clement arrived in the Auvergne, thebeauty of the mountains captivated him and although he wasultimately obliged to complete his journey to Croc on footthrough the snow, with his belongings being dragged by a teamof oxen, he seems to have enjoyed the experience.

Others were less fortunate. Robert de Saint-Vincent set offin his own carriage with his wife, two youngest children andtheir nurse, taking more than a month to reach Maurs on accountof his infant son’s illness and the inclement weather. Whenwriting his memoirs as an emigre in the 1790s, he looked backon the journey through a blizzard on the Puy de Dome as the‘cruellest day’s travel of my life’.58 At one point, they werereduced to wading through the snow, taking it in turns tocarry the sick child in their arms. At least in their misery theyhad a clear idea of where they were going. The unfortunateHericourt, who had been banished to Bernes in Poitou, arrivedin the province to discover that there was no village of thatname, only Bernay, an old uninhabited chateau belonging to anabsentee seigneur who on hearing of his plight kindly sent somefurniture.59

Finding accommodation was one of the most pressing concernsfor many of the exiles, and they were quick to mobilize friends,relatives and professional contacts to overcome the problem.President Lamoignon de Basville, who was exiled to the remotevillage of Tizy in the Lyonnais, managed to rent the house of alocal procureur, which was furnished by another legal well-wisherin Lyon.60 Robert de Saint-Vincent was, initially at least, evenmore fortunate. On arriving in Maurs, he discovered that therewas a fierce quarrel between a local notary, Malvoux, and thetown’s judge about which of them should have the honour of

57 BPR, Collection Le Paige 569, fo. 38: ‘Voyage de Croc en Combrailles’.58 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 540–5.59 AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 15.60 Ibid.



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housing his family.61 Malvoux triumphed and, for the first eigh-teen months of his stay, Robert de Saint-Vincent was providedwith comfortable and free accommodation. A lawyer-cum-notary, who was the wealthiest man in Croc, also housedClement de Feillet, and for these local notables it was clearly anhonour to welcome such distinguished visitors, even if they werein disgrace.62 All would have been aware that, in all probability,the magistrates would eventually be recalled, and that it would befoolish to treat them disrespectfully in their misfortune. Thesefactors would have loomed especially large in the minds of thoseconnected to the legal profession, further reinforcing the horizon-tal and vertical ties of dependence and solidarity that sustainedthe parlementaires during their disputes with the crown.63

Most exiles could, therefore, expect to find a roof over theirheads, although it was not guaranteed to be either cheap or com-fortable. Rolland de Challerange painted a pitiful portrait of hislodgings in La Chatre, claiming:

we could hardly be worse off than we are here, whether for lodgings or forthe basic necessities of life. Madame and her servants, six in all, are housedin a large icebox, divided by partitions. I am lodged next door in what wasonce a very smoky kitchen. This dreadful place costs 100 francs a month,on the pretext that it is furnished with some pitiful rags . . .we had nochoice: either we took this fleapit or slept in the street.64

Some magistrates came close to such a fate. Talon allegedly spenta number of nights sleeping in the straw, while Radix was obligedto bed down in a village inn and share his room with passingcarters.65 When the magistrates were exiled en masse, the pro-blem of overcrowding was particularly acute, and in 1720 manyParisians were reduced to sleeping in dormitories.66 TheParlement of Rennes, on the other hand, which was transferredto Vannes from 1675 to 1690, soon discovered that the locals weretaking advantage by demanding extortionate rents.67 The court

61 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 559–60.62 BPR, Collection Le Paige 569, fo. 38: ‘Voyage de Croc en Combrailles’.63 For a discussion of the ties binding the lower tiers of the legal system to the

parlements, see Bell, Lawyers and Citizens; Maurice Gresset, Gens de justice aBesancon: de la conquete par Louis XIV a la Revolution francaise, 1674–1789, 2 vols.(Paris, 1978).

64 BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 211: Rolland de Challerange toLe Paige, 21 Apr. 1771.

65 BPR, Collection Le Paige 569, fo. 39; AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 18.66 Lecestre, ‘Journal inedit du Parlement de Paris’, 17.67 Ropartz, Exil du Parlement de Bretagne a Vannes, 28–32.



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struck back by issuing arrets fixing maximum rates, and bychanging the dates of leases to suit themselves. Yet, despitethese conflicts, the extra trade and prestige associated with theirpresence more than compensated the landlords for their loss.

Once ensconced in their new homes, the exiles were in some-thing of an ambiguous position. They were still officeholders andmembers of a privileged corporate body, but having been dis-graced, many believed that they were now no more than ‘privateindividuals’ reduced to ‘the estate of simple citizen’.68 They werenevertheless acutely conscious of the ambiguity of their position,and they were well aware of being watched by the government,their colleagues and public opinion. According to the terms of thelettre de cachet, they were forbidden to leave their place of exile ‘onpain of [condemnation for] disobedience’. In reality, these orderswere interpreted to mean that an exile could not ‘decoucher’, thatis to say sleep elsewhere.69 Robert de Saint-Vincent claimed thathe never once left Maurs, but others were more adventurous,taking full advantage of opportunities to make excursions onfoot, by carriage or on horseback.70 The real problem was uncer-tainty about quite what was permitted, but as weeks, months,even years passed, there was a tendency to take greater liberties.Malesherbes, who was exiled to his own estates, noted inDecember 1773 that the majority of his colleagues were nowdaring to ‘decoucher’ and he eventually resolved to do the samething, albeit with the precaution of informing his close acquain-tances by code in advance.71

With his high public profile, Malesherbes was wise to be wary,and the fate of his friend, La Chalotais, offered a cautionary talefor anyone tempted to ignore the king’s orders. After eight years ofexile in Saintes, La Chalotais decided to return to his own estatesafter his daughter’s death on the grounds that in his grief he could

68 These terms were employed by the exiles of Bourges in 1753: AN, KK 821, fo. 5;and by Robert de Saint-Vincent after his disgrace in 1757: BPR, Collection Le Paige532: Robert de Saint-Vincent to Lefebvre de Saint-Hilaire, 19 May1757.Presumably,they believed that having been deprived of their liberty they were unable to act asmembers of the parlement, which would require the right of assembly and ofdeliberation.

69 The government seems to have deliberately avoided giving precise instructions onthis point, and the exiles were never entirely clear what was permitted.

70 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 567. For examples of more adventurous magistrates,see AN 156, microfilm 76, fos. 488, 499, 563, 566, 668.

71 Quoted by Pierre Grosclaude, Malesherbes: temoin et interprete de son temps (Paris,1961), 267, in a letter dated 14 Dec. 1773.



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no longer bear to look constantly upon her grave.72 Despite beingover seventy years of age and in poor health, he was arrested andimprisoned in the grim medieval fortress of Loches, where heremained until after the death of Louis XV. Such an examplewas a terrible warning that disgrace could have dreadful conse-quences, and for others who knew that they were on the govern-ment’s black list the effect could be traumatic. The case ofpresident Murard of the Parlement of Paris illustrates this per-fectly. During his exile, he fell seriously ill and required urgentmedical attention in Paris.73 Yet his requests to visit the capitalreceived no reply, and the sick man agonized for weeks beforetaking silence as tacit permission. He died a few months later,and, although his illness was almost certainly incurable, the addi-tional worry had been a cruel and unnecessary burden.

Disgrace could not, therefore, be treated too lightly, and lone-liness and boredom were common concerns, especially for thosewithout relatives to accompany them. Yet even if the exile werealone, the extended family was expected to lend assistance and itwas not bound by the same code of passive resignation to dis-grace. From the moment an impending exile was rumoured,many were already using their credit to soften the blow by ensur-ing that it would be on or near to their own estates. The familywould also offer moral and financial support, and take control ofdomestic matters such as the care of the household and of thechildren.74 Even with these precautions, exile could still haveserious repercussions. Prospective marriages were broken onaccount of it, and it could also disrupt carefully constructedcareer plans as many young men expected to spend no morethan a few years in a parlement before transferring elsewhere. Ifthey were exiled for long periods, their families were placed in anuncomfortable dilemma. Should they allow their sons to abandonthe parlement and risk the wrath of their peers, or sit quietly andput careers in jeopardy? This problem was especially acute after1771, when it appeared as if Maupeou had triumphed, and someyoung men from the great robe dynasties were desperate to be

72 Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu et l’esprit provincial, iii, 556–9.73 Murard’s correspondence during this difficult period provides clear proof of his

distress: BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fos. 105, 162, 163–5, 168, 169: lettersof 2 Sept. 1773, 19 Feb. 1774, and various undated from March 1774.

74 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 100–1, noted that his sister looked after his olderchildren while he was in Maurs.



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allowed to move from a judicial career to one in the army. Thiscreated real tensions in families whose prestige and patrimonywere so intimately connected to the parlements.75

Disgrace could also have serious financial consequences.Malesherbes, admittedly something of an eccentric, dismissedhis servants and moved into a small lodge in the grounds ofhis chateau, cooking for his guests and living as frugally as possi-ble.76 A desire to be left alone to conduct his botanical and otherexperiments probably accounts for at least part of his decision, buthe, like many other senior judges, was heavily dependent upon thepensions provided by the king to keep his financial affairs in order.Disgrace often meant that these payments ceased, and in May1771 the avocat general, Seguier, was said to have lost 10,000livres per annum, which forced him to dismiss all but three of hisservants and to live in the house of his brother-in-law.77

In theory, life in exile was conducted according to a series ofstrict behavioural codes. The controleur general, L’Averdy, whohad been exiled to Bourges in 1753–4, wrote that he and hiscolleagues had considered it to be a time of ‘mourning’.78 Thiswas reflected in their decision only to appear in public wearingblack magisterial robes, without ‘feathers, brimmed hats, swordsor fashionable dress’. For earnest young men such as L’Averdyand the so-called cabinet noir of Bourges, time was spent studyingthe religious and constitutional history of France. They wereacutely conscious that activities, which in normal circumstancesmight be relatively trivial private matters, could, in exile, take onpublic significance and be interpreted as deliberately disrespect-ful to the king. Every gesture was potentially political and had tobe carefully scrutinized, and in a multi-authored journal they kepta detailed record of their discussions about how to conduct theiraffairs. Aware that they were being watched, they agonizedabout whether it was permitted to amuse themselves by holding

75 AN 156, microfilm 74, fos. 223, 231, 240; ibid., microfilm 75, fos. 385, 403. In hisdiary, d’Ormesson de Noiseau also discussed the issue of whether it was permissiblefor exiled magistrates to leave the parlement in order to buy the office of maıtre desrequetes.

76 Grosclaude, Malesherbes: temoin et interprete, ch. 10.77 AN 156, microfilm 74, fos. 99, 103. Perhaps surprisingly, royal pensions were

restored during 1772 despite the continuing disgrace, possibly as part of the govern-ment’s attempts to divide the opposition.

78 Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles de Bourges, 106; Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu et l’espritprovincial, ii, 32.



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a ball, by putting on a performance of amateur dramatics, or byorganizing a christening party for a child born during her father’sdisgrace.79 Most could usually find a justification for a little mer-riment and it is hardly surprising that their less austerecolleagues tried to make the most of their lot.

Despite being confined to the city of Rennes by order of lettres decachet, some Breton magistrates decided to organize huntingparties in the local forests.80 When they received no immediatereprimand, these outings became more frequent and boisterous,culminating in a particularly raucous post-hunt celebration.As this evening drew to a close around 3 a.m., a group of ineb-riated judges encountered some women setting up their stalls formarket, and decided it would be fun to chase them at sword pointthrough the town until they ran into the night watch. This time thegovernment was forced to act, and several of the ringleaders wereexiled to isolated destinations as punishment. Such behaviourwas always more likely when exiles were grouped together,and most accounts have been content to dip into a rich seam ofanecdotes to recount tales of misbehaviour, banquets, huntingparties and easy living that are generally taken to be typical.What we should not forget is that the judges were deliberatelycultivating a public facade of insouciance. They were wellaware that the government was hoping to divide and rule, andby dining together and putting on elaborate displays of unity andbonhomie they could send a very clear political message.

Unity was one of the essential keys to survival for the magis-trates, and when they were scattered across the kingdom the needto establish effective lines of communication was imperative,especially because the government carefully monitored mailand employed spies as well as the intendants to keep watch overtheir activities. During the exile of 1753–4, the cabinet noir ofBourges circumvented the problem by publishing a series ofanonymous pamphlets with titles such as Lettre d’un de MM. lesexiles a Bourges a MM. de grand’chambre a Pontoise.81 While this

79 Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles de Bourges, 160–4, 203–14, 281–94.80 Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu et l’esprit provincial, ii, 41–3.81 BPR, Collection Le Paige 529, fo. 47. This letter and several others were printed

as part of the Recueil des Memoires interessans, au nombre de sept, que MM. des enquetes,exiles en divers endroits, ont envoyes a MM. de grand’chambre a Pontoise, precede d’uneLettre d’un de MM. des enquetes, et suivi d’une Reponse d’un conseiller de grand’chambre auseptieme Memoire de ce Recueil, pour servir de suite aux Remontrances du parlement de Parisdu 9 avril 1753. (30 mai–13 juillet 1753.) (Amsterdam, 1753).



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was a useful method of presenting their case, it could risk appear-ing to be a heavy-handed attempt to lay down a party line.82

As a result, whether exiled in groups or individually, the parlemen-taires were careful to establish networks of personal communica-tion. Their correspondence was frequently written in code,included false names, and was sent under double envelope tothird parties, often meandering around the kingdom before arriv-ing at its destination. To try to fool the government, it wascommon to send a letter via the ordinary post, knowing itwould be read, while a second more detailed and candid versionfollowed behind. The delay could lead to rumour and confusion,adding to an already insatiable thirst for outside news as the exilesworried that they might become isolated from their colleagues.Even Malesherbes admitted to sharing the ‘anxiety of the hermit’,fearing to ‘have expressed myself in terms that did not conform tomy wayof thinking or that of my colleagues’.83 To avoid confusionit was common for magistrates to arrange discreet meetings withfellow exiles, such as those between the presidents d’Ormessonde Noiseau and Lamoignon de Basville between 1771and 1774.84 Yet, as d’Ormesson’s diary makes clear, even thosemagistrates close to Paris with extensive contacts at court, weredesperate for news and found it hard to see through the fogof rumour and disinformation with any confidence.85

IV

CONTACT WITH THE LOCAL POPULATION

Thankfully for the historian, disgrace provided ample opportu-nity for correspondence, but when not writing the exiles engagedin a wide variety of activities, including improving their estates,

82 It certainly angered the retired procureur general, Joly de Fleury, who engaged in afierce polemic about its contents: BN, Collection Joly de Fleury 309, fos. 256–261,‘Copie d’une lettre ecrite a m. Angran, conseiller exile a Bourges, par un de ses intimesamis’.

83 Quoted in Grosclaude, Malesherbes: temoin et interprete, 268, Malesherbes toBellanger, 19 Jan. 1773.

84 For much of the period after 1772, the two men were allowed considerable free-dom of movement. They were, however, conscious that any public meeting wouldimmediately spark rumours of negotiations and anger Maupeou — hence theirsecretiveness.

85 Rumours about ministerial upheavals, the health and attitudes of Louis XV andmuch else are scattered throughout the more than four thousand manuscript pages ofhis journal.



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reading, hunting and, in one case, practising gymnastics. Yet forall their outward bravado, many still found exile to be a dispiritingexperience. Much depended on the attitude of the local popula-tion, especially when the magistrates were sent to isolated regions.As few on the Ile de Noirmoutier or in the grim forests of theMorvan could be expected to understand the reasons for theirdisgrace, the parlementaires might be forgiven for expecting a hos-tile reception. It is therefore easy to imagine the surprise of Robertde Saint-Vincent at being greeted as if he were a distinguishedroyal ambassador when he descended from the snowy mountainsof the Auvergne.86 As Saint-Vincent and his family passedthrough the province, they were accompanied by local nobles,both male and female, who followed his carriage on horseback,inviting him to stay at the many chateaux that lined the route,where they competed to offer their visitors the most lavish possi-ble hospitality. The bourgeoisie was no less anxious to salute theirpassage and Saint-Vincent later claimed: ‘I do not think I ammistaken when I write that, at more than half a league from thetown of Aurillac, there was a group of about 3,000 people thatcuriosity and the fine weather had brought out to greet me’.87 Hestayed briefly in the town, in the house of another local judge whoboasted of his friendship with Saint-Vincent’s colleague,Lattaignant de Bainville, who had been exiled there in 1757,before continuing towards Maurs. Saint-Vincent wrote that hefelt his spirits soar at such a welcome, ‘which greatly increased inmy eyes the dignity and the merit of the sacrifices that I made forGod and the king’s service’.88

A modest man, he was naturally curious to know why he wasbeing treated so regally, and a local noblewoman obliginglyexplained:

my reputation had preceded my arrival in the Auvergne, and on this basisalone I could hope to receive many marks of respect and consideration,but that, in addition, I should not be unaware that the warm reception hadbeen recommended, almost ordered, by letters written from Paris byesteemed persons who have great influence in the province; that theHouse of Noailles, for example, had specifically advised that I should beshowered with marks of respect, consideration and deference.89

86 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 545–7.87 Ibid., 546.88 Ibid., 530.89 Ibid., 555. He identifies her as Mme de Conroz.



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Despite his glowing references, Saint-Vincent was careful to tryand merit the esteem of his new neighbours, realizingthat ultimately he would have to make his own reputation.90

He largely succeeded, and amongst the local nobility he madewhat would prove to be life-long friendships. Other exileswould have similar experiences. Clement de Feillet threw himselfwholeheartedly into the life of Croc, distributing alms, organizingpublic works and persuading the government to provide 6,000livres to build a new road to facilitate local commerce.91 When hisexile was finally lifted, the news reached the international press,which claimed that he was treated like a ‘divinity’ as he left thevillage.92 Angran, on the other hand, provided the leadership, ifnot the money, to establish a school in Saint-Agil, while Gars deFremainville in the Nivernais put his professional experience togood use by acting as an arbitrator of disputes, much to the cha-grin of the local courts.93

This rosy and harmonious picture was not, however, the wholestory. The bitter conflicts provoked by Unigenitus meant thatmany clergy seized upon the disgrace of their enemies to settlescores. In Saint-Germain-en-Laye, they held a public debateabout whether an exiled magistrate should be permitted toapproach the sacraments because ‘the simple state of exile fordisobedience of the king’s orders rendered him a publicsinner’.94 With some bishops also issuing pastoral letters denoun-cing the parlements as ‘rebellious and impious’, it is easy to ima-gine how public hostility could be directed against the exiles. Forall Saint-Vincent’s efforts to please in Maurs, he still fell foul ofsome local clergy. He described being persecuted during the lasteighteen months of his stay by a ‘diabolic society of corruptmonks’ and ‘a few perverted laity or bad subjects who enjoy pas-sing their evenings in dissolute prattlings’.95 According to hisaccount, they subjected him to a campaign of vilification, per-suading his host to ask him to leave his lodgings, sabotaging therenovation of another house where he hoped to stay and finally

90 Ibid., 567.91 AN 156, microfilm 76, fo. 470. D’Ormesson de Noiseau claimed that Clement de

Feillet persuaded Trudaine to provide the funds.92 AN 156 microfilm 76, fos. 470; ibid., microfilm 77, fo. 887.93 BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 258: Angran to Le Paige, 23 Jan. 1772;

AN 156, microfilm 77, fo. 750.94 AN 156, microfilm 74, fos. 141, 144.95 Saint-Vincent, ‘Memoires’, 591.



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pinning a note to his door which read: ‘Robert is a beggar, ablackguard, a hypocrite, a parasite, a wicked grain speculator[and a] skinflint’.96 More than twenty-five years later, he wasstill wounded by these words, which he attributed to the spite ofhis political enemies, egged on by the partisans of the Jesuits.

Given his reputation for Jansenism, Robert de Saint-Vincentwas especially vulnerable to criticism, but he was not alone in hisdiscomfort. During the exile of 1753–4, the magistrates inBourges struggled to maintain friendly relations with the localnobility, whose interests were dominated by hunting, eatingand playing cards rather than the religious quarrels that had ledto the parlement’s disgrace.97 Cultural differences were exacer-bated by a degree of social friction, and their neighbours accusedthe parlementaires of being nothing more than ‘decent bour-geois’.98 On one occasion, Bellanger d’Essenlis and his wifereceived an anonymous letter containing ‘a tissue of lies andinvectives’, as well as a highly injurious analysis of their respectivegenealogies. Mme d’Essenlis was mortified by her treatment andeventually became so depressed that her husband was forced toask for permission to withdraw from Bourges to his estates, muchto the disgust of his exiled colleagues.99 There were also quarrelswith the local army garrison, and a number of duels one of whichleft an officer dead in Angouleme.100 Exile was not a happyexperience for all, and councillor Nouet was said to have been‘sickened’ by his time spent in Confolens during 1757, subse-quently refusing to commit himself to anything that might antag-onize the ministry, while a colleague who was sent there in1771 described it as ‘the most gloomy, morose and sad place inthe world, to say nothing of the savages who live here’.101 Finally,president de Saint-Fargeau was so relieved to leave Felletin thatwhen he arrived back on his estates he promptly built a replica ofthe house he had been forced to live in and founded an ‘annual

96 Ibid., 595.97 Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles de Bourges, 296–7, 304.98 Ibid., 261–4.99 The government was quick to grant his request, offering a classic example of its

willingness to treat an exile favourably in the hope of sowing the seeds of discord.100 Grellet-Dumazeau, Les Exiles de Bourges, 311.101 AN 156, microfilm 75, fo. 247; BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 258:

Angran to Le Paige, 23 Jan. 1772. Confolens is north-west of Limoges in what is nowthe Charente.



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feast day in order that his descendants celebrate for ever hisrelease from that place’.102

If there was often friction and even outright conflict betweenthe exiled parlementaires and the local inhabitants, it is still diffi-cult to escape the conclusion that this was less intense than mighthave been expected given their banishment for displeasing theking. With their powerful connections amongst the high aristoc-racy, the prestige of the parlements and the ties of solidarity thatemanated from them, the disgraced magistrates could hope for afavourable reception from their new neighbours. Their chances ofa friendly welcome were improved by the realization that it wasnecessary to set an example of obedience. It was a stance consis-tent with their conception of duty and honour, but it seems rea-sonable to assume that this conduct won the approval and eventhe sympathy of those who witnessed it.103 Men such as Clementde Feillet, Lamoignon de Basville and Robert de Saint-Vincentcould leave their place of exile with their spirits high, confidentthat they had suffered in a just cause.

V

PUBLIC OPINION

The disgrace of the parlementaires was usually the climax ofa protracted political crisis and the response of publicopinion had important implications for both the king and theexiles. Historians have tended to conceive of public opinion inthe eighteenth century in abstract terms, as an imaginary tribunalbefore which both the king and the parlements came to plead.104

While such an approach has much to commend it, we should notforget that this was only one facet of a more complex phenom-enon, and that public opinion needs to be understood in terms ofthe actions and opinions of corporate bodies as well as those ofindividuals from across the social spectrum who observed, or

102 At least according to d’Ormesson de Noiseau (AN 156, microfilm 76, fo. 405),but as he hated Saint-Fargeau this story may be apocryphal. Felletin is a small markettown in the modern departement of the Creuse.

103 Abbe Courtepee said of two Breton magistrates, Charette de La Gascherie andLa Coliniere exiled to Autun that ‘they won all hearts’: BMD, MS 1233, fo. 5: ‘Recueilde la plus etonnante revolution arrivee en France depuis 1769 a 1775’.

104 Keith Michael Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French PoliticalCulture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1990), has been particularly influentialin this regard.



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took part in, the political quarrels of the time.105 While thispublic, or perhaps more accurately publics, could not force theking to change either his policy or his ministers, it was not a factorthat could be safely ignored. Every day that passed without afunctioning judiciary caused inconvenience to litigants and hard-ship for the legal profession and its many dependants, and thepolicy of exile had real political costs for the crown. Crucially, theblame for this state of affairs was generally directed at the king andhis ministers, not the disgraced magistrates, and public supportfurther reinforced the parlementaires in their belief that they weresuffering in a just cause.

As we might expect, the other parlements were continuallyvoicing their support and the bailliages and lesser courts regularlymade protests on behalf of the exiles.106 Other corporate bodies,such as the university of Paris or the provincial estates, alsoexpressed their solidarity with disgraced magistrates by sendingdeputations, writing letters or even by protesting to the king.107

In 1771, the harsh treatment of the Parlement of Paris made thismore difficult, but other methods could be employed. Maupeouinitially decided to replace the banished magistrates with a com-mission of royal judges and even sent them to deputize for theparlement at the annual ceremony held at the Sainte-Chapelle tocelebrate the submission of Paris to Henry IV. When the officersof the Cour des Aides arrived at the church to find the commis-sioners sitting where the parlement should have been, they

105 For a brief sample of a vast literature, see David A. Bell, ‘The ‘‘Public Sphere’’,the State, and the World of Law in Eighteenth-Century France’, French Hist. Studies,xvii (1992); Harvey Chisick, ‘Public Opinion and Political Culture in France duringthe Second Half of the 18th Century’, Eng. Hist. Rev., cdlxx (2002); Jens Ivo Engels,‘Beyond Sacral Monarchy: A New Look at the Image of the Early Modern FrenchMonarchy’, French Hist., xv (2001); Lisa Jane Graham, If the King Only Knew: SeditiousSpeech in the Reign of Louis XV (Charlottesville and London, 2000); Thomas Kaiser,‘The Abbe de Saint-Pierre, Public Opinion and the Reconstitution of the FrenchMonarchy’, Jl Mod. Hist., lv (1983); Sarah Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs:The Causes Celebres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley and London, 1993); SarahMaza, ‘Women, the Bourgeoisie and the Public Sphere: Response to Daniel Gordonand David Bell’, French Hist. Studies, xvii (1992); Mona Ozouf, ‘L’Opinion publique’,in Baker (ed.), French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, i.

106 The Parlement of Paris made repeated remonstrances on behalf of the parle-ments of Besancon, Pau and Rennes: Remontrances du Parlement de Paris, ed.Flammermont, ii, 172–220, 485–500, 527–30, 534–53, 663–85, 839–52.

107 Lecestre, ‘Journal inedit du Parlement de Paris’, 13–14. The parlement receivedexpressions of sympathy from the Cour des Aides, Chambre des Comptes, Cour desMonnaies, Grand Conseil and the University of Paris after its transfer to Pontoise in1720.



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promptly turned on their heels and marched back to the Palais deJustice. The reaction of the ‘public in the church was to clap theirhands and cheer this gesture’, while the embarrassed commis-sioners were booed and spat upon by a large and disrespectfulcrowd as they left the ceremony.108

The public could also make its feelings known in a variety ofother ways. D’Ormesson de Noiseau noted approvingly in hisdiary that ‘there was a sensation yesterday at the Comedie-Francaise about a verse stating that in certain circumstancesexile is a triumph’.109 Applauding lines that appeared to be incontradiction with government policy could send a direct politi-cal message, as could banquets held in the honour of disgracedmagistrates. Some exiles in the Morvan were extremely embar-rassed at one such social occasion by the officers of the regiment ofTouraine raising their glasses and toasting the ‘old Parlement’.110

During the Brittany affair, the provincial estates were particularlyactive in the campaign on behalf of the exiled magistrates, and attheir session of 1767 the young grandson of the disgraced LaChalotais was carried into the assembly.111 The marquis dePire then made a speech declaring: ‘here is this unhappy child,grandson of a great man, that a cruel exile removes from his patrie;he comes to plead for your protection’. The effect was dramaticwith many comparing it to Maria Theresa presenting the infantJoseph II to the Hungarians. Finally, the scenes of rejoicing thatgreeted the parlementaires on their return from exile were anothermeans by which public opinion could convey a powerful politicalmessage.112 The sight of their towns bedecked with triumphalarches, laurels distributed to the returnees, public banquets,fireworks, dancing and joyful cries of ‘vive le roi! vive le parle-ment!’ could only help to reinforce the idea that the magistrateswere defending a just cause and that the king was now restoringpublic affairs to their rightful state. After the recall of the

108 BN, MS Fr 13733, fos. 102–104: ‘Histoire des evenements’.109 AN 156, microfilm 76, fo. 435.110 AN 156, microfilm 77, fo. 751. According to the account of Villiers de La Berge,

who was present.111 Pocquet, Le Pouvoir absolu et l’esprit provincial, iii, 19.112 For examples of how the magistrates were welcomed back, see Marcel Marion,

‘Greves et rentrees judiciaires au XVIIIe siecle: le grand exil du parlement deBesancon, 1759–1761’, Revue des questions historiques, xciv (1913); Doyle, Parlementof Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, 162–3; Swann, ‘Power and ProvincialPolitics . . .The Varenne Affair’, 462–6.



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Parlement of Paris in 1774, there were even more elaborate plansfor a monumental tribute to its members.113 Perhaps the mostremarkable project was that of the amateur architect, Francois-Antoine Davy de Chavigne, who proposed a new square toreplace the Place Dauphine. It was to include a public law library,with a facade featuring, amongst other things, busts of Maurepasand Miromesnil alongside statues of judicial heroes, notablyd’Aguesseau, L’Hopital, Montesquieu and de Thou.

The banished magistrates were well aware that public opinionwas often fickle and easily distracted, and that alone it could notbe expected to change government policy; nevertheless they wereconstantly encouraged in their interpretation of events.114 Nosooner had abbe Pucelle arrived in La Chaise Dieu than hereceived a letter from another distinguished Jansenist exile, JeanSoanen bishop of Senez, who informed him that:

far from your disgrace distancing you from the faithful, it serves, on thecontrary, to make you closer [to them] than ever. The history of Francewill hold you up in centuries to come as a model for the most loyal servantsof the prince, for the most equitable magistrates, for the most steadfastchildren of the old faith, and for the timeless champions of the sacredrights of royalty and the holy maxims of the patrie.115

Engravings, songs and ditties dedicated to Pucelle reinforced themessage. One portrait of the abbe in his judicial robes shows himbeing crowned with laurels, while below it was written:

To defend the rights of God and his King,Pucelle dares confront the most arrogant will,Rome as long as we have this rampart against you,Don’t count France amongst the ranks of your conquests,What honour has so loyal a subject received!Exile is the price of his zeal,It is thus that the priest king,Honours merit and crowns faith.116

The parlementaires’ belief that they were secular martyrs wascontinually reinforced. Abbe Courtepee in Burgundy saw noobjection to comparing the night of 20–21 January 1771, when

113 The following is based on Richard Wittman, Architecture, the Press, and the PublicSphere in Eighteenth-Century France, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming. Iwould like to thank him for allowing me to cite this material.

114 BPR, Collection Le Paige 571, vol. III, fo. 207: Murard to Le Paige, 5 Apr. 1771.Murard admitted that the government expected to have ‘public opinion against it butcarried on regardless’.

115 La Vie et les lettres de messire Jean Soanen, evesque de Senez, ed. J.-B. Gaultier, 2vols. (Cologne, 1750), i, 509: Soanen to the abbe Pucelle, 30 May 1732.

116 BPR, Collection Le Paige 449.



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the Parlement of Paris was exiled, to the ‘expulsion’ of theProtestants by Louis XIV, or even to the Saint Bartholomew’sDay massacre.117 After Louis XVI’s recall of the parlements,panegyrists were quick to equate his actions with those ofHenry IV in quelling the Wars of Religion. In a published dis-course of January 1775, the lieutenant general of Chinon was evenmore explicit, praising the parlementaires for their ‘heroic patrio-tism that makes you revered as martyrs of the monarchy’.118

Classical imagery and analogies were no less important to theParlement of Paris, which liked nothing better than to pose as amodern Roman senate, adorned by the spiritual heirs of Cato orCicero. Since the great republican heroes had also suffered dis-grace and exile, they provided a rich vein of comparison forauthors of verse. An anonymous ode from 1754 written, ironicallyenough, in praise of Maupeou’s father, captures the essence of thegenre:

Illustrious chief of an august Senate,You of whom the rigid virtues,Sustain the laws of the state,Take only duty for guide,Soul truly Roman and worthy of your rank,In your exile you appear to us so grand,High above the possessions that fortune dispenses,One day the glory of your name,Will adorn our festivals and history,Maupeou, this name in the temple of memory,Is written alongside that of Caton [sic].119

The parlementaires were thus cast as the heirs of the Romanrepublicans, and for their supporters such as the procureur,Regnaud, those who died while in disgrace were nothing lessthan ‘virtuous citizens’. When the venerable councillor Fermefinally expired it was as ‘the image of virtue and the example ofduty’,120 and the prince de Conde clearly agreed with his verdict.As Ferme had died in Montmorency, he showed his respect byordering that he be buried with all the honours traditionally

117 BMD, MS 1233, fos. 7, 25: ‘Recueil de la plus etonnante revolution arrivee enFrance depuis 1769 a 1775’.

118 BPR, Collection Le Paige 573, fo. 97: ‘Discours prononce le mercredy 4 janvier1775, a la Grand’Chambre du Parlement; par m. Tourneporte de Vontes, president,lieutenant general, civil et de police de Chinon’.

119 BN, Collection Joly de Fleury 309, fo. 21.120 BN, MS Fr 13734, fo. 171: ‘Histoire des evenements’. Marisa Linton, The

Politics of Virtue in Enlightenment France (Basingstoke, 2001), 156–64, also drawsattention to the emphasis upon the ‘civic virtues of the exiles’.



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reserved for a member of the House of Bourbon-Conde.121 Theother princes were equally respectful. The duc de Penthievrerepeatedly asked Louis XV to be allowed to visit the exiledabbe Le Noir, while the prince de Conti attended Murard onhis deathbed.122 As for the hot-headed duc de Chartres, thefuture Philippe Egalite, he succeeded in frightening his fatherinto believing that he might assassinate Maupeou.123

Public opinion was therefore a significant source of strengthand reinforcement for the ideal of disgraced magistrates as mar-tyrs for a higher cause — the patriotic and virtuous victims ofgovernment despotism. It might not force Louis XV to recallthe exiles, but it undoubtedly encouraged them to persist intheir opposition to his policies, and especially against those ofMaupeou whose ill-judged coup was unable to achieve anydegree of permanence as a result. When Malesherbes consideredthe strength of public support for the cause of the exiled magis-trates, he claimed that ‘the public honoured my steadfastness forhaving exposed myself to the disgrace of Louis XV more than ithonoured any of those who have countless times risked their livesin battle’.124 Modestly he confessed that such adulation wasexcessive, but it does help to explain why the crown’s efforts topunish the parlementaires were so unpopular and ineffectual.

VI

THE ATTACK ON ARBITRARY PUNISHMENT

When looked at across the eighteenth century as a whole, therewas considerable continuity in parlementaire attitudes towardsdisgrace. However, important changes were also taking place,notably the development of an increasingly aggressive public cri-tique of punishment by lettre de cachet. Part of this campaign wasrelated to their use to police the internal affairs of the family,restraining wayward sons and wanton daughters, a practice thatwas subject to growing opposition on the grounds of natural rights

121 AN 156, microfilm 76, fo. 568.122 AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 199. The king eventually granted Penthievre’s

request.123 These rumours were recorded by d’Ormesson in his diary, who did not feel able

to rule them out entirely: AN 156, microfilm 74, fo. 81.124 Pierre Grosclaude, Malesherbes et son temps (suite): nouveaux documents inedits

(Paris, 1961), 103–5.



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and civil liberties, and, as we shall see, these ideas did begin toinfluence the magistrates.125 Yet political punishment continuedto be recognized as being of a different order from family matters,and the crown continued to defend the position elaborated byChancellor Seguier in 1648.126 For the parlementaires, theevents of the Fronde were treacherous ground upon which topick a quarrel. However, their attempt to establish a French ver-sion of habeas corpus was just one aspect of a deeply entrenchedbelief in the primacy of the judicial process.

These ideas were expressed succinctly in August 1718, after thearrest of three Parisian magistrates accused of fomenting opposi-tion to the policies of the regent. The parlement argued in itssubsequent remonstrances:

we are sure that your Majesty believed them to be guilty . . . in that case,Sire, leave us the honour of the most rigorous justice; the privilege ofjudging our confreres, of whatever crimes they are accused, has neverbeen contested, and Your Majesty will see by the severity of hisParlement if they are found guilty, that it knows that crimes committedby its members are less pardonable than those of your other subjects.127

Here was a classic statement of the parlementaire position, namelythat the arrested men should face trial; and that, whether inno-cent or guilty, they should never be dishonoured, and the parle-ment by association with them, without an opportunity to justifythemselves in a court of law.

Clearly the magistrateswere protecting their own privileges andjurisdiction, but this was not simply a matter of self-interest. Asjudges, they were convinced that they had a right to speak freely inorder to discharge their duties and their consciences, and theyargued that it would be ‘a great misfortune for Your Majesty’sservice that this liberty was lost; we should be absolutely uselessto him. The truth already has so much difficulty in reachingthe throne; this would close access to it completely’.128

125 This is not the place to explore this fascinating subject. For an introduction, seeFrantz Funck-Brentano, Les Lettres de cachet (Paris, 1926); Frantz Funck-Brentano,Les Lettres de cachet a Paris: etude, suivie d’une liste des prisonniers de la Bastille, 1659–1789(Paris, 1903); Claude Quetel, De par le roy: essai sur les lettres de cachet (Toulouse,1981); Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault, Le Desordre des familles: lettres de cachetdes archives de la Bastille au XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1982).

126 Simon Burrows, ‘Despotism without Bounds: The French Secret Police and theSilencing of Dissent in London, 1760–1790’, History, lxxxix (2004), demonstratesthat the crown was being increasingly criticized for its allegedly despotic treatment ofpolitical exiles in London.

127 Remontrances du Parlement de Paris, ed. Flammermont, i, 116–17.



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These arguments were repeated throughout the period, with theimprisonment or exile of magistrates challenged in the name of‘the right tovote freely’ or the need to let the law take its course.129

Ultimately they were not prepared to accept that the threat of thesovereign’s disgrace should prevent them from acting in a mannerthey believed was in accordance with the law and the monarch’sown best interests.

Such firmly held beliefs help to account for the difficulties inresolving political crises once the parlements had been exiled,because neither side could accept that they might be mistaken.The problem was exacerbated by the crown’s tendency to resortto internal exile as punishment and the callous fashion with whichit was employed — a policy that was increasingly denounced as anact of ‘inhumanity’ or of ‘despotism’.130 As in so many otherways, the events of 1771 marked a watershed in this respect, asliterally hundreds of lettres de cachet were issued during the imple-mentation of Maupeou’s coup, and the fiction that the recipientshad all managed to anger their sovereign was impossible to main-tain. Satirists had a field day mocking the abuse of a systemwhereby members of the Grand Conseil received lettres de cachetin the morning ordering them to replace the Parlement of Paris,and then further lettres de cachet in the afternoon exiling them forrefusing to do so.131 Others amused their readers with the imageof clerks in their bureau at Versailles forging the signature of theking at the bottom of each lettre de cachet, asking rhetorically: ‘howwas it possible to think that Louis XV had the patience, and, whynot say it, the severity, to sign at least 6,000 orders oppressing hissubjects?’132

Maupeou’s sheer vindictiveness did much to discredit the useof internal exile as a political weapon, and he forced the

128 Ibid., 117.129 Ibid., 116–17, ii, 173–4, 181, 201, 217, 681.130 The remonstrances drafted by Malesherbes for the Cour des Aides, dated 18

Feb. 1771, were particularly outspoken. As for the procureur, Regnaud, he wrote thatby exiling the magistrates ‘to those infamous places, the chancellor’s malevolence andvindictiveness was revealed to the world’: BN, MS Fr 13733, fo. 54: ‘Histoire desevenements’.

131 BPR, Collection Le Paige 569, fo. 169: Lettre d’un homme a un autre homme surl’extinction de l’ancien parlement et la creation du nouveau, 3. This pamphlet was pub-lished anonymously and was not dated, but probably appeared in late 1771 or early1772.

132 BPR, Collection Le Paige 570, fo. 66: Procez verbal qu’auroit du faire M. Bastard,a la place des sottises qu’il a redigees (1772), 3.



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magistrates to reconsider their passive attitude towards it. Camusde Neuville, who like Thomas du Fosse, fled the country afterbeing caught up in the troubles of Normandy, later took the trou-ble to justify his conduct in an open letter to the chancellor, whichwas published in the Gazette de Leyde in January 1773.133 Camusexplained that having received a lettre de cachet exiling him toSaint-Just in the Forez, he had begun his journey and had onlytaken flight on hearing that he was to be arrested en route.He launched a passionate defence of his action, declaring: ‘Iwas born free and French; natural law makes it a right toflee . . .harassment; civil laws guarantee every citizen personalliberty that all men have received from nature’.134 For Camus,the threat of imprisonment weighed heavily on his mind, becausehe described matters thus:

I confess frankly that without formal process and without a competentjudge the Bastille frightened me . . . [as a magistrate] I have not sworn todeliver myself up voluntarily to harsh exiles, to unjust captivity, and itwould be absurd to claim that a magistrate, who by profession is obligedto defend the liberty of his fellow citizens, had, by an oath [of office],surrendered his own [liberty].

Confronted by the unpleasant reality of arbitrary punishment,some parlementaires were clearly abandoning their neo-Stoic orAugustinian positions in favour of a more assertive critique ofdespotism inspired, in part, by theories of natural law.

The change of ministry after the accession of Louis XVI in 1774saw a temporary change in government policy. Ministers such asMalesherbes, Maurepas and Miromesnil passed almost directlyfrom disgrace to high office, and as they were simultaneouslyseeking to rule in co-operation with the parlements, internalexile became less common.135 However, once the political andfinancial crisis that followed the War of American Independencebroke, the government could not resist reviving the policy oftranslations, exiles and imprisonment by lettres de cachet. Theparlements responded with a vigorous reassertion of their earlier

133 His letter was copied down and commented upon by Regnaud: BN, MS Fr13734, fos. 107–113: ‘Histoire des evenements’.

134 Ibid., 109–10.135 For details of recall of the parlements and their treatment during the early years

of Louis XVI’s reign, see John Hardman, Louis XVI (New Haven and London, 1993),27–38; Munro Price, Preserving the Monarchy: The Comte de Vergennes, 1774–1787(Cambridge, 1995), ch. 7; Bailey Stone, The Parlement of Paris, 1774–1789 (ChapelHill, 1981), ch. 3.



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arguments, which were reinforced by a growing emphasis on therights of the citizen at the expense of the traditional ties thatbound monarch and noble subject. Disgrace was less an ordealto be faced with patience and dignity than an affront to individualliberty. From its ‘exile’ in Libourne the Parlement of Bordeauxdeclared:

property has ceased to exist when lettres de cachet carry off the citizen fromthe heritage of his forefathers . . . and ruin him by displacements; liberty islost when harsh orders expatriate or imprison in dungeons. There is nolonger security, when the laws offer no safeguards and the governmentinspires terror.136

As for the Parlement of Dijon, it denounced lettres de cachet as ‘actsof arbitrary power, which, according to the immortal Fenelon,‘‘dishonour sovereign authority’’ ’.137 It was, however, theParlement of Paris that sought to apply the most drastic sanction.

In its remonstrances of January 1788, the court launched apassionate attack on the use of lettres de cachet, drawing upon itsown legal critique as well as a broader hostility to ministerialdespotism, which equated their use with the arbitrary powers ofministers and their commis.138 The parlementaires also attackedthe abuse of the concept of disgrace itself, and reminded LouisXVI:

the last Estates [General] of Blois begged the king to limit the use of lettresde cachet to his courtiers, not to remove them from the affairs of theirfamilies and households, but simply to dismiss them from the confinesof his palace and to deprive them of his presence, without denying themjustice. It is a maxim of our monarchy that no citizen can be made prisonerwithout the order of a judge.139

The remonstrances concluded with a plea for the abolition oflettres de cachet, but it went unheeded, and by the first week ofMay 1788 the government was preparing for another coup.In response, the parlement issued its famous arrete setting outfor the first time what it considered to be the fundamental lawsof the kingdom.140 There, alongside such basic principles as theSalic law of succession and the right of consent to taxation, was

136 BMD, MS 5088, Remontrances du Parlement de Bordeaux, 4 mai 1788, 5. Theparlement had been transferred to Libourne and was not officially in exile.

137 BMD, MS 5088, Remontrances du Parlement de Dijon, 26 fevrier 1788, 6.138 The writings of Malesherbes were particularly influential in this regard: see

Egret, Louis XVet l’opposition parlementaire, ch. 3; Grosclaude, Malesherbes: temoin etinterprete, ch. 9.

139 Remontrances du Parlement de Paris, ed. Flammermont, iii, 717.140 Ibid., 746.



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the following: ‘the right, without which all others are useless, notto be arrested, by whatever order it might be, unless to be placedwithout delay in the hands of competent judges’. The crownignored the arrete, but the campaign against arbitrary arrest forpolitical crimes did finally bear fruit, when the use of lettres decachet was abolished by the Constituent Assembly. Any hopethat this would mark the end of arbitrary political punishmentin France would be very short-lived, but the reasons for that fail-ure are the subject of another story.

VII

CONCLUSION

A study of disgrace and internal exile offers important newinsights into both the finely calibrated world of judicial politicsand the wider political culture of the Ancien Regime. For the king,the decision to punish the magistrates was a dramatic gesture,which had to be taken carefully because if it failed to intimidate,cause divisions or inspire remorse, there was a real danger that hewould be blamed by the public for his actions and be left, ratherparadoxically, looking both impotent and despotic. As for theparlementaires, they had to avoid appearing rebellious; in orderto defend their position, they drew upon a rich intellectual tradi-tion inspired, in part, by the model of the parfait magistrat. Theparlementaires had a strongly internalized code of honour, serviceand duty, which they believed directed them to uphold the law,and this went beyond a simple desire to protect their own privi-leges. They had a genuine conviction that they should not betraytheir consciences, and that it was necessary to tell the monarchunpleasant truths, even at the risk of incurring his wrath.

When this occurred, and they were disgraced, the magistratesaccepted their fate without demur; they obeyed the king’s orderssending them into exile as if these were an expression of the will ofGod. The ordeal was to be faced in a resigned and patient mannerbecause there were no human actions that could speed its end; itwas a view with strongly Augustinian roots — as one might expectfrom a social and professional group that had been influenced byJansenist teachings. Indeed, this Augustinian vision of politicaldisgrace was shared by French elites as a whole, and a passive,resigned attitude was typical of the behaviour of ministers, court



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aristocrats and other victims of royal displeasure.141 Once inexile, the parlementaires proved steadfast; they were capable ofenduring months, even years, of disgrace, and this was, in part,attributable to the support provided by family, professional andother social networks. The esprit de corps of the robe nobility wasnot a myth, but nor was it the whole story. The parlementaires wereable to endure disgrace because of a deeply imbedded politicalculture and ideology, which cast them as secular martyrs sufferingfor a just cause, that of the laws. Much of this outlook was bor-rowed from the Christian and classical heritage in which theywere steeped, and they equated their situation to that of menpersecuted for the true religion or for higher ideals, as theybelieved had been the case with the republican heroes of anti-quity. These powerful motives were, in turn, reinforced bypublic opinion, which, although incapable of reversing royalpolicy, could comfort the exiles in their belief that they weredefending a noble cause. When such an unshakeable sense ofduty and honour was combined with the conviction that theywere obeying the dictates of conscience, it becomes clear whypunishing magistrates proved to be so counterproductive forthe crown.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, parlementaire atti-tudes to disgrace and internal exile did, however, begin to change.One of the principal causes was Maupeou’s apparent abuse of thesystem when implementing his coup of 1771. With hundredsexiled and lettres de cachet distributed like confetti, it becamealmost impossible to maintain the fiction that these were theorders of an angry monarch. Their often-cruel treatmentcaused some magistrates to reject their traditionally patientAugustinian or Stoic responses in favour of a stronger emphasison natural law and individual liberty. Consciously or not, themagistrates were abandoning a conception of governmentbased upon the almost mystical personal bonds between sover-eign and subject in favour of that between the citizen and the state.Well before the Revolution of 1789, these key members of theFrench elite were articulating a powerful critique of despotism;it was not just empty rhetoric or discourse, but an argument madeall the more compelling because it was born of personal experi-ence. This attack was accompanied by a subtle historicism and a

141 This is a theme I intend to develop further in future publications.



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venerable, but no less potent, critique of arbitrary punishmentthat stressed the need for the primacy of the law. The magistratesdid not dispute the king’s right to punish, but argued that it couldonly be legitimately enforced through due judicial process.The need to avoid direct references to the Fronde and the abortedlaw of ‘public safety’ meant that many of these arguments wereveiled. Yet it was predictable that, when the Parlement of Parisfinally stated what it believed were the fundamental laws of thekingdom, the right of a prisoner to be brought before his or hernatural judges took pride of place.

Birkbeck College Julian Swann


Disgrace without dishonour: the internal exile of magistrates in eighteenth century France

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