Campbell P. Power and Politics in Old Regime France, 1720-1745

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am afraid’, he said, ‘that in wishing to go into these matters in too great detail, more

harm than good will be done.’

Repeated complaints in the enquêtes elicited another

letter from Fleury, professing to be astonished that the young judges wanted to

defend French liberties, when they were not in the least danger, and pressuring

Portail to control his colleagues. In replies to protests on this issue, the royal

argument was that there was no need for the courts to interfere because Gallican

liberties were safe in France; it was to be used frequently to cut the ground from

under the feet of the parlement. A whole series of letters from the solicitor-general

reveals that Fleury was monitoring the courts very closely and proves that he did

not hesitate to intervene personally.

Even with the ministry trying to take preventive action, the parquet had a very

difficult job coping with the Jansenist intrigues; as procurator-general Joly de Fleury

said, he and the avocats généraux were tempted to go along with the general opinion in

order to lead them back more easily.

This was a time when the younger

magistrates were still excited by their apparent success the previous year and were

hoping for more blood. Their aim, said Fleury in April, was nothing less than ‘to

undermine the authority of the Constitution [Unigenitus] until it is regarded as no

more than a simple rule of police and language [instead of a ‘dogmatic judgement’].

That is their real aim and it is impossible ever to consent to that’.

On 15 April the Jansenist Fornier de Montagny took advantage of an assembly

of chambers on the occasion of the mercuriales, to stand up and denounce the refusal

of sacraments to a Jansenist woman in the parish of Saint Médard. When the senior

presidents objected that this was not within the courts’ competence, being a spiritual

matter, Montagny argued that it concerned general order and public tranquillity.

The terms in which his protest was put are notable: the barristers had thought up

new legal grounds, claiming that the parlement could interfere in matters forbidden

to it under the edict of 1695 by virtue of its role in keeping public order—an

argument with a great future in it. The First President persisted in his refusal, so

Titon rose and denounced two books referring to Unigenitus as a ‘rule of faith’. One

had already been condemned, Portail objected, but in the end the material was

handed to the gens du roi for their opinion.

After careful co-operation with the ministry, on 25 April the gens du roi reached no

legal conclusions and limited themselves to suggesting that the woman first take the

matter to an ecclesiastical court and that the First President suggest to the

government that a problem was developing. Of course, this was too slow and

measured a response for the Jansenists; Pucelle therefore led an attempt by the parti

janséniste to have the parlement issue an arrêt declaring that Unigenitus was not a rule

of faith. In spite of the First President’s counsels for moderation, and a temperate

proposal thought up by the gens du roi and put by Goeslard, one of the loyalists of the

previous summer, the court accepted that the refusal of sacraments in the parish of

Saint Médard was ‘a signal for schism and division’, as La Fautrière argued, and

voted by 100 to 42 for Pucelle’s motion which was duly published.

Fleury must have been in despair at the incompetence of Portail, who had been

unable to have a moderate resolution accepted even though it had been agreed

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upon the night before at his residence with the presidents and several counsellors. In

his letter of rebuke to Portail, the cardinal showed that he knew exactly how it

worked: ‘as often happens, those who are the most hot-headed carefully consider in

secret all the steps to take and keep it from you until the moment opinions are asked

for, in order to surprise the parlement and lead it to carry their motion’.

On 1 May the royal council quashed the parlement’s arrêt and evoked the case,

whereupon stirring speeches from Pucelle and Titon led to the decision for

remonstrances against the apparent status of Unigenitus as a rule of faith. The

Jansenists seemed to be winning and the whole mechanism of escalation seemed

about to start all over again. A firm and uncompromising royal reply to the

remonstrances on 19 May led to the parlement doing no more than pass an internal

resolution [arrêté] persisting in its position and promising to represent at all times to

the King the consequences of his arrêt.

There was now some fear in Paris that justice would once more be interrupted,

as in 1732. However, by limiting itself to a simple annulment of the parlement’s arrêt

and evocation of the cases, the ministry had actually avoided trouble—although

Chauvelin was certainly in favour of harsh reprisals. Sensing that the public would

not tolerate a second period of disruption, public opinion not being with them, it

was the abbé Pucelle himself who counselled moderation in the courts.

He was

right to call off the attack this time, because the legal grounds were shaky and the

atmosphere in the courts was no longer combustible. So the aftermath of 1732 now

seemed to show that the majority of the magistrates would not rally behind extreme

proposals.

In December 1733 the parlement decided to remonstrate on quite a different

matter. To finance the War of the Polish Succession that had just broken out, Orry

revived the dixième of 1710 and instituted a new form of rente called the tontine. His

preamble to the edict on the dixième made it clear that the main aim was to collect

funds rapidly, rather than to challenge the privileges of the local elites. Thus

abonnements and the massive under-declarations of revenue that characterised the

original dixième, even to the constitution of specially diminished rolls for the

parlementaires, were permitted; where Orry complained to the intendants he was

ignored by men who feared the local elites more than the controller-general.

The

remonstrances were presented on 21 December. As Barbier remarked, ‘the dixième

will still be established, because the remonstrances tend only towards some

modifications’.

The outbreak of war ensured that the parlement kept a low profile on

contentious issues, for fear of provoking accusations of disloyalty. The Jansenists

were in some disarray as the parti split on the issue of the convulsionary

movement. The strange cavortings of the preaching and prophesying enthusiasts

led to scepticism from right-thinking magistrates, and the prestige of the Jansenist

movement suffered from the public exposure of its internal divisions in a

pamphlet war. The real War of the Polish Succession diverted attention from

internal politics and there was little agitation in the parlement for a while.

Remonstrances that had been decreed in 1735 were, in fact, put off until 1737

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because there was little hope of getting a favourable response from the King while

the Assembly of Clergy was in session. At this stage it was obvious that ‘these are

empty protests in favour of the preservation of a so-called right and an imaginary

permission to meddle in public and political matters, which they can never have

any more than the master will let them’.

It was always royal policy to divide and rule, in order to prevent the combination

of interests that might provoke another Fronde. In the parlement this meant

attempting to divide the more senior magistrates of the grand’chambre from their

more unruly colleagues in the enquêtes, as in 1732. But it was also desirable to

prevent too close a union betwen the barristers and the magistrates. As we have

seen, one of the features of the politics of the first few years of Fleury’s period was

the close link that had developed between these two groups. A quarrel that broke

out in 1735 between the parlement and its barristers was therefore favourably

regarded by the ministry. It was the occasion for the dominance of the Order by the

Jansenist clique of often distinguished barristers to be successfully challenged by

more loyalist colleagues.

The success of their politico-religious campaign had given the leading clique an

exalted idea of their importance. For example, when the bishop of Saint Papoul

announced his conversion to Jansenism in 1735, they published a congratulatory

letter as emanating from the whole Order of barristers, which it did not. Naturally,

the parlement condemned this as a misrepresentation of the Order. Shortly

thereafter, when Le Roy, a leading Jansenist, was pleading a case in the fifth enquêtes,

he was aggrieved to find that the avocat general was allowed to plead from the parquet

while he was obliged to stand outside this special enclosure. His complaint

amounted to an attempt to break down the distinction in rank between the

barristers and the rather senior magistrates who were the gens du roi. When the

parlement upheld the decision of the enquêtes, the barristers decided not to plead in

that chamber until they were given satisfaction. A compromise was worked out

between First President Le Peletier and some of the moderate lawyers, but was

spoilt by the insistence of the magistrates on the barristers’ submission.

The dispute had serious repercussions in the Order because it became entangled

with the preparation of a new tableau that would strike off the Jansenist Maraimberg

and admit many new aspirants to the bar—which Prévost was adamantly against.

Finally, in July a group of moderates, including some Jansenists like Aubry, decided

to break the strike by returning to work. Others followed, isolating Prévost. From

that time on he lost his powerful grip on the order, although he continued to be

active in writing consulations for Jansenists. According to Bell, this marked the end

of their first incursions into politics in co-operation with the parlement.

If there was any doubt that the Order was curbed, it must have been dispelled in

1738. In that year the barristers were rather rattled by the attack on the avocats du

conseil who were simply abolished! As Barbier wrote: ‘Now we have several families

without rank, without employment to live by and without reimbursement for the

offices and practices that they had bought. That will be an example to all the

companies and all estates to teach them the necessity of subordination and

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obedience’.

This may well have cooled their ardour. Of course, the barristers were

repeatedly to come out in support of the parlement in the 1750s, and re-emerge as a

powerful force in 1771.

* * *

As the war ended in 1737, a far more serious occasion for magistral militancy arose.

In early 1737 a case of ‘public scandal’ occasioned by the burial of a Jansenist in

Douai was reported to the parlement. After at first antagonising the enquêtes by

refusing their request, the First President allowed a plenary session to be called; but

when it assembled he refused to allow them to deliberate the case, arguing that it

was in the sole competence of the grand’chambre. There was perhaps a desire in the

courts to take up the case because Le Peletier, the First President, had not yet been

put to the test by his magistrates, and he was certainly regarded with some jealousy

by the supporters of Lamoignon de Blancmesnil whom he had beaten to the same

post only eight months earlier. Rivalries between the leading families of presidents

were a feature of parlementaire life which sometimes spilled over into the conduct of

the courts.

It looks as if Le Peletier had decided to give battle on his own ground,

by provoking them and forcing a climb-down. For over a week, from 15 to 22

February, the chambers assembled and confronted the President in silence, as the

chambers sought a procedural innovation to their advantage. Le Peletier was hard

pressed, negotiations at first failed and only by the good offices of the solicitor-

general was a suitable form of words found on 7 March. By keeping the ministry

out of it and handling matters himself, Le Peletier had gained considerable prestige

among his colleagues. This was the stuff of intra-institutional politics, and could be

considered of little consequence. However, the Douai affair of February—March

1737 coincided with the fall of the Keeper of the Seals, Chauvelin, with which it was

linked in some sources. The affair raises a number of important issues about the

often ambiguous nature of the evidence, the mechanisms of court politics and the

relations between the ministry and the parlement. All three areas are significant, but

the last is to be particularly noted here. Was the affair in the parlement linked to the

dismissal of a minister, and if so how?

It is a plausible thesis, for the most recent research on the Paris parlement has

tended to emphasise its role in reflecting and influencing factional struggles at court.

This has been argued for the Maupeou ‘reform’ of 1771 where the abolition and

remodelling of the parlements has been seen as the result of a situation created by

Maupeou in an attempt to discredit his ministerial rival Choiseul.

In the 1780s the

situation was said to have recurred during the crisis over financial legislation. Auget

de Montyon, a late eighteenth-century historian of French finance ministers,

recorded the connection between ministerial intrigue and groups in the parlement:

Miromesnil, Lamoignon and d’Aligre were directing the group which was in

opposition to Calonne. Hardman has found much evidence of factional

interference during Calonne’s ministry.

Thus the long-accepted notion of a

dichotomy between the crown and the parlement should be abandoned.

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It was rumoured at the time, and the suggestion has recently been taken up by

Rogister, that Chauvelin was dismissed ‘because his adherents in the Parlement of

Paris were trying to create trouble there and to discredit the new First President,

Louis Le Peletier…according to the evidence of one of the avocats généraux’.

But the

evidence of the avocat general is, in fact, rather ambiguous, and his speculations are

not confirmed by other evidence.

A closer examination will suggest another

dimension.

It is clearly true to say that there were elements in the parlement who were

attempting to test the mettle of the new First President, and possibly to discredit

him, and it is also true that there were magistrates who were forcing a debate on a

case of refusal of sacraments in Douai.

Chauvelin did indeed have agents, and yet,

while these may have had influence at a later date (in the 1750s), what is less certain

is that those creating the 1737 crisis were acting in this as his agents. Indeed,

Rogister himself suggests that the situation is far from clear. With the aid of the fresh

evidence used, and another perspective, it will be argued that the protagonists from

the parlement were rather differently motivated.

Whichever perspective is

adopted, the whole episode undoubtedly constitutes a fascinating insight into the

conduct of politics. The very uncertainty of the evidence is a testimony to highly

devious behaviour.

The evidence against Chauvelin itself poses some problems of interpretation. It

consists principally of a fragment of the manuscript journal of Daguesseau de

Plainmont, youngest son of the Chancellor. He was one of the gens du roi in the Paris

parlement from 1736 until shortly before his death in 1741, and was only 24 in 1737.

His testimony contains a number of contradictions, but one of his assertions seems

to be corroborated by the letters which the Chancellor wrote to his son at the time.

The journal of Plainmont is a useful source of evidence for events in the

parlement in 1737–8, for which other evidence from magistrates is sparse. Most

particularly, it is invaluable for the insight it provides into the procedures of the gens

du roi and the records of conferences within the parquet and with the ministry, even

with Fleury himself. But when it comes to analysis, rather than accounts of the day’s

events, the most disconcerting thing about Plainmont’s evidence is that he was

evidently unsure of himself. There are passages where he appears to take for

granted that Chauvelin was behind the crisis, and others where he actually states

that he was.

When M.Le Peletier was made First President there was some dissatisfaction

at his getting the place. The friends of his competitor, M.de Blancmesnil,

complained openly about it, and on the other hand he was no better received

by the parti of the Keeper of the Seals, who had always hated M. Le Peletier,

and who moreover was pained that his nomination was not his own work

and, fearing he might discover in the First President a redoubtable foe, he was

afraid that the First President’s credit might be superior to his own which was

beginning to decline. (The upshot has revealed how legitimate these fears

were.) In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that he should wish to

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create problems for the F.P.Everyone had something to gain. The two

factions were united in wanting to embarrass him, by engaging him in some

dangerous case and making him at least slip up, if not actually fall. Those

who were neutral were not for their part unhappy to test the ground and see

what kind of man they were dealing with.

However, in addition to this passage, the following passage may be emphasised, in

which Plainmont contradicts himself.

The First President sent for me in the evening and told me to assure my

father of his resolve, but at the same time to make him undertake to do

nothing on behalf of the [royal] court, so as to avoid falling into the trap set

for him by M.Chauvelin, who would do all in his power to persuade the

Cardinal to carry out some glorious coup that would muddy the waters still

more. This is just what precipitated M.Chauvelin’s fall. As M.the First

President either believed him to be the real source of the trouble, or was

forcing himself to believe it, he made a last effort with the Cardinal to bring

forward the moment of his fall, by making him believe that the end of the

affair depended on this event. Myself, who have examined things calmly, I

must admit that up to now I have seen nothing to persuade me to see M.Chauvelin as

the cause of the matter. It might appear so, both because of its plausibility, and

because of the conduct of those suspected of having been put up to it by

him, but there isn’t enough to be sure. How guilty you are when you’re out

of luck!

In fact, one can draw at least three theses from the journal of Daguesseau de

Plainmont. Chauvelin could have been trying to stir up a crisis, either because he

wanted to destroy the credit of his enemy the First President or to hasten the

departure of Fleury who was now widely rumoured to be unhappy with him; or the

First President could have been trying to use the crisis to suggest that Chauvelin was

behind it when really he was not, in order to have the Keeper of the Seals dismissed;

or the crisis could have quite independent causes and have nothing at all to do with

the fall of Chauveiin, and might simply have given rise to rumours and speculation.

To emphasise how difficult it is to know, there is a fourth interpretation of this affair

which was overheard by a police spy. Although it is probably not correct, it is worth

quoting because this ‘public opinion’ can be contrasted with the other better

informed sources. At this time favourite topics with the nouvellistes were Jansenist

scandals, events at court and the affairs of the parlement.

There is still talk of the dispute between the First President and the parlement,

which is unfavourable to this magistrate. As usual he is accused of having

sold himself to the Court; some even claim that he was in in league with

M.Chauvelin, former Keeper of the Seals, to try to finish off the company,

and strip it of its main roles; they add that in this way, if a minister was not

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faithful to his King, he could by acting together with a First President, bring

down the state.

These are murky waters indeed. Plainmont does end by assuring that the first

interpretation is correct, but there is unfortunately no other firm supporting

evidence for this. It is true that on the day after Chauvelin’s exile the Chancellor

wrote to Plainmont on the events in the parlement, saying that he believed the spirit

of peace had made considerable progress, that things were looking better for the

morrow (in fact they were on the surface at least slightly worse after another day’s

impasse), ‘if it is true that fear of appearing to yield to yesterday’s events has had

some part in this morning’s delay’.

This letter does not confirm Chauvelin’s

implication in the parlementary crisis. Only two deductions may be made from it:

first, that the Chancellor himself considered that Chauvelin might have been

involved, as one would expect him to have done if he believed what the First

President had told his son to tell him (though there is a hint of scepticism in his

words); second, that the agitators in the parlement, aware of the rumours being

circulated about Chauvelin, were anxious to demonstrate that they were in no way

involved with him by refraining from pursuing a cause said to be his. Le Peletier

cleverly helped them to make up their minds by accusing Titon and Thomé of

being agents of Chauvelin—an accusation that could lead to dire consequences if the

minister were dismissed, as rumoured. Clearly, we are dealing with extremely

sophisticated tacticians who knew and could exploit the codes of conduct and sets

of assumptions. It is wise not to jump to conclusions without firm evidence.

In a sense, too, historians should not ignore an absence of evidence where some

ought to exist, as this can sometimes be as illuminating as information itself on this

kind of issue. There is nothing at all about a ploy by Chauvelin in the unbroken list

of police reports for 1736 and 1737, although towards the end of 1736 there was

considerable talk of the fall of Chauvelin as inevitable because he had lost the

confidence of Fleury. More significantly, in the secret registers and journals of the

counsellors, from which so much has been learned, there is no hint of any

manipulation by Chauvelin. Barbier too considered this hypothesis, but decided

that since Le Peletier knew as well as anyone else the rumours about Chauvelin’s

impending fall, he would never risk his position by attacking a man soon to be

without credit; and Le Peletier was already known not to get on with the Keeper of

the Seals.

Behind the machinations of courtly intrigue and behind their plausible glosses,

lies another explanation for the crisis of 1737 in the parlement. The most

important previously unconsulted evidence lies in the secret registers which were

kept by counsellors in three of the chambers in the parlement; further evidence

may be found in the memoirs of Luynes, and one published contemporary

account. As for the crisis of 1730–2, an examination of the issues and the

counsellors involved in the debates and conferences is a most fruitful approach.

From the registers and private notes a list can be drawn up of the names of

everyone who made an inflammatory speech or was mentioned as having

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contributed to the crisis. The most important individuals were the abbé Pucelle,

the abbé Clément, Titon, Thomé, Lesseville, Robert, Davy de La Fautrière and

Ogier—all of whom we have met before in similar circumstances. It can hardly be

a coincidence that all of these were noted for their antipathy towards the Bull

Unigenitus and had played an important part in the earlier crisis; all were involved

with the parti janséniste. Indeed, Fleury and Chauvelin, then dealing with the

parlement, had been obliged to have Pucelle and Titon imprisoned, and had

exiled in June 1732 counsellors Robert, La Fautrière and Ogier. It is even known

that Chauvelin voted for their exile at the meeting of the conseil des dépêches where

the mattter was discussed. In the light of their strategy from 1730 to 1733, it might

be concluded that the nearcrisis of 1737 was another abortive attempt by an

extremist clique to revive the issues which had created a stir earlier in the decade.

In February 1735 five of these men had already unsuccessfully attempted to re-

open hostilities against Unigenitus.

In February 1737 they were able to take

advantage of the general desire to test the mettle of the new First President. It was

Lesseville and Titon of the fifth enquêtes who called for an assembly of deputies

from the lower chambers. As in 1732 it was the chambers of enquêtes, the second

and fifth in particular, which proved to be the most animated. Le Peletier cleverly

used a procedural issue to create an internal crisis in the courts which prevented

them from proceeding with the appeal. Le Peletier was even cleverer: he

frightened the parti janséniste into dropping the affair by making them fear that they

would be associated too closely with Chauvelin.

When the evidence of Daguesseau de Plainmont is seen in the context of the

campaign of calumny against the Keeper of the Seals, the picture seems clearer.

D’Argenson, commenting on the rumours about Chauvelin deliberately trying to

disrupt Fleury’s foreign policy, points out that it was an old tactic of court politicians

to spread such stories. ‘M.Chauvelin is accused of that old politics they so much

accused the cardinal de Richelieu of, of complicating affairs deliberately in order to

make himself necessary and to kill M.the Cardinal with overwork’.

In the light of

this, Le Peletier could be interpreted as having simultaneously made a second use of

the crisis which itself was unconnected with Chauvelin, to try to discredit the

minister still further. Plainmont, son of the Chancellor, was very probably duped by

Le Peletier. His tactic would therefore have been an old court practice, probably

concerted with the anti-Chauvelin faction among the ministers, which included

Maurepas, who was supported by the Noailles.

The role of the First President was crucial in avoiding a full-blown crisis. Given

the circumstances, the President was extremely astute in handling the affair by

himself, without bringing the ministry into it and thus widening the scope. Le

Peletier came out very well from his first baptism of fire with the parlement. In this

period of agitation Le Peletier played a very different role from that played by his

predecessor, Portail, from 1730 to 1733. Portail was a weak man, unsuited to the

difficult task of being both a government man and leader of the parlement. In 1732

Portail had quite lost the respect and leadership of the parlement, and this was one

of the factors that produced such a serious state of affairs that summer. Chancellor

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Daguesseau was extremely impressed by the way the affair had been handled: ‘It is

a great achievement, indeed, my dear son, that the affair should have ended in a

manner that in truth decides nothing, and if they are very pleased at the palais [de

justice] I can assure you that we are scarcely less joyous about it here, the King is

compromised to no degree by what has happened and he remains the master to do

all that he judges appropriate’.

A slightly less well-informed observer, Barbier the lawyer, reasoned that although

the parti janséniste had been stopped by Le Peletier this time, his own position as head of

the company had been compromised—at least for some time. Barbier’s reflections on

this are very ambiguous. ‘There is a strong appearance that the First President was not

at all supported by the Court, and, that being the case, here we have a man lost and

dishonoured in his company, who will no longer have any credit, and on whom,

consequently, the Court will not be able to count.’ He reflected that it was not in the

interests of a president to dominate his company too completely:

A First President who is clever, loved and respected by his corps, is a man to

be feared by a minister; he can, by refusing to enter into the views of the

ministry, put the blame for everything he will not do on the company, saying

that he is not its master; and he has to be won over to get him to win over his

company himself. When the resistance is general, two hundred and fifty

magistrates who hold distinguished places in society cannot be punished as a

single one can be; and when they are united, one of them cannot be punished

for a common cause without all of them being punished. Since the public is

involved in consequence of the cessation of business [that would result], it

causes an outcry and creates problems.

For the interpretation of the role of the parlement in ministerial politics during the

ancien régime, this brief analysis has wider implications. Memoirs and first-hand

accounts, while indispensable sources, are nevertheless fraught with danger for the

historian. It is difficult, if not at times impossible, to disentangle the facts from the

web of rumours which obscures them. Often, such tangled webs were spun with the

very aim of trapping contemporaries in misunderstandings. Unless an attempt is

made to consult all the possible sources, including those where evidence ought to be

available if a hypothesis is to be proved correct, there will remain the risk of serious

error. That there is often an interaction between the parlement and the ministry

during their respective crises seems well established, but it should be remembered

that the same assertion in the contemporary accounts on the nature of the

relationship may conceal a more subtle system of contacts.

It was absolutely essential for a First President to win the respect of the parlement

in order to exercise a guiding influence over its activities. Barbier was partly right in

foreseeing longer term problems for Le Peletier with his company, for the events of

1738 will show the First President trying to regain credit in his company by working

more closely with the Jansenists and standing up more firmly to ministerial

pressure. His tactic was to oppose the combination of youthful indiscretion and

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Jansenist machinations on occasions when there was a serious risk of confrontation

with Versailles, and to take their side on lesser issues. Much depended on his ability

to discern which of these two categories an incident fell into, for as we have seen a

process of escalation might start with a relatively minor matter.

* * *

The affair of the canonisation of Saint Vincent de Paul the next winter saw Le

Peletier making a stand against the ministry. The episode reveals the relationship

between the gens du roi and the cardinal de Fleury in greater detail.

It is clear from

his degree of involvement that even at the age of 86 Fleury exercised as much

control as possible over religious matters in the parlement. The way he did so in

personal discussion is an interesting point for comparison with his successors.

Daguesseau de Plainmont’s account of this episode, and of the following one on the

refusal of sacraments in 1738, are the only occasions in the eighteenth century for

which we have verbatim accounts of this sort of interview.

Fleury was adamant in refusing to allow the parlement to publish its arrêt against

the needlessly ultramontane Bull canonising Vincent de Paul who, although

undoubtedly of saintly conduct, had also opposed the early Jansenists. On 3

January 1738, the parquet went to Versailles to discuss the impasse. Upon their

arrival, Plainmont heard, presumably from his father, that the Cardinal was

resolved not to allow the courts to interfere in the reception of the Bull. That

morning in conference Fleury declared ‘very firmly and masterfully’ that the King

would not suffer them to take the least action against the Bull. On hearing of this

intransigence, the First President appeared confident, telling Plainmont later that he

believed the Cardinal had expressed himself so harshly in order to give the

President the opportunity to show how much credit he had with the ministry. But

Le Peletier was determined to act because ‘nothing was to be gained by delay, since

a denunciation in an assembly of chambers would force his hand and he would

then not be able to answer for the consequences, and they might go to extremes’.

That afternoon, the gens du roi again met the Cardinal. He regretfully allowed

them to take action against some anti-Jansenist writings, but angrily protested

against their lack of consideration for authors who were working on orders from

the Court, and reproached the First President with being at the bidding of the parti

janséniste. Le Peletier replied that he was ‘neither Jansenist nor Molinist, but was a

magistrate, neither leading the parti janséniste, nor directing the steps they took, but

that this was far from the case with the cardinal who was at the head of the Molinist

parti, that it was up to him to restrain its conduct and that if some fanatical deed

slipped out from the bishops, or some constitutionnaire writing, he had only himself

to complain to, without wanting to blame it on the magistrates.’ At this, the

Cardinal only became more tenacious about the Bull. The gens du roi tried to argue

that suppressing the cult of Saint Vincent de Paul was not the same as suppressing

the Bull itself, which hardly convinced Fleury, who became quite annoyed at the

hair splitting. Le Peletier insisted that if the grand’chambre were not allowed to act