Louis XIV and his reign in France

Louis XIV

The conduct of the magistrates assigned to the tribunals in Auvergne closely followed the objectives imposed by the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. Because the trials in Auvergne took place shortly after the disempowerment of the Fronde, the work of the Parlement of Paris was mainly focused on centering power on the interests of the king and undoing the individualistic habits of the nobility at the local level. With this centralized power also came the mindset that the king was anointed with divine power thus making each of his decisions and wishes holy; those who closely followed such order thought of themselves as following holy order.

Leading up to the tribunals commenced by the Parlement of Paris in Auvergne, territories of France functioned with separate and disjointed legislature. French territories exhibited decentralized administration, resulting in power being spread among the local legislative bodies; the influence of the monarchy was not yet regarded as absolute. Local powers continued serving their own interests rather than the interests communicated by the monarchy and the struggle for power between the monarchy and local powers culminated in the Fronde Wars. Upon the conclusion of the Fronde Wars, Louis XIV re-organized France's hierarchy to assign decision-making and administrative responsibilities to the monarchy and with this re-organization came new objectives for the Parlement of Paris.

The trial proceedings of the Parlement's magistrates in Auvergne sought to influence the French territorial nobility's loyalty to the monarchy, with disciplinary action resulting from insubordination. In the region of Auvergne, judicial and administrative abuse was prevalent prior to the establishment of absolute monarchy. Louis XIV's motives behind sending the magistrates to Auvergne for tribunals are often perceived as an action taken by the king to assert the newly reassigned authority of the monarch of France, and the magistrates of Parlement fell in line with such orders. Upon assignment to Auvergne, parliamentary magistrates worked to break decentralized habits under strict direction from Louis XIV. Magistrates of Parlement established uniform procedural codes for each of the royal courts and along with this, the importance of judicial responsibilities increased among Parlement members. Regard for legislative, administrative and judicial power became more about loyalty to the crown and interests expressed by the monarch rather than about serving local interests. Through this compliance with centralization of power, the actions of Parlement can be viewed as efforts made to satisfy the principle of royalty being sacred, an attribute of absolute monarchy as outlined by Bishop Bousset. Louis XIV established that another objective in his reform of France's hierarchy was to reform justice in the country, calling for the process of litigation to be streamlined to reduce cost and increase the productivity of Parlement. By assigning judicial powers to the monarch, Louis XIV effectively created a system that was dictated solely by his own decisions - a time and savings benefit for the country. As outlined in Proposition Three, providing for the needs of the people is the responsibility of the prince. Parlement's compliance with the reformation of justice set forth by Louis XIV shows effort to honor the monarch.