Campbell P. Power and Politics in Old Regime France, 1720-1745
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expedient to leave its full discussion until here because its full effects were felt in the
1730s, during the convulsionary movement. The intervention of the lawyers in the
theological quarrels in 1727 was described by one historian as ‘the massive entry of
the bourgeoisie de robe’ into politics.
44
Such a judgement hardly stands today,
redolent as it is of a class analysis, but it is true that a tiny but significant minority of
barristers in Paris were Jansenists. An analysis of signatures of the legal briefs
published by certain barristers in defence of victims of ecclesiastical injustices
together with accounts of their legal activity and biographical research, permits the
identification of a hard core of about two dozen active Jansenist lawyers. They may
be divided into those who wrote the consultations and those who believed in the
doctrine and put their signatures to the legal documents. Many of them were
Figurists.
No one has systematically calculated the numbers of Jansenist lawyers from
1727 to 1743, or later, although two other historians have given partial lists.
45
It can
be done with reasonable accuracy, because there is testimony in the Journal of the
lawyer Barbier, who was in an excellent position to know, and more discreetly in the
Nouvelles ecclésiastiques. However, the most reliable way of discovering the inner core
of lawyers lies in the huge collection of documents acquired by Le Paige, where
manuscript copies of the briefs have lists of signatories and usually a marginal note
in the minuscule hand of Le Paige identifying the authors.
46
The two most active
members of the Jansenist clique were undoubtedly Charles-Jacques Aubry and
Claude-Joseph Prévost. Aubry received a glowing tribute from the Nouvelles in his
1739 obituary, for it was he who had written the legal parts of the first consultation in
defence of the bishop of Senez in 1727 (Boursier wrote the theological sections), the
famous ‘Memoir of the forty lawyers’ that signalled legalist intervention. ‘There
were very few consultations of direct or indirect importance to the church in which he
did not have a hand. Even when M.Aubry’s name did not appear, and the Writings
could not be made public, he was no less involved in all affairs of importance.’ He
believed the miracles were proof of ‘the righteousness of our cause, which is that of
God Himself’.
47
He wrote to Soanen in 1728: ‘In my work I have been inspired by
neither a principle of false glory, nor by a desire to make myself known by a singular
event. I have sought the truth in good faith; I have known it, and this inner
conviction has sustained me and eased all difficulties’.
48
Prévost was a brute of a man who dominated the Order throughout the 1720s
and up to the mid-1730s. He had penned a consultation in defence of curés in 1716,
taken part in the debate around 1720 and left among his papers a huge series of legal
reflections on the status of Unigenitus and, interestingly for political theorists, on the
nature of the lit de justice, possibly used by Le Paige for his book of 1756.
49
He almost
lives again in Le Paige’s lengthy description of him:
This man, though of excellent sentiment and qualities, always personalises
affairs that would seem the least susceptible of it. His difficult and even surly
character, his thorny quick temper, get him into quarrels over the most trivial
matters. He gets in a rage about everything, and getting angry, saying vulgar
THE PARTI FANSENISTE IN THE 1720s AND 1730s
209
things and making quite wounding comments, is all one to him. [Yet there’s]
nothing more admirable than to see him or frequent him. He is a real
colossus. He draws himself up on tiptoe, raises and lowers his head, shakes
his long wig, opens his eyes wide, opens his huge mouth, whence come, in an
indefinable tone, the most absorbing passages. For him, everything is
ignorance and without sentiment, or something along these lines. To cap it all,
his hands are never still during this universal movement of his whole body.
He grabs his man by the lapels and shakes him marvellously, or perhaps he
makes one of those choice gestures seen only at the market. His arms move
all around, jerk up and fall back at each period of his discourse, and his
periods are long. There’s a rough external sketch of a man whose is inwardly
so rich, though most confusedly so, and who is so staunch-hearted. This man
loves well those he loves; bad luck on those who fall into disgrace with him,
and that’s often a matter of whim. For the rest, nothing more extraordinary
than this man. His appearance makes him feared and his inner qualities make
him loved. He always wins his case, for very few men are of a mettle to stand
up to him.
50
The principal authors of the consultations in defence of Jansenists were Aubry,
Prévost, Soyer, Le Roy fils, Texier and from the late 1730s Le Paige the younger.
Others identified as Jansenists and who were involved in signatures and in the
meetings to draw up the documents were Bayle, Berroyer, Boulle, Cochin,
Comtesse, Denyau, Duhamel, Gacon, Gin, Guérin de Richeville, Guillet de Blaru,
L’Herminier, Huart, La Verdy, La Vigne, Le Comte, G.Le Roy, G.-C.Le Roy, Le
Roy de Vallières, Maraimberg, Normant, Pageau, Paillet, Pothouin, Prunay,
Rousselet and Visinier. The board of directors of the Hôpital Général, where
Jansenists were more or less in control and where Jansenist prisoners were allowed
special privileges, included five barristers: Guillet and Visinier who have been
mentioned above and three other Jansenists, Pelet, Merlet and Arrault, the latter
being extremely committed to the cause.
These thirty-three lawyers all were members of a loosely structured order of
barristers in Paris which had a strong esprit de corps without, however, being a
formal corporation.
51
Thus it preserved its independence from royal interference
that normally took the form of imposed candidates, sale of office and a controlling
dean. The order was proud of its independence, and it was frequently reiterated by
orators on formal occasions, most notably by Daguesseau himself in a celebrated
discourse in 1693. He said:
In the almost general subjection of all conditions, an Order as old as the
Magistracy, as noble as Virtue itself, as necessary as Justice, is distinguished
by a character all its own; alone, of all states of Society, does it maintain itself
in the peaceable possession of its happy Independence…You are placed to
come between tumultuous passions and the Throne of Justice, for the Public
good; you bear to its altar the hopes and prayers of the People.
52
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210
The Order was headed by a bâtonnier elected every three years, one of whose tasks it
was to draw up a list of members. The Order numbered about 550, but many lawyers
took only the tide and did not practise at the bar.
53
A law degree was required for
acceptance as an avocat au parlement, although the degree was scandalously easy to
obtain; the real training was provided by a stage of four years’ work and study in the
courts. Although not formally a corporation, the Order had strict disciplinary
procedures operated by the bâtonnier, and disbarment could result from a range of
misdemeanours, which included improper speeches, lack of respect for magistrates in
court and failure to side with the Order in disputes. Such a grave consequence
undoubtedly encouraged younger and more needy barristers to follow their older and
more influential elders, reinforcing what was in effect corporate solidarity.
The avocats au parlement stood outside the usual legal restrictions on publishing,
because they were permitted to print their legal briefs or consultations. This was an
opportunity to make public, in the form of legal arguments related to specific cases,
briefs or memoirs that actually ranged widely over the issues and which might take
issue with policies enacted in previous judgements. Their right to publish opened
the door to the development and manipulation of public opinion, and accounts in
part for the increasing importance of the consultation as a form of oppositional or
radical literature during the century. The first to realise the immense importance of
this were the Jansenist lawyers from 1727 onwards.
54
Their independence, their
legal expertise and their privilege of publication made them extremely difficult for
the ministry to control. Fleury wrote to the Pope in 1730:
The lawyers as a corps are entirely spoilt and, as they are usually better
instructed than most magistrates, they have gained an ascendancy over them,
and have become absolute masters of the Parlement. Their freedom of speech
and publication, which have, unfortunately, been tolerated for a long time,
has increased their audacity, and, as it is a free company in so far as its
members work only as much and for whom they please, it regards itself as
completely independent.
55
The most involved of the barristers whose factums and legal briefs (consultations)
were published were not simply Jansenists but were almost certainly also Figurists,
although others may well have been Jansenists in the Port-Royalist tradition of some
legal families. In any case, their religion turned them into legal interventionists in an
active and public way that had not been the case for the earlier appels in 1717–18,
and 1723. The barristers did not simply decide themselves to protest on behalf of
the persecuted bishop of Embrun: they were in very close contact with the parti
janséniste and co-ordinated their activities. In order to do so they drew upon such
Jansenist organisation as already existed.
Some sort of clandestine network did indeed exist from the late seventeenth
century, as victimisation by the Jesuit-inspired Louis XIV drove Jansenists to rely
upon safe houses, places of refuge and epistolary contacts. Manuscripts were vetted,
commented upon, revised and published when appropriate. Sympathetic printers
THE PARTI FANSENISTE IN THE 1720s AND 1730s
211
were found, and then the printed books were smuggled and distributed. If
Jansenism was a phantom, it was therefore one that took on substance in the light of
persecution. Opposition to the Bull and the consequent stepping up of disapproval
followed by persecution must have been a crucial impetus. It must also be said that
the Regency did not abuse its power in the way that was to become more common
later, and that the Jansenists were not acting illegally in publishing their defensive
tracts—at least not until the 1731 law of silence, which the Jesuits were to break as
often as the Jansenists.
The need to combat Noailles’ damaging attempts at ‘accommodation’ or
‘explanation’ and to organise the defence of Senez before and after the Council of
Embrun (all happening in 1727) seems to have drawn the clerics and the lawyers
together in a closer and possibly more structured association. The affair of the
Council of Embrun also led to the new direction in Jansenist strategy. The year
1727 was definitely a turning point, as we shall see.
Both Jean Soanen, bishop of Senez, and Joachim Colbert of Montpellier were in
regular correspondence and contact with lawyers and later with magistrates. The
editors of the correspondence by the two bishops published in the 1740s clearly did
not reproduce all of their letters, omitting those that would compromise too much
those still living. Some fairly explicit ones to lawyers and magistrates are
nevertheless included, and from these it is perhaps permissible to make an educated
guess at the situation.
56
To the alert reader, letters that apparently merely comment
as if with detachment are actually nothing but veiled orders about how to proceed.
Activities were co-ordinated by a theological bureau.
On 30 October 1727, a judicial memoir was published in defence of Soanen,
the bishop of Senez. It was written by Pothouin and was signed by twenty
barristers, including the leading Jansenists.
57
In February 1728 a second memoir
of fifty pages, this time written by Aubry and Boursier, was clandestinely
distibuted in Paris.
58
To the seventeen Jansenists who had signed the first
consultation were added the names of some younger barristers, avid for fame and
fortune, as Barbier put it.
59
Both pieces were intended to challenge the jurisdiction
of the council of Embrun and the legality of the case by appealing to temporal
powers to defend the liberties of the Gallican church. At almost the same moment
twelve Jansenist bishops sent a letter to Louis XV declaring the legal nullity of the
Council of Embrun and calling for Senez to be permitted to appeal comme d’abus
against the sentence. Although on this occasion Fleury was able to quash the
affair without too much difficulty, this attempt by the parti janséniste bears witness
to an important change of tactics.
It is my argument that the Jansenists were developing a defined strategy. Their
first aim was religious, to save souls. This was their clear duty as guardians or
defenders of the real truth in the corrupted church. To do this the parti had to make
propaganda and to attack its enemies who were placing legal restrictions on its
freedom to preach, in order to have the restrictions lifted. The legalist tendency is
not surprising, for this was an age that saw most disputes, including theological
quarrels, in highly legalist terms. In order to achieve their aims they developed
POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE
212
strategies of opposition and in this they had little choice as they were opposed by the
vast majority in the French church.
They had a political strategy to combat the attacks, first by appealing to public
opinion and then by exploiting the jurisdictional jealousy of the courts. In other
words, they attempted to play off the courts against the hostile ecclesiastical
establishment. In 1728 they were unsuccessful because the magistrates in the
parlement did not respond. Fleury used the declaration of 24 March 1730 to close
some of the legal options open to them, and to restrict the best weapon, the
procedure of appeal comme d’abus, by which the parlement could intervene in clerical
justice. So the immediate focus of their political assault had to be on the declaration
of 24 March 1730. If they could get the courts to accept appeals comme d’abus,
notwithstanding terms of the declaration, they had every chance of making their
case against their real target, the Bull Unigenitus. The years 1730 to 1756 were years
of constant struggle, largely unsuccessful in the 1730s and 1740s, and then
increasingly successful in the 1750s. Not until royal policy became one of
capitulation to the parlements during the Seven Years’ War did this strategy finally
bear fruit.
60
But the strategy elaborated in the early years remained unchanged.
In 1730 the lawyers of the parti janséniste tried again.
61
That year, Fleury’s
persecution of Jansenist institutions and individual curés was at its height, and it
was not hard to find abuses of ecclesiastical justice. According to Bell, ‘no fewer than
nine consultations appeared in favour of persecuted Jansenists’.
62
The last provoked
a vigorous response from the ministry because its radical description of the legal
system seemed to challenge royal authority.
These general principles are that according to the Constitution of the
Kingdom, the parlements are the Senate of the Nation, to render in the name
of the King who is its leader, the Justice that he owes his subjects on behalf of
God. The Parlements which are the depository of public authority exercise a
sovereign jurisdiction over all the members of the State whether lay or
ecclesiastic; the Church is within the Empire and is a part of the State…Laws
are veritable conventions between those who govern and those who are
governed.
63
Predictably enough, the ministry condemned this Mémoire produced by François de
Maraimberg, a fanatical Jansenist, and signed by thirty-nine other barristers in the
parlement. In an episode entirely characteristic of judicial politics, the apparent
confrontation was mitigated by the negotiations that ensued behind the scenes.
64
After a defensive requête published by the recalcitrant barristers and signed by nearly
half the order, a compromise was arranged by which a carefully worded declaration
of loyalty to the King was signed by the forty lawyers, and a secret agreement made
to strike Maraimberg from the list of those eligible to practise at the bar the
following year. An arrêt du conseil published the declaration on 25 November 1730,
and the matter should have ended there. It had been a modest victory for the
barristers, who had raised their status by forcing the government to negotiate.
THE PARTI FANSENISTE IN THE 1720s AND 1730s
213
However, the constitutionnaire bishops decided to attack the barristers in their
own mandements, a series of which condemned the Mémoire in the strongest terms.
The archbishop of Paris was pressured into condemning them and, in his pastoral
letter of February 1731, actually called them heretics. Exploiting his dominance
over the order and carrying along the younger members of the assembly of
barristers, Prévost got them to vote for an appeal comme d’abus against the pastoral
letter. The government itself suppressed the archbishop’s Letter, but in July went
back on this and permitted its distribution. The lawyers were manœuvred into a
strike by the parti, ten were exiled, and the affair ended only with renewed
negotiations, this time less favourable to the lawyers.
Although the lawyers were relatively unsuccesful in 1730 and 1731, their failure
was to lead the Jansenists in a fruitful direction. On the one hand, the miracles
began and the convulsionary movement seemed to confirm the righteousness of
their cause; on the other hand, and in the long run more importantly, they found a
way of involving the Paris parlement. This second option was to be of prime
importance for the development of oppositional politics in the eighteenth century.
* * *
From 1720 to 1729 there had been no pro-Jansenist activity by the parlement, not
even over the issue of the condemnation of the bishop of Senez by the Council of
Embrun.
65
Yet in 1730 the parlement began to uphold a series of appeals comme
d’abus. Dedieu, the ecclesiastical historian, rightly suggested that there was a
connection between the state of the Jansenist party, their adoption of new tactics,
and the parlement. ‘Certain extremely pressing circumstances impelled the
Jansenists to see in the theory of Gallicanism, a weapon of immediate utility.’
66
The legal context in which the struggle over Unigenitus was fought was the
problem of the respective limits of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, or ‘the two
powers’ as contemporaries said. Over the previous three centuries the French kings
had been determined to prevent as far as possible papal interference within the
kingdom in temporal matters, while recognising the independence of the Catholic
church in spiritual affairs. Most notably, in practice this meant requiring that papal
pronouncements be registered in the parlement, and keeping a balance between the
rights of bishops to enforce discipline in their diocese and the legal right of appeal to
the secular courts in the case of a miscarriage of clerical justice. There were thus two
main aspects to consider: the independence of the French church from the papacy,
a position known as Gallicanism, and the relations between the two powers within
France. Although differences of emphasis still existed within the episcopate, broadly
speaking the bishops were Gallican in the eighteenth century.
In 1682 an assembly of hand-picked bishops had approved the Four Articles
which reiterated the independence of the French church from Rome, but this was in
the specific context of a threat by the Pope to excommunicate Louis XIV over the
quarrel of the régale. In the eighteenth century, episcopal Gallicanism tended to be
much less categorical on the issue of independence from Rome than the 1682
POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE
214
assembly had been, and continued to recognise the force of judgements of the
universal church from both the Pope and ecumenical councils. Thus the Bull
Unigenitus found favour among the majority of French bishops. They were also
particularly concerned that the Four Articles opened the door, by means of the
procedure known as appeals comme d’abus, to too much interference by the
parlements in purely spiritual matters. Both ecclesiastical and secular courts had a
marked tendency, typical of corporate society, to defend their own jurisdiction and
seek to extend it at the expense of rival courts. The royal edict of 1695 had
responded to this problem by regulating the limits of the two powers, principally by
safeguarding the power of the bishops over their lower clergy and by restricting
secular interference, although in an ambiguous passage the edict also safeguarded
appeals comme d’abus.
67
The parti janséniste was to make clever use of this right of
appeal from 1730 onwards.
If the timing of the royal declaration of 1730 of Unigenitus as a law of state is to be
explained as an attempted final blow dealt to the Jansenists who were then in a
critical position, the spate of appeals comme d’abus is also to be explained by the state
of the Jansenist party. The activity of the lawyers alone had failed to produce the
desired effects. In response, there was now to be a deliberate attempt by the
Jansenists to exploit both the judges’ Gallicanism and corporate determination to
defend their jurisdiction in the furtherance of the long struggle against Unigenitus. To
present this argument convincingly, it is necessary to reconsider the role of the
parlement, which is the subject of further chapters. Suffice it to say here that for
most historians the parlement was a body of magistrates motivated by Gallicanism
and a desire to defend the law against arbitrary government (in the form of Fleury’s
repression of the Jansenists); for some it was a body determined to recover the
political strength of which Louis XIV had supposedly deprived it. In marked
contrast to these general explanations, it can be shown that the courts were
manipulated by an organised group, that group can identified as composed almost
entirely of Jansenists, and it is possible to show that the majority of the counsellors
were influenced not by these ‘politico-religious’ concerns but by a desire to defend
their jurisdiction. Previous interpretations are therefore open to substantial
modification.
Against this it could be objected that the serious legal arguments put forward by
the courts in their remonstrances constitute a sufficient explanation. Although most
historians have taken this view, it is based on a misunderstanding. To argue that a
clique was responsible for ensuring legal opposition does not mean that the legal
arguments of the parlement were invalid. The question is not whether the courts
could find legal objections to a policy, but whether and why they chose to express
them: they had not always done so. In 1727 there had been no parlementary protest
against Embrun, and the courts seldom chose to fight an open battle with royal
policy after a lit de justice had been held. In this corporate society it did not
necessarily follow that the magistrates had such selfless concern for strict legality
that they would automatically intervene against royal policy whenever it erred.
Fearful of the consequences royal displeasure would have for their families and
THE PARTI FANSENISTE IN THE 1720s AND 1730s
215
careers, they needed prompting, organising, leading. Thus, the notion that their
motive was a long-standing ‘parlementary constitutionalism’ is not satisfactory
because it assumes the very fact that requires a historical explanation—we must ask
when, how and why the apparently ‘constitutional’ discourse of the parlement came
into existence, especially as contemporaries had yet to use the word ‘constitutional’
in its modern sense.
68
The thesis of Jansenist intervention explains more fully the
manifestation of such fierce parlementaire resistance to royal policy at this date,
without having to view the crisis as either the product of entirely traditional
attitudes, or even as the result of any heightening of the ‘political’ awareness of the
counsellors normally associated with a ‘constitutional’ viewpoint.
A new method for the study of the parlement has developed in the last two
decades, for which the historians Egret, Doyle and Hamscher must take much of
the credit. Studying short periods in the history of the parlements, exploring
ministerial responses as well as the corporate environment and concerns, they have
revealed the courts in a new light. They have gone beyond the published
remonstrances—the word of the magistrate at face value, as it were—to reconstruct
the judicial world and its debates in considerable detail. Particularism and the
defence of jurisdiction are themes that run through their conclusions. The courts
often lacked a wider political perspective and could usually be managed by careful
ministers. The works of Cubells and Kettering on Paris and Aix at the time of the
Frondes provide interesting examples of yet more concentrated analysis of very
brief periods of crisis. To these approaches the present writer has added a further
refinement, that might be termed a parliamentary history of the parlement: by
which is meant the analysis of the debates and the voting patterns of the
magistrates, along the lines of British parliamentary studies. This analysis, fully
pursued in the following chapters, of course reveals the parlement to have been far
less homogeneous in its ‘political’ views than it was in its social composition. The
role of the parti janséniste becomes clear, as it is possible to uncover the tactics they
used to manipulate their colleagues.
Such an approach requires sources that name names, and in an absolute
monarchy this practice was sometimes unwise. Indeed, in the 1750s the observers
are much more circumscribed in their accounts, which tend merely to speak of ‘a
certain magistrate’ or suchlike. Fortunately, for the 1730s the secret registers of the
parlement, private accounts, the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques and some reports to the
ministry all contain evidence of those who made important speeches in the
parlement and who introduced the various motions, both radical and cautious. For
both the crisis of 1730–2 and the agitation of 1737, a list can be drawn up of those
most influential in debates and most committed to resistance to the royal policy.
Fourteen magistrates have been selected because they intervened not just
occasionally but repeatedly and consistently. That the ministry would have agreed
for the most part with this choice is proved by the imprisonment of two of them in
May 1732, the exiling of a further four in June and the special treatment reserved for
four more in September. The next task is to identify their theological persuasions,
which must be done in a way that remains independent of the first set of sources, so
POWER AND POLITICS IN OLD REGIME FRANCE
216
that merely making speeches does not lead to a presumption of Jansenism. By a
rigorous method which is recounted in detail in Appendix 2, it emerges that of the
fourteen prominent counsellors, no fewer than eleven were Jansenists, while the
other three were closely associated with the parti janséniste. They were motivated
perhaps by ambition and partly by ‘republicanism’.
69
The specific activity of this coterie of magistrates will be dealt with in greater
detail in the following chapters, as we examine their part in provoking the recurrent
crises in the Paris parlement. However, it is here necessary to anticipate somewhat,
with a brief review their specifically Jansenist strategy. As judges, the magistrates of
the parti janséniste were well aware of the legal and jurisdictional implications of the
Bull Unigenitus, and were well aware of how to turn the procedures in the courts to
their advantage. Unlike the barristers, they were in a choice position to do
something about it. They intended to exploit this knowledge and their position in
the parlement to defend persecuted Jansenists and in particular to undermine the
status of the Bull Unigenitus as a law of state. In the absence of a general council of the
church, for which the clerics had been unsuccessfully appealing for over a decade,
the parlement was the only institution that could challenge the authorty of the anti-
Jansenist bishops in their dioceses and in print, by virtue of its jurisdiction in appeals
comme d’abus.
Because a close relationship existed between the government barristers in the
parlement, known as the gens du roi, and the ministry, there was little hope of such
cases being accepted if presented to the procureur general. These appeals came before
the grand’chambre and the lower chambers had no automatic cognisance of them.
The only other occasion on which it was possible to denounce abuses of clerical
justice or doctrine was on the occasion of a general assembly of the chambers.
These would be summoned to examine important legislation that had to be duly
registered by the courts, or for the reception of a new magistrate. It was difficult for
an individual judge to call successfully for an assembly because this required first a
majority in his chamber, the election of deputies, then the discussion in an assemblée
de cabinet with deputies from all the chambers, after which a majority decision of the
chambers would result in an assembly. Even when a case was introduced, the whole
system of debate and assembly was designed to leave influence in the hands of the
gens du roi with the First President and the conservative elder counsellors of the
grand’chambre. Following the rapporteur who generally opined in favour of the written
conclusions of the procureur général, opinions were given in order of seniority with the
right to speak only once. However, the Jansenists had some advantages.
Le Clerc de Lesseville would, as a conseiller d’honneur, give his opinion very early
in debate, while the four members of the clique who were in the grand’chambre would
opine, if all were present and in the correct seats, third, eleventh and thirteenth. This
was enough to set the tone for the debate, and the organisation of the parti ensured
that its interventions had a common purpose. Sometimes the older Jansenists might
be able to dominate a commission of the parlement, as for the arrêt of 7 September
1731, when the commissioners were Goislard, president Le Peletier, Pucelle, Fornier
de Montagny, Thomé and Dupré de Saint Maur (the last four being of the parti). In
THE PARTI FANSENISTE IN THE 1720s AND 1730s
217
these early days the very apathy of the senior judges might also work in their favour,
while the rash exuberance of the younger judges made them vote for any exciting
course of action. Clearly it was not possible for the clique to dominate by strength of
numbers. However, as we shall see, they became extremely adept at presenting the
issues in a light that would appeal to the wider concerns of their colleagues. This
usually meant concealing their true aims behind an appeal to the defence of the
parlement’s jurisdiction in its eternal quarrel with the rival power. It became just
possible to get a majority on a crucial vote such as on Delpech de Méréville’s
proposal in September 1732 to disobey the lit de justice. His opinion was passed by
only seven votes with several against not counted because of family links. ‘This
arrêté has been applauded as an heroic and Roman act by the whole Jansenist public,
who demand nothing less than formal disobedience.’
70
They were aware of the
power of public opinion and arranged for the texts of their speeches to be given to
the editors of the Nouvelles ecclésiastiques and passed parlementary arrêtés to printers of
the parti for distribution in Paris.
Furthermore, there is considerable circumstantial evidence and direct testimony
that some of the Jansenist magistrates collaborated closely with a group of Jansenist
avocats an parlement. To suggest as much is to reveal a new and fascinating dimension
to the crises of the 1730s and provide positive antecedents for the activities of Le
Paige in the 1750s and 1760s.
71
The Journal of the lawyer Barbier contains a good
deal of unequivocal evidence to this effect. On 12 May 1732, just as the affair of the
Instruction of the archbishop of Paris was becoming serious, he wrote: ‘I am greatly
afraid that our lawyers will get further involved in this affair, for the leading lights of
the parti convened on Saturday, apparently to confer between themselves and with
Aubry who is to plead on behalf of the curés [who were refusing to publish the
Instruction]. The clique of Jansenist lawyers who are most staunch defenders of the
parti, is composed principally of MM.Berroyer, Duhamel, Aubry, Gacon, Pothouin,
Visinier, G.Le Roy, Le Roy de Valières, and a few others who are perhaps not
admitted to their council.’
72
But for his exile, Prévost would normally have been one
of them. Later Barbier recorded that ‘the lawyers are closely bound up in this affair,
and their cessation of work has made the parlement realise how much it has their
support’.
73
But how was it that a few Jansenists were able to bring about a strike of the whole
order of barristers on two occasions in 1732? Fortunately, Barbier himself provides
the answer, for at the time of the strike of the lawyers in support of the parlement
after the declaration of 17 August he wrote the following explanation.
The lawyers visited each other to find out if, in the present circumstances,
they would continue to carry on business, both in and outside the courts
…But M.Duhamel, who is of the first rank of consulting lawyers, a very
stubborn man and a great Jansenist, closed his cabinet on Wednesday
afternoon, and did not attend the council of the House of Bouillon.
MM.Berroyer, Pothouin et Visinier, who are also Jansenists, having done the
same without consulting anyone, other colleagues were persuaded to act as