Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

Book VI
I. An Impartial Glance at the Ancient Magistracy
A MIGHTY fortunate personage in the year of grace 1482, was the noble knight, Robert d’Estouteville,
Sieur of Beyne, Baron of Ivry and Saint-Andry in the March, Councillor and Chamberlain to the King,
and Warden of the Provostry of Paris. It was well-nigh seventeen years ago since he had received from
the King, on November 7, 1465—the year of the comet 60—this fine appointment of Provost of Paris,
reputed rather a seigneurie than an office. Dignitas, says Joannes Lœmnœus, quæ, cum non exigua
potestate politiam concernente, atque prærogativis multis et juribus conjuncta est. 61 It was indeed a
thing to marvel at that in 1482 a gentleman should be holding the King’s commission, whose letters of
appointment dated back to the date of the marriage of a natural daughter of Louis XI with Monsieur the
Bastard of Bourbon. On the same day on which Robert d’Estouteville had replaced Jacques de Villiers in
the Provostry of Paris, Maître Jehan Dauvet superseded Messire Hélye de Thorrettes as Chief President
of the Court of Parliament, Jehan Jouvenel des Ursins supplanted Pierre de Morvilliers in the office of
Chancellor of France, and Regnault des Dormans turned Pierre Puy out of the post of Master of Common
Pleas to the royal palace. But over how many heads had that Presidency, that Chancellorship, and that
Mastership passed since Robert d’Estouteville held the Provostship of Paris! It had been “given unto his
keeping,” said the letters patent; and well indeed had he kept the same. He had clung to it, incorporated
himself into it, had so identified himself with it that he had managed to escape that mania for change
which so possessed Louis XI, a close-fisted, scheming king, who sought to maintain, by frequent
appointments and dismissals, the elasticity of his power. Furthermore, the worthy knight had procured
the reversion of his post for his son, and for two years now the name of the noble M. Jacques
d’Estouteville, Knight, had figured beside that of his father at the head of the roll of the Provostry of
Paris—in truth, a rare and signal favour! To be sure, Robert d’Estouteville was a good soldier, had
loyally raised his banner for the King against the “League of the Public Weal,” and on the entry of the
Queen into Paris in 14—had presented her with a wonderful stag composed of confectionery. Besides
this, he was on a very friendly footing with Messire Tristan l’Hermite, Provost-Marshal of the King’s
palace. So Messire Robert’s existence was an easy and pleasant one. First of all, he enjoyed very good
pay, to which were attached and hanging like extra grapes on his vine, the revenues from the civil and
criminal registries of the Provostry, the revenues, civil and criminal, accruing from the auditory courts of
the Châtelet, not to speak of many a comfortable little toll-due from the bridges of Mantes and Corbeil,
and the profits from the taxes levied on the grain-dealers, as on the measurers of wood and salt. Add to
this, the pleasure of displaying on his official rides through the city—in shining contrast to the
party-coloured gowns, half red, half tan, of the sheriffs and district officers—his fine military
accoutrements, which you may admire to this day, sculptured on his tomb in the Valmont Abbey in
Normandy, and his morion with all the bruises in it got at Montlhæry. Then, it was no mean thing to have
authority over the constables of the Palais de Justice, over the warder and the Commandant of the
Châtelet, the two auditors of the Châtelet (auditores Castelleti), the sixteen commissioners of the sixteen
districts, the jailer of the Châtelet, the four enfeoffed officers of the peace, the hundred and twenty
mounted officers of the peace, the hundred and twenty officers of the rod, the captain of the watch with
his patrol, his under-patrol, his counter-and-night-patrol. Was it nothing to exercise supreme and
secondary jurisdiction, to have the right of pillory, hanging, and dragging at the cart’s tail, besides minor
jurisdiction in the first resort (in prima instantia, as the old charters have it) over the whole viscomty of