The Parlement of Paris, 1774-1789

On French "absolutism"

“…19 On May 3, 1788, the Parlement of Paris listed what it believed should be the "fundamental laws" of the kingdom, which included regular meetings of the Estates General to approve taxation, absolute tenure for judges, the right of the parlements to reject illegal legislation, and the right of habeas corpus. 20 Arlette Jouanna is correct when she writes: "It is therefore clear that, legally, the French monarchy had never been fully absolute everywhere in the kingdom. Before being able to be obeyed, the royal will still had to pass, in the principal pays d'états by the stage of at least symbolic consent and by that, more constraining, of the negotiation; in the jurisdictions of the parlements, it had to undergo the interpretative jurisdiction of the judges.…”