ing appeals of the _Conseil d'Etat_, or _Conseil du
Roi_. The latter, subordinate to the ministers but superior to the
supreme courts, was the great administrative body of the kingdom and was
composed of eighteen members. The _Grand Conseil_, which had been
invested by Charles VIII with the judicial attributes up to that time
appertaining to the Conseil du Roi, in order that the latter might
remain a purely administrative body, sat in judgment on ecclesiastical
matters, appeals to the higher courts, conflicts with parliamentary
authority, etc.

For the administration of the city of Paris, and with the design of
replacing the various seigneurial, ecclesiastic, and municipal
authorities by one royal one, a decree was issued as early as 1674, in
which all these justices, "and even that of our bailiwick of the palace,
shall be reunited to the _siege presidial de la prevoste et vicomte de
Paris_, held at the Chatelet, ... so that in the future they shall never
be separated from it, nor re-established, for any cause, or under any
pretext whatsoever." A second seat of the _prevote_ and vicomte of Paris
was established at the same time at the Chatelet with the same powers
and prerogatives as the other,--the number of affairs being much too
great for the cognizance of one jurisdiction. A supplemental decree,
some months later, established the seat of the second in the abbey of
Saint-Germain-des-Pres. This abolition of the divers administrations of
justice by the seigneurs was greatly appreciated by the populace, and
greatly resented by the deposed lords, secular and ecclesiastical. In
1687, a magistrate, Nicolas de la Reynie, was appointed as
superintendent of the police of Paris, and he was succeeded, ten years
later, by the Marquis d'Argenson,--these being the first two
_lieutenants de police_. This police, in addition to maintaining the
public order, exercised a surveillance over all printed and written
matter--even searching the post and opening suspected letters in the
_cabinet noir_, and making itself a servile instrument in the abuse of
the _lettres de cachet_ through which, as the president of the Cour des
Aides, Malesherbes said to Louis XV in 1770: "no citizen has any
assurance that his liberty may not at any moment be sacrificed to some
personal vengeance."

An edict of 1705, recalling that, in 1690, _la noblesse au premier
degre_ had been bestowed upon the president, councillors, and other
officers "of our _Cour de