and that they had better not constrain him to make them feel the weight
of his authority." In September of the same year, he summoned them to a
bed of justice at Versailles, contrary to all precedent, and when they
returned protesting, all the presidents and conseillers des enquetes
and requetes were summarily banished to different cities in the kingdom
by lettres de cachet. In 1753, the whole body was sent into exile, at
Soissons, and to replace it the king created a _chambre royale_, which
held its sittings at the Louvre, but which, though duly registered at
the Chatelet _au tres expres commandement du roi_, was received with
such contempt for its authority and such general levity that the members
"became so well accustomed to it that they frequently assembled
laughing, and made jests of their own decrees." The Parisians, who
ridicule everything, declared that these members enjoyed themselves
greatly at the masked ball during the Carnival, because none of them
were _recognized_.

[Illustration: BIRTH OF EQUALITY: THE ASSEMBLEE ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST
4, 1789.

Engraved by L. Ruffe, after the painting by A. Dawant.]

The members of the Parlement returned from their exile as contumacious
as ever. Against the express command of the king, they persisted in
occupying themselves with religious questions and manifesting a spirit
of opposition to the pretensions of the Papacy. The public excitement
was so great that a wretch named Damiens attempted to assassinate the
king, in 1757, but only wounded him slightly. In 1770, the Duc
d'Aiguillon, Governor of Brittany, having been relieved of his post and
formally accused by the parlement of that province, was brought to trial
before the Parlement of Paris in his quality of peer of the realm. He
was about to be condemned when the king, in a bed of justice, quashed
the proceedings. To the indignant protests of the magistrates, who
suspended their sittings, Louis XV replied by dismissing his minister,
Choiseul, and giving his post to D'Aiguillon. On the night of the 19th
and 20th of January, 1771, a hundred and sixty-nine of the members of
the Parlement were each awakened by two musketeers, who required them to
sign _yes_ or _no_ on the order to resume their official functions.
Thirty-eight signed _yes_, but retracted this consent two days later;
on the following night a huissier notified the members of their
suspension from office, and the musketeers brought them lettres de
cachet