admirable remonstrances, which
it sometimes meets with from the parliaments. Many of those detached
pieces are very well worth your collecting; and I remember, a year or two
ago, a remonstrance of the parliament of Douay, upon the subject, as I
think, of the 'Vingtieme', which was in my mind one of the finest and
most moving compositions I ever read. They owned themselves, indeed, to
be slaves, and showed their chains: but humbly begged of his Majesty to
make them a little lighter, and less galling.

THE STATES OF FRANCE were general assemblies of the three states or
orders of the kingdom; the Clergy, the Nobility, and the 'Tiers Etat',
that is, the people. They used to be called together by the King, upon
the most important affairs of state, like our Lords and Commons in
parliament, and our Clergy in convocation. Our parliament is our states,
and the French parliaments are only their courts of justice. The Nobility
consisted of all those of noble extraction, whether belonging to the
SWORD or to the ROBE, excepting such as were chosen (which sometimes
happened) by the Tiers Etat as their deputies to the States-General. The
Tiers Etat was exactly our House of Commons, that is, the people,
represented by deputies of their own choosing. Those who had the most
considerable places, 'dans la robe', assisted at those assemblies, as
commissioners on the part of the Crown. The States met, for the first
time that I can find (I mean by the name of 'les etats'), in the reign of
Pharamond, 424, when they confirmed the Salic law. From that time they
have been very frequently assembled, sometimes upon important occasions,
as making war and peace, reforming abuses, etc.; at other times, upon
seemingly trifling ones, as coronations, marriages, etc. Francis the
First assembled them, in 1526, to declare null and void his famous treaty
of Madrid, signed and sworn to by him during his captivity there. They
grew troublesome to the kings and to their ministers, and were but seldom
called after the power of the Crown grew strong; and they have never been
heard of since the year 1615. Richelieu came and shackled the nation, and
Mazarin and Lewis the Fourteenth riveted the shackles.

There still subsist in some provinces in France, which are called 'pais d
etats', an humble local imitation, or rather mimicry, of the great
'etats', as in Languedoc, Bretagne, etc. They meet, they speak, they
grumble, and finally submit to whatever the King orders.