Henry M. Baird · 22 of 379

CHAPTER I · Provincial parliaments.

The rapid increase of cases claiming the attention of the Parliament of Paris suggested the erection of similar tribunals in the chief cities of the provinces added to the original estates of the crown. Before the accession of Francis the First a provincial parliament had been instituted at Toulouse, with jurisdiction over the extensive domain once subject to the illustrious counts of that city; a second, at Grenoble, for Dauphiny; a third, at Bordeaux, for the province of Guyenne recovered from the English; a fourth, at Dijon, for the newly acquired Duchy of Burgundy; a fifth, at Rouen, to take the place of the inferior "exchequer" which had long had its seat there; and a sixth, at Aix-en-Provence, for the southeast of France.