Conseil Du Roi - Royal Councils

Royal Councils

Over time, the Council began progressively to divide intself into separate subcouncils according to the affairs to be discussed. As early as the 13th century, one can distinguish a small council of a few members – the Conseil étroit ("narrow council") or Conseil secret – and a much larger council which came thus to be called the Grand Conseil.

Under Charles VII, a subcouncil appeared to handle particularly contentious judicial affairs. An ordinance by Charles VIII in 1497, and reaffirmed by Louis XII in 1498, removed this body from the king's council and established it as an autonomous court with the institutional name Grand Conseil. The Grand Conseil became thus a superior court of justice (that the king did not attend) with its own legal and judicial personnel and with a purview over contentious affairs submitted directly to the king (affairs of "justice retenue", or "justice reserved" for the king). This removal of the Grand Conseil from the council apparatus permitted the remaining sections of the council to focus on political and administrative affairs, but the need for further subsections continued.

Francis I created a Conseil des Affaires – a small informal group reuniting the chancellor, a secretary of commandements and several other close confidants – to deal with political and diplomatic issues, including war. The remaining large council (of 50–60 members) took the name of "Conseil ordinaire" ("Regular Council") or "Conseil d'État" ("Council of State"), but lost in its prestige, all the more so given that the king no longer regularly attended its sessions; in his absence the large council was presided by the chancellor. After 1643, the "Conseil des Affairs" was generally known as the "Conseil d'en haut" ("Upper Council"), due to its rooms on the second floor of Versailles.

Beginning in 1560, a separate council was created to handle financial affairs: the "Conseil des finances"; around 1600 this council was reunited with the state council as "Conseil d'État et des finances". The "Conseil d'État et des finances" lost in its prestige during the reign of Louis XIII and ended as a supreme court for legal disputes concerning royal administration and appeals on decisions from sovereign courts concerning finances and taxation. By the late 17th century, the council's role as adjudicator in administrative disputes was subsumed by the "Conseil d'État privé" and its financial oversight was largely taken over by the later "Conseil royal des finances" and by the Controller-General of Finances.

In the 16th century, with the Grand Conseil being a completely autonomous court of justice separated from the king's council, the need was seen for certain judicial affairs to be discussed and judged within the council. These special session trials gave rise to a new section of the Council of State overseeing legal disputes, which took the name "Conseil d'État privé" ("Privy Council of State") or "Conseil des parties" ("Council of Parties", i.e. the party in a legal suit). In theory, the king exercised justice in this council with his regular counsellors, but in fact the council was presided by the chancellor and was furnished with a corps of legal personnel who dealt with Privy Council matters (the five presidents of the Parlement of Paris, the maîtres des requêtes who brought affairs before the court, lawyers and prosecutors who represented the parties). The Privy Council acted as a supreme court, pronouncing judgements on the various sovereign courts of the realm (including the parlements and the Grand Conseil), and provided final judicial review and interpretation of law (the request for which was called "évocation"), oversight of the judicial corps, and judged disputes on royal offices, church benefices and problems between Catholics and Protestants. In this way, the Conseil privé was roughly the predecessor of the present-day Conseil d'État.

Before the late 17th century, the "Conseil privé" was solely a judicial council, but at that time it took over affairs of administrative disputes from the "Conseil d'État et des finances" (which ceased to exist as such). This new council, called the "Conseil d'État privé, finances et direction", was divided into three sections which met separately: the "Conseil des parties", the "Grande direction des finances" and the "Petite direction des finances."

From 1630, the "Conseil des Dépêches" was created to deal with notices and administrative reports from the provinces sent by the governors and intendants.

Despite these divisions into subcouncils, from a judicial point of view these various sections were all aspects of the same Council, and the decisions of the various sections were all considered to reflect the king's wishes. Even when the king was not in fact present as his councils, there were still considered to be presided over by him, and only the closing formula of their decisions changed: the expression "le Roi en son Conseil" was used when the king was not present at the meeting, the expression "le Roi étant en son Conseil" when he was.

The subcouncils of the King's Council can be generally grouped as "governmental councils", "financial councils" and "judicial and administrative councils". With the names and subdivisions of the 17th – 18th century, these subcouncils were:

Governmental Councils:

• Conseil d'en haut ("High Council", concerning the most important matters of state) – composed of the king, the crown prince (the "dauphin"), the chancellor, the contrôleur général des finances, and the secretary of state in charge of foreign affairs.
• Conseil des dépêches ("Council of Messages", concerning notices and administrative reports from the provinces) – composed of the king, the chancellor, the secretaries of state, the contrôleur général des finances, and other councillors according to the issues discussed.
• Conseil de Conscience

Financial Councils:

• Conseil royal des finances ("Royal Council of Finances") – composed of the king, the "chef du conseil des finances" (an honorary post), the chancellor, the contrôleur général des finances and two of his consellors, and the intendants of finance.
• Conseil royal de commerce

Judicial and Administrative Councils:

• Conseil d'État et des Finances or Conseil ordinaire des Finances – by the late 17th century, its functions were largely taken over by the three following sections.
• Conseil privé or Conseil des parties' or Conseil d'État ("Privy Council" or "Council of State", concerning the judicial system, officially instituted in 1557) – the largest of the royal councils, composed of the chancellor, the dukes with peerage, the ministers and secretaries of state, the contrôleur général des finances, the 30 councillors of state, the 80 maître des requêtes and the intendants of finance.
• Grande Direction des Finances
• Petite Direction des Finances

The King's Council also included various commissions and bureaus. In addition to the above administrative institutions, the king was also surrounded by an extensive personal and court retinue (royal family, valets, guards, honorific officers), regrouped under the name "Maison du Roi".

At the death of Louis XIV, the Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans abandoned several of the above administrative structures, most notably the Secretaries of State, which were replaced by councils. This system of government, called the Polysynody, lasted from 1715–1718.