42 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. were to be brought to the court of Parhament, consist- ing of the king and the peers of the accused. But when these courts grew frequent, they were so hateful to the nobiUty, who were required to serve on them, and they had so Uttle notion of justice, that Lewis devised the appointment of a few " royal baiUffs," namely, knights enough to make a quorum, who were to be assisted by men regularly trained in law and jurisprudence, with whom the decision would rest. This was the foundation of the Par/iaiiient of Paris, and is dated from 1258. Every immediate vassal of the king had a right to sit there, but in its working state it consisted only of lawyers, and of nobles enough to make its decisions legal. It came to be the court of appeal in questions of inheritance, and registered wills and royal edicts ; but instead of being, like the English Parliament, a means by which nobles and burghers kept the king in check, the Parliament of Paris was the instrument of the king for controlling the nobles. The first serious case that came before it was in 1259, when Engucrraiid, Lord of Coiuy, hanged three young Flemish nobles and their tutor for killing rabbits in his woods ; and though the king was at first disposed to hang him in return, he took the wiser course of trial by Parlia- ment. Engucrrand appealed to wager of battle, and Lewis answered that this was not the way of justice ; but so terrible was the name of the tyrant that the king had to exert all his authority to obtain from the judges a sentence, not of death, but of forfeiture of rights of the chase and of jurisdiction, a heavy fine, and three years' pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The barons were greatly incensed at such interference with their law- lessness, and only such a king as Lewis IX. could have carried out the measure and established the authority of Parliament. The lawyers there were always trying to enforce the Roman law, the nobles always struggHng against it ; and thenceforth there was constant enmity between the men of tlic gown and the men of the sword. 15. Treaties with England and Aragon. — Lewis tried to be as just towards his fellow kings as towards his people. Hitherto, while the kings of Aragon had held large fiefs in Southern Gaul, the French kings had kept up the nominal claim of the Western Kingdom to homage over the land on the other side of the Pyrenees, which had been the Spanish March of the Karlings. In 1258 Lewis gave up all claim to homage south of the Pyrenees,
