istration of edicts respecting finances,
which the Parliament claimed to have the right of looking into, caused
between the king, inspired by his minister, and the Parliament of Paris
an irritation which reached its height during the trial of the Duke of
La Valette, third son of the Duke of Epernon, accused, not without
grounds, of having caused the failure of the siege of Fontarabia from

jealousy towards the Prince of Conde. The affair was called on before
a commission composed of dukes and peers, some councillors of state and
some members of the Parliament, which demanded that the duke should be
removed to its jurisdiction. "I will not have it," answered the king;
"you are always making difficulties; it seems as if you wanted to keep me
in leading-strings; but I am master, and shall know how to make myself
obeyed: It is a gross error to suppose that I have not a right to bring
to judgment whom I think proper and where I please." The king himself
asked the judges for their opinion. [_Isambert, Recueil des anciennes
Lois Francaises,_ t. xvi.] "Sir," replied Counsellor Pinon, dean of the
grand chamber, "for fifty years I have been in the Parliament, and I
never saw anything of this sort; M. de La Valette had the honor of
wedding a natural sister of your Majesty, and he is, besides, a peer
of France; I implore you to remove him to the jurisdiction of the
Parliament." "Your opinion!" said the king, curtly. "I am of opinion
that the Duke of La Valette be removed to be tried before the
Parliament." "I will not have that; it is no opinion." "Sir, removal is
a legitimate opinion." "Your opinion on the case!" rejoined the king,
who was beginning to be angry; "if not, I know what I must do."
President Bellievre was even bolder. "It is a strange thing," said he to
Louis XIII.'s face, to see a king giving his vote at the criminal trial
of one of his subjects; hitherto kings have reserved to themselves the
rights of grace, and have removed to their officers' province the
sentencing of culprits. Could your Majesty bear to see in the dock a
nobleman, who might leave your presence only for the scaffold? It is
incompatible with kingly majesty." "Your opinion on the case!" bade the
king. "Sir, I have no other opinion." The Duke of La Valette had taken
refuge in England: he was condemned and executed in effigy. The
attorney-general, Matthew Mold, "did not consider it his business to
carry out an execution of that sort: "