(_Conseil d'Etat_); financial matters to the chamber of
accounts; and the hearing of cases of heresy, wills, legacies, and dowries
to the prelates. But in opposition to the wise edict of 1295, he
determined that Jews should be excluded from Parliament, and prelates from
the palace of justice; by which latter proceeding he was depriving justice
of the abilities of the most worthy representatives of the Gallican
Church. But Philippe le Bel and his successors, while incessantly
quarrelling either with the aristocracy or with the clergy, wanted the
great judicial bodies which issued the edicts, and the urban or municipal
magistrates--which, being subject to re-election, were principally
recruited from among the bourgeois--to be a common centre of opposition to
any attempt at usurpation of power, whether on the part of the Church, the
nobility, or the crown.

The Great Days of Troyes (_dies magni Trecenses_), the assizes of the
ancient counts of Champagne, and the exchequer of Normandy, were also
organized by Philipe le Bel; and, further, he authorised the maintenance
of a Parliament at Toulouse, a court which he solemnly opened in person on
the 10th of January, 1302. In times of war the Parliament of Paris sat
once a year, in times of peace twice. There were, according to
circumstances, during the year two, three, or four sittings of the
exchequer of Normandy, and two of the Great Days of Troyes, tribunals
which were annexed to the Parliament of Paris, and generally presided over
by one of its delegates, and sometimes even by the supreme head of that
high court. At the King's council (Fig. 304) it was decided whether a case
should be reserved for the Parliament of Paris, or passed on either to the
exchequer or to the Great Days of Troyes.

As that advanced reformer, Philippe le Bel, died before the institutions
he had established had taken root, for many years, even down to the time
of Louis XI., a continual conflict for supremacy was waged between the
Parliament of Paris and the various courts of the kingdom--between the
counts and the Parliament, and between the latter and the King, which,
without lessening the dignity of the crown, gradually tended to increase
the influence which the judges possessed. Immediately on the accession of
Louis le Hutin, in 1314, a reaction commenced--the higher clergy
re-entered Parliament; but Philippe le Long took care that the laity
should be in a majority, and did not allow that in his co