CHAPTER XXXIX .-- --LOUIS XIII., CARDINAL RICHELIEU, AND THE PROVINCES.
The story has been told of the conspiracies at court and the repeated checks suffered by the great lords in their attempts against Cardinal Richelieu.

With the exception of Languedoc, under the influence of its governor the Duke of Montmorency, the provinces took no part in these enterprises; their opposition was of another sort; and it is amongst the parliaments chiefly that we must look for it.
"The king's cabinet and his bed-time business (_petit coucher_) cause me more embarrassment than the whole of Europe causes me," said the cardinal in the days of the great storms at court; he would often have had less trouble in managing the parliaments and the Parliament of Paris in particular, if the latter had not felt itself supported by a party at court.

For a long time past a pretension had been put forward by that great body to give the king advice, and to replace towards him the vanished states-general.

"We hold the place in council of the princes and barons, who from time immemorial were near the person of the kings," was the language used, in 1615, in the representations of the Parliament, which had dared, without the royal order, to summon the princes, dukes, peers, and officers of the crown to deliberate upon what was to be done for the service of the king, the good of the state, and the relief of the people.
This pretension on the part of the parliaments was what Cardinal Richelieu was continually fighting against.

He would not allow the intervention of the magistrates in the government of the state.