So many and such frequent squabbles, whether about points of jurisdiction or about the registration 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.