Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/327

 A Celebrated Legal Corporation BY ROY TEMPLE HOUSE PROFESSOR IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA LAST December the Barreau, the Paris Bar Association, celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of its re-establishment; but this later epoch of its existence has been of short dura-tion compared to the period before the Revolution so rudely interrupted its career. As early as the latter part of the thirteenth century we have a record of the existence of a "College of Advo cates," which, it is true, included in its earlier stages not only the pleaders but the notaries, and which was very closely connected with the Parlament, or Col lege of Magistrates. The organization was essentially like the other trades guilds of the period, with St. Nicholas for its patron and the ninth of May for its sacred day. The Parlament regulated the subsidiary Association by means of a carefully-graduated system of pun ishments, fixed fines, discretionary fines, expulsion from the session, suspension of the privilege of pleading, permanent withdrawal of that privilege, imprison ment. It seems that these penalties were very rarely inflicted, since the conduct of the legal profession in those days was, if not exemplary, very easily regulated by a hint from the bench. Even the cut of the pleaders' beards was kept under surveillance. The magis trates followed the royal fashion, which changed from time to time. First it was the clean-shaven face, then the full beard a la Henri IV, then the little Louis XIV moustache; and the Barreau was expected to follow the Parlament, as the Parlament followed His Majesty. A document of early date warns certain

young advocates from appearing in court with defiant moustaches, "trained in the Turkish fashion." Lawyers and magistrates wore a long scarlet robe trimmed with ermine (which was gen erally of feline origin, whence Rabelais' qualification, "furred cats," which is synonymous with "pettifoggers"). On the rare occasions when a lawyer suffered degradation, his furred bonnet was pub licly taken away from him, as a degraded officer loses his epaulets and sword today. The relations between the two cor porations seem to have been very cordial and intimate. We read of instances where the older counsellors were invited to sit on the bench with the regularlyconstituted magistrates and aid them in the conduct of their cases. The magistracy was recruited from the sister body, and the two organizations were thus practically one. But in the sixteenth century was insti tuted the practice of selling at auction the Parlament positions. Magistrates were no longer, as it were, graduated from the Barreau, and the bonds were loosened. Unauthorized solicitors found it easier to gain a hearing and to take the bread from the mouths of the reg ular members of the corporation; so that suspicion and dissatisfaction be came much more frequent. But a sur prising degree of sympathy existed through the years, as is shown by the fact that when the Parlament was exiled to the little city of Pontoise, in 1720, the Barreau refused to follow their magis trates, declaring that their duty held