Religion and Royal Justice in Early Modern France by Diane C. Margolf;

Author:Diane C. Margolf; [Margolf, Diane C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS013000 History / Europe / France
ISBN: 9781935503668
Publisher: PennStateUP
Published: 2017-04-12T05:00:00+00:00

Rutvelt and Andrix had denounced Vescure to a local magistrate, claiming that he had gotten Rutvelt pregnant. With the help of two huissiers (who threatened to kill him if he resisted), they forced Vescure to sign several documents that he allegedly did not understand because of his youth and his unfamiliarity with the French language. Vescure portrayed both women as “disreputable persons of no consequence who barely gain their living by selling beer and housing the captains of foreign ships,” describing Rutvelt as a prostitute who had seduced several other young men.65 In this case, however, the Chambre de l’Edit rejected the story of scheming women who had brought about a young man’s downfall with a secret, unsuitable [120] marriage. The magistrates sentenced Vescure to pay Rutvelt 3000 livres to help her marry, 2700 livres to support her child, and another 400 livres in alms.66

Cases of rapt and clandestine marriage illustrate the Chambre de l’Edit’s efforts to enforce royal ordinances that prohibited such unions, as well as to remedy the social disorders associated with illicit marriages. Accusations of rapt might reveal connivance and subornation of minors; on the other hand, spouses or their relatives might use such charges to attack a valid marriage. When adjudicating this kind of family dispute, the chamber magistrates acted to abolish illegal unions and punish the parties involved, but they also sought to protect those who had not broken the law. In doing so, the court not only enforced the relevant laws, but also acknowledged a “public interest” in preserving social and familial order.

The Chambre de l’Edit occasionally received requests to dissolve marriages without reference to the crimes of rapt or clandestine marriage. The magistrates could not pronounce on the sacramental or spiritual aspect of a union, but they could invalidate its civil effects. In 1648, damoiselle Marie d’Hertoghe d’Orsmael requested that the court dissolve her marriage to Hermant de Riperda, which had taken place a year earlier, by declaring it to be “null and invalidly contracted” [nul et non valablement contracté]. After questioning Marie and hearing the royal prosecutor’s comments, the court granted her petition. Riperda was forbidden “to call himself her husband in future nor to attack her person and goods” and was condemned to costs and damages.67

The Chambre de l’Edit received a unique request to dissolve a marriage in November 1602, when Marthe Ranart appealed to have her union with Claude Pallier, sieur de Nitras, abolished on the grounds of impotence. Both canon law and Reformed disciplines recognized impotence as grounds for invalidating a marriage, but judges sometimes invoked an unusual mode of proof in such cases: the essai de congrès, in which a husband demonstrated his sexual capacity with his wife in the presence of witnesses.68 The seneschal of Angoulême had ordered Pallier and [121] Ranart to undergo this procedure in 1601, a decision which the Chambre de l’Edit confirmed a year later. Pallier refused to comply, however, and demanded a final judgment of the case. He and Ranart were summoned

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