them as chance or influence might direct. Under each there were a number
of public offices, called bureaux, where business was prepared, and
where the smaller matters were practically settled. By the royal
councils and their subordinate public offices, France was governed to an
extent and with a minuteness hardly comprehensible to any one not
accustomed to centralized government.

The councils did nothing in their own name. The king it was who
nominally settled everything with their advice. The final decision of
every question was supposed to rest with the monarch himself. Every
important matter was in fact submitted to him. Thus in the government of
the country, the king could at any moment take as much of the burden
upon his own shoulders as they were strong enough to bear.

The legislative power was exercised by the councils. It was a question
not entirely settled whether their edicts possessed full force of law
without the assent of the high courts or parliaments. But with the
councils rested, at least, all the initiative of legislation. The
process of lawmaking began with them, and by them the laws were shaped
and drafted.

They also possessed no small part of the judiciary power. The custom of
removing private causes from the regular courts, and trying them before
one or another of the royal councils, was a great and, I think, a
growing one. This appellate jurisdiction was due in theory partly to the
doctrine that the king was the origin of justice; and partly to the idea
that political matters could not safely be left to ordinary tribunals.
The notion that the king owes justice to all his subjects and that it is
an act of grace, perhaps even a duty on his part, to administer it in
person when it is possible to do so, is as old as monarchy itself.