lit de justice

From French lit de justice, referring to the throne occupied by the king when sitting in one of his judicial courts. Compare earlier bed of justice.

lit de justice (plural lits de justice)

1. (history) A special parliamentary session headed by the king in pre-Revolutionary France, where royal edicts could be forcibly registered.
   • 2001, Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette:

     They would then be officially registered by edicts of the King in that special process, the lit de justice (which could also be used to enforce edicts that the Parlement resisted).

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 300:

     The Parlement's remonstrances were not effective, and the Six Acts were enforced by a lit de justice in March 1776.

   • 2015, Robert J Knecht, Francis I and Sixteenth-Century France, Routledge:

     This, however, is only a hypothesis which leaves out of account the special circumstances that led to the lit de justice of 24 July.

   • 2024, Mehmet Baha Karan, A History of Banks, Springer, page 147:

     A decision of a lit de justice could only be stamped by the Parliament.

From the fact that the king originally sat on an impromptu bed of cushions.

• IPA^(key): /li d(ə) ʒys.tis/

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lit de justice m (plural lits de justice)

1. (historical) bed of justice (special parliamentary session headed by the king in pre-Revolutionary France, where royal edicts could be forcibly registered)