Maréchaussée

The () were corps of soldiers in the armies of France initially put in charge of military policing and justice in the Middle Ages, and later extended to civilian responsibilities. They gradually coalesced into a police force with jurisdiction over the entire population on almost the entire territory of France. They retained powers of extraordinary justice (known as ''prévôtale'') until the French Revolution.

Reforms carried out in the 18th century created the first national police force. In 1791, the force was renamed the ''Gendarmerie nationale''. It is now one of the two national police forces of France, along with the ''Police nationale''.

Terminology

The term ''marshalcy'' is from the French , which is derived from Old French , meaning "the marshalcy." This derives from attested in 1287 meaning "royal household", and in 1465 as "the office of the marshal".

One account in the history of a small town in western France reports how the terminology was undergoing a change there at the beginning of the century. At that time, one could refer indistiguishably either to the " of the provost" or " of the " for example, but by 1720 invariably the latter expression was used.

History

Origins

With the Fall of the Roman Empire, officials in charge of police disappeared. With the rise of feudalism in France, policing powers formerly held by Roman officials were dispersed among a multitude of ''seigneurs''. Lords of their fiefs, the were all-powerful, including holding the power of justice over the peasants they controlled.

The origins of the Maréchaussée are difficult to determine exactly, but occurred sometime during the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). Claims that the origins go back to 1190 under Philip II in the creation of companies of "" during the Crusades are tenuous at best.

End of the Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages and to a lesser extent until the end of the Ancien Régime, the functions of the police and the justice system were closely intertwined. Kings, lords and high dignitaries rendered justice.

Constabulary

The Constable of France succeeded the Grand Seneschal in 1191 in the exercise of military powers and military justice on behalf of the king. The Constable gathered under him lieutenants bearing the title Marshal of France who led royal troops into battle and judged their actions. Each marshal had a provost () who headed a small contingent of (referred to as "" after 1501) to police the soldiers under the marshal's command and administer justice. Rulings were dispensed in separate courts. Judgements on the acts of soldiers such as desertion, treason and disputes with the general population were rendered along with punishments in the Court of the Marshals which existed by 1317.

These courts being itinerant as they followed the army, lacked territorial jurisdiction and were composed of the marshal's particular provost and . A second court that existed by 1321 was in the personal jurisdiction of the Constable and oversaw cases involving a point of honor ("”) or quarrels between soldiers regarding reputation, personal cases of the king's and the conduct and service of the provosts of the marshals and their archers. The jurisdictions of the Constable and the marshals were itemized in the Ordinance of 1356.

Provostal tribunals

The tribunals were seated at the in the Palais de Justice in Paris in the late 14th century under Charles V in part through his June 1373 edict. After the betrayal of the Constable Louis of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol in 1475, then king Louis XI removed the oft-vacant post of Constable from the head of the constabulary and moved the resolution of points of honor to the Court of Marshals. Some time after, the courts merged under the name, , which it retained even after the post of Constable was abolished in 1627. In this new court, the marshals rendered sentences alone.

The provosts' ambit expanded to include policing vagabonds and rendering justice in the provinces. Their decisions could be appealed up to the marshals and even the Constable. In the 14th century, only one marshal and marshal's provost existed until sometime around 1357, when war and unrest began to increase their numbers through the 15th century. Six provosts of marshals and up to 300 archers for the marshals and Constable would be recorded by the start of the reign of Francis I in the early 16th century.

The were initially also in charge of cracking down on misdeeds committed by mercenaries who formed roving bands of looters known as the " free companies" (), but over time the gradually became more sedentary. After the appearance in 1445 of the which were the first permanent paid army in France, the was no longer satisfied following armies around on campaign, and began to establish itself permanently on the territory under Louis XII.

16th century

Under Francis I, there were sporadic wars between France and her neighbors, and during the idle periods between wars soldiers would roam the countryside, robbing the locals and plundering the villages. Francis assigned provosts ()—an assistant seconded to a military authority—to the marshals () to recruit detachments of officers and troops to help stop the soldiers' activities. These special military forces roamed the countryside for up to two days at a time, catching and sentencing evildoers from among the military, and later, among the civilian population as well. They also had the power to sentence perpetrators they had caught, with no possibility of appeal. These forces had no central organization, but took the collective name because the various detachments were assigned to the marshals of the army.

By a royal decision of Francis I on 25 January 1536 (Edict of Paris), the mission of the was extended beyond policing the armies to include persons who did not fall under the jurisdiction of the presidial court: vagabonds, wandering foreigners, armed robbery, and highwaymen. From that time on, the was responsible for establishing and prosecuting provostal cases (i.e., cases that fell under the jurisdiction of the provost), but in fact it intervened in many cases that fell under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. The provosts now had a fixed residence.

17th century

After the suppression of the Constabulary in 1626 by Louis XIII, the Constabulary and Marshalcy Tribunal was placed under the command of the Marshal of France.

According to the Criminal Ordinance of 1670 under Louis XIV, certain crimes identified as "royal cases" were investigated by the but judged by a chamber of the Parliament dealing with criminal matters, while the others, identified as "provost cases" (), were judged in first and last instance by the The act broadened the jurisdiction of the Maréchaussée to include burglary and popular disorder and confirmed their power to arrest any offender. It also sought to combat abuse of their authority by putting enforcement under the supervision of local royal courts. The powers of the Maréchaussée evolved to include policing of cabarets and road and waterway transport.

Louis XIV's administration profited from selling lieutenant-general posts to head up policing for Paris (created in 1667) and following a 1699 ordinance, for principal towns to oligarchies or feudal lords who sought the titles from vanity or an interest in the job.

18th century

The suffered from numerous problems—an uneven presence, lack of oversight, low number of personnel—aggravated by corruption of the officers and poor salaries. When Louis XIV died in 1714, it was estimated they had only 1,000 men to police all of rural France with companies of based in larger towns with at times overlappping jurisdictions under the charge of commanders holding a variety of venal titles.

These and other problems led to a series of reforms (1720, 1731, 1768, 1769, 1778) beginning on March 9, 1720 propelled by the Secretary of State for War Claude Le Blanc to make it more effective, reinforce its military character, and improve coverage in the countryside. A decree issued the day after his first edict by the Regency that followed the death of Louis XIV further focused the Maréchaussée on the suppression of mendicity and vagabondage. Although the level of these problems had reduced at least in part due to the economic recovery after the end of the wars and the 1709-10 famine as well as existing Maréchaussée efforts, the Ordinance expressed concern about the great number remaining who "beg with insolence, more often through idleness than genuine necessity.

Le Blanc appointed two paymasters in the Maréchaussée in February 1719 to buy back command positions that had been sold or inherited and abolished the old companies and titles in favor of a more structured and hierarchical system. The Maréchaussée was symbolically placed under the administrative authority of the marshals and the elite , a heavy cavalry corps integrated into the household of the king and later dissolved on 1 April 1788. However, it was in practice answerable to Le Blanc's office.

The edict of March 1720 profoundly reorganized the Maréchaussée and accentuated its territorial nature. It created a provost court and a company of marshalcy in each of the thirty-six governments or provinces (). Maréchaussée companies were separate with one in Lorraine being independent until 1767 after the region's incorporation into France. Le Blanc placed a Provost at the head of each one, residing in the chief town of the province, who could be placed at the disposal of the Intendant. The provostships () were divided into lieutenancies, with a lieutenant in each city heading up a presidial court, which in turn were subdivided into squads () of four to five men distributed along the main roads. Each squad had to watch over about ten kilometers of road on either side of its headquarters.
The "arrondissement" or "district" of a squad also included several dozen rural parishes in the area. In 1730, there were 30 companies in as many departments, with 3,288 men in 567 squads. The annual budget was 1,846,300 .

From 1760, the junior officers () under the provosts became known as "cavaliers". The Royal Order of 25 February 1768 created 200 additional squads and reorganized their location, in order to achieve a more fine-grained and logical coverage of the territory. Nevertheless, in 1779 the Maréchaussée had no more than 3,300 men divided into 34 companies, one for each region (including Corsica), plus one for Paris and the Île-de-France, and another to ensure the king's security when he traveled, and 800 squads for the entire Kingdom.

After the reform of 1778, all thirty-three companies formed a single corps of six divisions with a total of 4,114 men on the eve of the Revolution, thus forming the first national police force in France.

Revolutionary period

During the revolutionary period, the commanders generally placed themselves under the local constitutional authorities. Despite their connection with the king, they were therefore perceived as a force favoring the reforms of the French National Assembly.

As a result, the was not disbanded but simply renamed as the . Its personnel remained unchanged, and the functions of the force remained much as before. However, from this point, the gendarmerie, unlike the , became a fully militarized force. During the revolutionary period, the main force responsible for policing was the National Guard. Although the had been the main police force of the , the gendarmerie was initially a full-time auxiliary to the National Guard militia.

In 1791 the newly named was grouped into 28 divisions, each commanded by a colonel responsible for three départements. In turn, two companies of gendarmes under the command of captains were based in each department. This territorial basis of organization continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

See also

* Criminal justice system of France
* Criminal law in France
* Judiciary of France
* Law enforcement in France
* National Gendarmerie

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