by Wikipedia France
Accessed: 9/26/20
A New Manuscript: BN Fonds Francais 19117
In the meanwhile, no one seems to have noticed the existence, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, of a third manuscript of the EzV. The catalogue: Ancien Saint-Germain Francais III. Nos. 18677-20064 du Fonds Francais (by L Auvray and H. Omont, Paris: Leroux, 1900), has the following entry: "19117, 'Zozur Bedo'; traduction francaise du YADJOUR VEDA,4c livre des Vedas. En huit livres. XVIIe-XVIIIe. Papier. ) 58 pages. 208 sur 205 millimetres. Cartonne. (Saint-Germain, Harlay 515.)." This is, indeed, another copy of the EzV, in eight books.
The manuscripts of the Harlay family were donated, by Achille IV de Harlay (died 23 July 1717) to Louis-Germain de Chauvelin (1685-1762), on 11 August 1716.85 The condition attached to the donation said that the manuscripts should stay with de Chauvelin and his male descendants until one of them died without further male descendants "revetus de charge de judicature." [Google translate: load bearing judicature.] At that time the manuscripts were to become the property of the Benedictines of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Chauvelin not only allowed the members of the Order to use the materials while he still held the usufruct; he also enriched the collection with documents which were his own full property.86 On 19 March 1755 he decided to transfer the collection to Saint-Germain, together with those manuscripts of which he himself was the owner.87 The manuscripts were transferred from the castle of Grosbois to the abbey. They remained a special fund while deposited there, until they were transferred, together with the other manuscripts of Saint-Germain, to the Bibliotheque Nationale, in 1865.88 There the entire collection was integrated into the "Troisieme Serie" of the Fonds Francais: manuscripts 15370 to 20064.89
These data do not entirely solve the problem of the origin of the third EzV manuscript. The donation of 11 August 1716 was accompanied by a catalogue which is, however, lost, with the result that it is no longer possible to ascertain which particular manuscripts were added to the collection by de Chauvelin.90 We can only presume that the EzV did not belong to the original collection of 1716, and that it was one of the latest additions; it is no. 515 in a collection of altogether 519 items. But, even then, the third EzV manuscript must have belonged to the collection by 1755, five years before Maudave brought his copy to Europe.
The principal problem that remains unsolved in all this is that in two handwritten catalogues at the Bibliotheque Nationale, manuscript "Harlay 515" is described as "Melanges cont. 110. pieces": in the "Catalogue des manuscrits de Monsieur** [Chauvelin]",91 and in the "Catalogue des mss. de la bibliotheque de feu Mre Achilles de Harlay, premier president du Parlement de Paris, passes depuis dans la bibliotheque de feu messire Louis- Germain Chauvelin, ancien garde des sceaux, et actuellement dans la bibliotheque de l'abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Pres, a Paris, 1762."92 [Google translate: Catalog of mss. of the library of the late Mre Achilles de Harlay, first Speaker of Parliament of Paris, since passed in the library of the late Messire Louis-Germain Chauvelin, former Keeper of the Seals, and currently in the library of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in Paris, 1762.]
Even assuming that the EzV manuscript did belong to the private collection of Louis-Germain de Chauvelin on 19 March 1755, it is no longer possible to investigate how and when he acquired it. The important fact is that it is the oldest EzV manuscript in Europe, even though no one ever took notice of it. It also shows that the terminus ante quem [Google translate: term before he] for the composition of the EzV, which until now was 1759 -- the time when Maudave left India --, has to be advanced with at least five years and possibly by more than that.
The new manuscript further complicates the problem of the original title of the French text. As I said earlier, the title in the manuscript is "Zozur Bedo." Yet, on two occasions on which the title is mentioned in the body of the text (pp. 214, 215), the scribe writes "leZourvedan" This seems to suggest that the copyist was familiar with the term "Zozur," but, at the same time, it is a clear indication that his original read "l ezourvedan" or ''l'ezourvedan.''
The Harlay manuscript will play an important role in the new edition of the text.
-- Ezourvedam: A French Veda of the Eighteenth Century, Edited with an Introduction by Ludo Rocher
Achille de Harlay
Achille de Harlay, in Charles Perrault, "Des hommes illustres who appeared in France during this century" (1700)
Functions: Attorney General at the Parliament of Paris; First President of the Parliament of Paris
Titles of nobility: Count of Beaumont
Biography
Birth: March 7, 1536, Paris
Death: 23 October 1616 (at 80), Paris
Nationality: Kingdom of France Kingdom of France
Activity: Politician
Dad: Christophe de Harlay, Lord of Beaumont
Mother: Catherine Du Val
Spouse: Catherine de Thou
Child: Christopher II of Harlay
Other information
Owner of: Place Dauphine
Place Dauphine under the reign of Henri IV, by Chastillon. Claude Chastillon - Drawn from the French Topography or representations of several towns, villages, chasteaux, plans, fortresses, vestiges of antiquity, modern houses and others of the kingdom of France, Boisseau, Paris, 1655
Master: Louis Duret
Primary works: "Custom of Orleans", in 1583
Several Achilles Harlay held prominent seats of judges in Parliament of Paris in the late xvith century to the early xviith century1.
Achilles Ist Harlay
Achilles Ist Harlay is a magistrate French, born in Paris on March 7, 1536 and dead the 23 October 1616, first president of the Parliament of Paris from 1582 to 1611.
Son of Christophe de Harlay, Lord of Beaumont (now a commune of Beaumont-du-Gâtinais), president with mortar of the Parliament of Paris, and of Catherine Du Val.
Under the Old French Regime, mortar presidents are chamber presidents within parliaments.
Each parliament was chaired by a “first president” appointed by the king and was divided into several chambers (civil chamber, penal chamber, commercial chamber, chamber of maritime commerce, etc.). The most prestigious of these rooms is called the “Grand Chambre”.
The president who presides over it is the Mortar President, named after the “mortier” (a black velvet cap edged with gold).A toque (/toʊk/[1] or /tɒk/) is a type of hat with a narrow brim or no brim at all. Toques were popular from the 13th to the 16th century in Europe, especially France....
Judicial
• A toque, or sometimes touge, was the traditional headgear of various French magistrates.
• A low type in black velvet, called mortier (also rendered in English as mortarboard), was used by the président à mortier, president of a parlement (the royal highest court in a French province), and of the members of two of the highest central courts, cour de cassation and cour des comptes.
Andrea Mantegna: Ludovico III Gonzaga (detail from the frescoes of the Camera degli Sposi, 1465–74).
The square academic cap, graduate cap, cap, mortarboard (because of its similarity in appearance to the mortarboard used by brickmasons to hold mortar) or Oxford cap, is an item of academic dress consisting of a horizontal square board fixed upon a skull-cap, with a tassel attached to the centre. In the UK and the US, it is commonly referred to informally in conjunction with an academic gown as a "cap and gown". It is also sometimes termed a square, trencher, or corner-cap. The adjective academical is also used....
The mortarboard is generally believed by scholars to have developed from the biretta, a similar-looking hat worn by Roman Catholic (and High Church Anglican) clergy. The biretta itself may have been a development of the Roman pileus quadratus, a type of skullcap with superposed square and tump (meaning small mound). A reinvention of this type of cap is known as the Bishop Andrewes cap. The Italian biretta is a word derived from the Medieval Latin birretum from the Late Latin birrus "large hooded cloak", which is perhaps of Gaulish origin, or from Ancient Greek πυρρός pyrrhos "flame-colored, yellow".
The cone-shaped red (seldom in black) biretta, related to the ancient Etruscan tutulus and the Roman pileus, was used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to identify humanists, students, artists, and learned and blooming youth in general. The shape and the colour conveyed meaning: Red was considered for a long time the royal power, whether because it was difficult to afford vestments of such solid and brilliant dye or because the high symbolic meaning of blood and life, thus the power over life and death.
It is no accident that the capo (captain) headwear is found so often in Renaissance paintings: for example the highly famous one by Piero della Francesca of Federico da Montefeltro with his red cap. Campano wrote about these hats in his Life of Niccolò Fortebraccio, "he used to wear a red and high hat, the higher from the head the wider it became." Federico and Niccolò were Condottieri. The same cap is seen on Bartolomeo Colleoni, commander of the Venetian Armies in 1454, on the Duke Ludovico III Gonzaga and on John Hawkwood in his equestrian monument by Paolo Uccello. This cap as worn by the leading Italian nobles at the end of the fifteenth century became a symbol of their military and civil powers over Italian cities at a time when the whole of Europe was going to be deeply transformed by Italian influences.
-- Square academic cap, by Wikipedia
• A red toque is sometimes worn by German judges, primarily by justices on the Federal Constitutional Court.
-- Toque, by Wikipedia
The Universal Dictionary of Furetiere accurate at time of Louis XIV, there are ten presidents mortar to the Parliament of Paris, including the first President1.
The office of president with mortar is marketable, that is to say freely purchasable and transferable, under the condition of paying a transfer tax to the sovereign.However, to actually exercise the office, one must be approved by parliament in the form of a legal review. The office is therefore theoretically reserved for the holder of university degrees in law. The office confers, at the end of twenty years of exercise, hereditary nobility, but the system of heredity means that it is exercised, most often, only by people who are already noble.
In contemporary judicial justice, the equivalent of this function within the courts of appeal is that of “First president of the chamber”3.
-- Mortar chair, by Wikipedia
In 1558, he became adviser to the Parliament of Paris.
On May 30, 1568, he married Catherine de Thou, daughter of the first president Christophe de Thou, with whom he had a son, Christophe II de Harlay.
Christophe de Thou (or Christofle at the time) is a French magistrate born in Paris on October 28, 1508 1, died in Pontorson on 1st November 1582, first president of the Parliament of Paris from December 14, 1562 to his death.
Christophe de Thou, first president of the Parliament of Paris. Print by the engraver Léonard Gaultier, Pourtraictz of several illustrious men who have flory in France since the year 1500 until now.
Christophe de Thou was the son of Augustin de Thou, Lord of Bonneuil and of Villebon, president with mortar of the Parliament of Paris2, died on March 6, 1554, and of Claude de Marle de Versigny (daughter of Jean de Marle, Lord of Versigny, and Anne du Drac). The couple [WIFE!] had 21 children, 14 of whom died in infancy.
-- Christophe de Thou, by Wikipedia
In 1572, he resumed his father's office as president with mortar in Parliament, which the latter had resigned on August 30, 1572. On the death of his father-in-law Christophe de Thou in 1582, Henri III appointed him the first president of the Parliament of Paris.
Statue of Achilles de Harlay on the facade of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris by Martial Thabard
He has remained famous for the firmness he showed during the Eighth Religious War on May 12, 1588 facing Duke Henri de Guise during the Day of the Barricades in Paris, in an unsuccessful attempt to restore order for the benefit of King Henry III. He replied to the Duke de Guise: "It is great pity when the valet drives out the master. Besides, my soul belongs to God, my heart belongs to my king, and my body is in the hands of the wicked, let them do what they want!"2. Embastellated by the leaguers and replaced by Barnabé Brisson as first president, he returned to his duties with the accession of Henri IV.
Chamfort attributed to him this caustic remark launched at Parliament: "If these gentlemen who talk did not make more noise than these gentlemen who sleep, that would greatly accommodate these gentlemen who listen"3.
In 1598, Achille Ist Harlay buys two-thirds of the property of the Abbey of Saint-Denis in Beaune-la-Rolande with its jurisdiction rights for 16,666 crowns.
Defending the Church and its affiliates was a high priority for the king, who initiated numerous acts of royal intervention against the nobles and local royal officials in his efforts to retain ecclesiastical support. First, Louis VI guarded the clergymen from local lords, who often stole property from monasteries and churches. He later defended the abbeys and priories from the financial burdens of heavy taxes imposed by royal officials. The king was so adamant about maintaining the security of the monasteries that he destroyed the fortifications of a traditional royal supporter, Burchard of Montmorency, who had refused to accept the decision of the royal court in a case of dispute with the Abbey of Saint-Denis...
The Church often offered political support to the king through its ecclesiastical authority. In politics, “archbishops and bishops from northern and north-eastern sees were among the Capetians’ most important supporters” because of the crown’s ability to protect them.89 High-ranking church officials supported the monarch by applying ecclesiastical pressure on the opposing castellans.90 Abbot Suger described how the clergy met at a council in Beauvais to renounce Thomas of Marle as a noble through the means of an anathema supported by a papal legate.91 Church officials had excommunicated another local lord named Leo before he died along with his men during the siege of his castle, Meung-sur-Loire, in 1103.92 Hugh Balver of Laversine received excommunication for his hostile acts towards a town under the ownership of the Abbey of Saint-Denis.93 A dispute arose between the king and Hugh Le Puiset in 1111, and a royal charter described the conflict as a “feudal and ecclesiastic coalition against Hugh Le Puiset.”94 This display of ecclesiastical assistance demonstrates the willingness of the Church to support the king against insubordinate nobles, especially those who had threatened the interests of the monasteries....
Learning from his earlier mistake, Louis VI was later careful to justify his acts of warfare against the nobles through legal means. One of the first nobles the French monarch challenged was Burchard of Montmorency, who had attacked the lands of the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Before advancing against Burchard and his allies, Louis VI called the baron to his court to stand trial for his actions. On another occasion, the king fought Mathew of Beaumont for improperly seizing the castle of Luzarches from his father-in-law. The king advanced against Beaumont only after the Baron had not presented himself at the king’s court upon royal command. Even the monarch’s half-brother, Philip, was not exempt. After granting two castles to Philip, the king summoned him to court to answer claims that he had mistreated the poor. In 1109, Louis VI called Haimo of Berry to court for a case involving the absconding baron in an inheritance suit. Military forces, led personally by the king, captured Haimo in Berry, brought him to trial, and finished the inheritance case.111...
Another suit occurred between Hugh Le Puiset and Abbot Bernier of Saint Florentin in Bonneval. Here, the baron forced multiple payments of gîte on the abbey for its lands of Baignolet, and the king ruled in favor of the Church again, declaring that Puiset could ask for the gîte only once a year.126 Earlier in the reign, Louis VI had sent word to all of the ecclesiastical and lay barons in the domain “that he concedes to the abbey of Saint-Denis a market at Touri (on Beauce), and abolishes the oppressive customs established on the land of this abbey by the seigneurs of Puiset.”127 For the second time, the king forced Hugh Le Puiset to abandon his claims to unjust customs publicly.128 These examples show that the nobility were no longer completely disregarding royal commands and court decisions. The king’s military campaigns contrasted with Philip I’s lack of enthusiasm towards the end of his reign. If the castellans did not adhere to royal orders, they at least had to weigh the gains and losses of potential retaliation for their insubordination. Lords began to understand that ignoring the crown now presented the possibility of military attacks from the throne.
-- The Consolidation of Local Authority Through the Defense of the church in the Royal Domain of France Under Louis VI (1101-1137), by Paul Westley Bush
In 1607, Achille Ist Harlay receives the privilege to develop the Place Dauphine in Paris, by concession of King4.
It was he who judged Ravaillac in 1610.
François Ravaillac is a French regicide born in 1577 in Angoulême and executed on May 27, 1610 in Place de Grève in Paris, for the assassination of Henri IV, King of France, on May 14, 1610.
A tormented spirit, brought up in hatred of the Huguenots, he was subject to frequent mystical visions in the years preceding his crime. During his trial he claims to have acted alone, accomplishing a divine mission. The members of his family suffer the consequences of his act....
He was sentenced to death by the Parliament of Paris 18 after a ten-day trial which concluded with the isolated act of a Catholic fanatic17. During his trial, he presented his act as a divine mission19 and claimed to have acted alone. Subject to issue four times20, he led the May 27 Place de Grève where he was quartered after long hours of torture. Its members reduced to ashes are thrown to the wind while the hysterical crowd disperses the rest of his body21...
The family's property is seized, his house in Angoulême is razed, with a ban on using the land for building. Regicide of siblings are forced to change their name on pain of death18.
His parents are forced into exile. They settled in the small isolated hamlet of Rosnay, currently located in the commune of Lavigny in Franche-Comté. As Franche-Comté was then part of the Holy Roman Empire, they thus escaped threats. The name of Ravaillac is gradually transformed into Ravaillard and Ravoyard4.
-- Francois Ravaillac, by Wikipedia
He resigned his charge on March 29, 1611 during the investigation of the Escoman affair: in 1611, charges were brought against the Duke of Épernon, Jean-Louis Nogaret of La Valette, concerning his involvement in the assassination of King Henry IV. The accuser, Mademoiselle Jacqueline d'Escoman5, companion of the Marquise de Verneuil, implicates her mistress and accuses her of having organized the assassination with the help of Épernon. A trial conducted by a tribunal whose Achilles Ist Harlay is first president, hears the witnesses, including Verneuil and Épernon. The first (and only) arrested taken by the court is ultimately the continued detention of Mademoiselle d'Escoman. Fifteen days after the arrest, Harlay is retiring. On July 30, his successor sentences Escoman to life imprisonment for slander6.
The street Harlay, which limits the Paris courthouse west, was named in his honor. A statue of Achilles Ist Harlay is located on one of the facades of the City Hall of Paris7.
His descendants: a dynasty of magistrates in the Paris Parliament
• Achilles I st Harlay (1536-1616)
• His son, Christophe II de Harlay (born around 1570, died in 1615), Count of Beaumont, was advisor, then president of the Parliament of Paris (in 1582) and ambassador to England from 1602 to 1607. He married on June 3, 1599 Anne Rabot, lady of Illins and Hautefort.
o Their son, Achille II de Harlay, born in 1606, died on June 7, 1671, was count of Beaumont, adviser to the Parliament of Paris (1628-1635), master of requests (1635-1661), councilor of state. He married on October 18, 1638 Jeanne-Marie de Bellièvre (died on March 19, 1657 at the age of 40), daughter of Nicolas de Bellièvre, Lord of Grignon and mortar president of the Parliament of Paris.
Their son, Achille III de Harlay, born on1st August 1639, died July 23, 1712, Count of Beaumont, Lord of Grosbois, was King's Counsel to Parliament (1657-1667) then Attorney General (1667-1689) and finally First President of the Parliament of Paris8. He married on September 12, 1667 Anne-Madeleine de Lamoignon, daughter of Guillaume Ier de Lamoignon, who was also First President of the Parliament of Paris4.
Their son, Achille IV de Harlay, born on July 11, 1668, died July 23, 1717 9, Count of Beaumont, Marquis de Bréval, Counselor in Parliament (1689), Advocate General (1691), Counselor of State (1697). This is a small-son-great Achilles Ist Harlay2 . He got married on February 2, 1693 with Louise Renée de Louët (c. 1672-1749 10), only daughter of Robert-Louis du Louët, marquis de Coëtjunval (in Ploudaniel), dean of the Parliament of Brittany and Renée Le Borgne de Lesquiffiou, owner of the castle of Lesquivit in Dirinon.
Their only daughter, Louise-Madeleine de Harlay, born in 1694, died on September 7, 1749 11, married on September 7, 1711 Christian-Louis de Montmorency-Luxembourg, (born on February 9, 1675, died 23 November 1746 in Paris), Duke and Prince of Tingry, Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the King and of the Province of Flanders, Marshal of France4. At least six children are born from their union.
But by the death of the Maréchale de Montmorency in September 1749, "the elder branch of the House of Harlay, known as the Counts of Beaumont, and all this House [...] is reduced to a single person, who is Madame la President of Crevecœur, daughter of the late Mr. Harlay de Celly, State Councilor and granddaughter of Mr. Chancellor Boucherat."11
Sources
The Harlay family papers are kept in the National Archives under the number 394AP 12.
Notes and references
1. Julien Broch, "A conservative judicial body of the State: Parliament in the speeches of the First President Achille Ier de Harlay (1536-1611)", Justice et Etat, Proceedings of the AFHIP international conference (Aix-en-Provence, September 12 and 13, 2013), 2014, p. 85-107 (ISBN 978-2-7314-0956-7)
2. "Encyclopedia of the People of the World: Universal Directory of Sciences", volume 13, searchable [1] [archive]
3. Characters and Anecdotes, n°1164.
4. [2] [archive]
5. Henry IV "Political Assassination" [archive]
6. Files on Henry IV and other historical figures of royalty [archive]
7. [3] [archive]
8. [4]. [archive]
9. He is buried "in the cemetery of Saint-Paul, in Paris, as he had requested". Annals of the Historical & Archaeological Society of Gâtinais, 1911, p. 304.
10. She died at the Bellechasse convent at the age of 77 and was then buried in Beaumont-Du-Gâtinais. Mercure de France, May 1749, p. 229-230. Online. [archive]
11. Mercure de France, October 1749, p. 210-211. Online. [archive]
12. See the notice in the virtual inventory room of the National Archives [archive]
Appendices
Bibliography
• Achilles de Harlay, first president of the Parliament of Paris, in Charles Perrault, The illustrious men who appeared in France during this century, at Antoine Dezallier, 1700, volume 2, p. 51-52 (read online) [archive]
External links
• Authority records :
o Virtual international authority file
o International Standard Name Identifier
o National Library of France ( data )
o University documentation system
o Gemeinsame Normdatei
• data BnF: Achille de Harlay (1536-1616) [ archive ]