The duties of the _Parlements_ were primarily judicial, but in addition the _Parlement_ of Paris possessed legislative functions, inasmuch as the laws were sent to it for registration. The _Parlement_ by custom had come to make use of remonstrances to the king in case of laws distasteful to them. Though some monarchs, as Louis XI., XII., and Henry IV., had paid some regard to these remonstrances,[63] yet even in the sixteenth century the remonstrance did not stop the determined monarch, but the court was forced to yield to the royal wish in the _lit de justice_.[64] There existed, therefore, a singular balance of power between the _Conseil d’État_ and the _Parlement_. The _Conseil d’État_, as a _cour de cassation_, might annul the parliamentary remonstrance, and, inversely, the _Parlement_ might, in virtue of its power to register, check the laws originating from the _Conseil d’État_. It is worthy of remark, however, that even at this period, this normal distribution of functions was not so balanced and guarded as to avoid abnormal procedure. Neither the _States General_ nor the _Parlement_ was put wholly beyond the control of the executive. D’Avenel, expressing a view not uncommon in the earlier days of the Revolution of 1789, asserts in his remarkable book, _Richelieu et la monarchie absolue_, that France had a constitution before the ministry of the politic Richelieu, yet not thereafter,[65] but it is difficult to defend such a declaration. It may be admitted that the States-General were no longer convoked after 1614, that the _personnel_ of the nobility was altered, that the _Parlement_ was now and then forced into acquiescence to the royal will; nevertheless the two bodies, the _Conseil d’État_ and the _Parlement_, continued to function very nearly as before, and at times the _Parlement_ emerged from its submissiveness and haughtily asserted its pretensions.