In a series of conflicts between the court and the _Parlement_, into which we have not space to go exhaustively, the idea of fundamental or constitutional laws, of which the _Parlement_ declared itself the guardian, was repeatedly asserted; in the later period of this constitutional struggle, partly from the inability of the _Parlement_ to maintain its pretensions and partly from the development of the ideas of natural rights, of the rights of the people and of the rights of the nation, the desire for some more distinct definition of the power of the executive and the rights of the nation became manifest. The _Parlement_, composed of an aristocracy whose office was an hereditary possession, was naturally alert to extend its political influence; this extension of necessity brought it into conflict with the absolutism of the monarch. When a vigorous monarch, or skillful, energetic minister was at the head of affairs, the _Parlement_ was driven to humble obedience; but where there was a regency, a weak monarch, or a crisis, financial or administrative, the legal aristocracy reasserted and extended their pretensions. By a decree of February 21, 1641, Richelieu declared that the _parlements_ had been established only for granting justice, forbade any modification of decrees, ordered that in financial matters they might remonstrate once, but in administrative matters no remonstrance was allowed. During the remainder of Louis XIII’s reign they were obedient; but on the death of the king they immediately manifested their vitality by breaking his will and fixing the regency.[66] The _Fronde_ was the acme of the parliamentary resistance of this period. Louis XIV. did not forget this high-handed opposition, and consequently by two decrees he reduced this recalcitrant body to a strictly subordinate position for the last forty years of his reign.[67] But on the death of the _Grand Monarch_, the _Parlement_ showed its old spirit, annulled the will of the dead king concerning the regency, and for twenty years solemnly reiterated its vague constitutional claims in elaborate remonstrances. To this period of activity succeeded a time of comparative submission, in which the remonstrances are less prompt, haughty, and insistent. In 1748, the struggle renewed itself, and soon each side showed an ardent determination to conquer. The monarch resorted to _lits de justice_, to exile, and to the institution of irregular courts in order to provoke the magistrates to obey, while they answered with _iterative_ remonstrances and with refusals to dispense justice. From these remonstrances we are able to ascertain the pretensions of the _Parlement_, and to trace, though with much vagueness and incoherence, those principles which they called constitutional and fundamental. On the other hand, the responses of the king reveal the persistent claims of absolutism as to the royal source of law.