The magistrates based their shadowy claims upon different grounds. Frequently they appealed to precedent; as in 1718, the _Parlement_ of Paris declared that the most absolute kings, specifically Louis XIV., had _continually_ made use of the _Parlement_ for registration.[68] Justice and expediency were also invoked in their support. Already in the period of the regency, following closely after their submissiveness under Louis XIV, we find a hazy but general distinction between statutory and constitutional laws: “While we recognize, Sire, that you alone are lord and master and the sole lawgiver, and that there are laws which changing times, the needs of your people, the maintenance of order and the administration of your kingdom may oblige you to modify, substituting new ones according to the forms always observed in this state, we nevertheless believe it to be our duty to call to your attention the existence of laws as old as the monarchy, which are permanent and invariable, the guardianship of which was committed to you along with the crown itself.... It is by reason of the permanence of such laws that we have you as lord and master. It is this permanence which leads us to hope that the crown, having rested upon your head during a long, just, and glorious reign, will pass to your posterity for all time to come. In recent times [the _Parlement_ adds] it has been clearly shown how much France owes to the maintenance of these original laws of the state, and how important it is in the service of your Majesty that your _Parlement_, which is responsible to you and to the nation for their exact observations, should assiduously guard them against any encroachment.”[69] Here then is found in embryo the programme which the magistrates pursued in their legislative opposition to the crown. Nevertheless there is, judging from a comparison of these earlier remonstrances and those emitted later, some progress in the distinction of organic and of statutory law, and in the enumeration of the fundamental principles.