The most precise formulation of the organic law of the French monarchy which I have found is the protest of the princes, signed April 4, 1771, and directed against the _Maupeou Parlement_: “We, the undersigned, consider that the French monarchy has been sustained, together with the glory, the splendor, and the power which it has enjoyed for so many centuries only by the maintenance of the primitive laws which are inherent in it, and form its title (droit) and essence; that the liberty belonging to every Frenchman, the title and the ownership of his property, that of inheriting from fathers or of receiving from relatives or friends, without being able to be deprived or hindered, otherwise than by the legal application of law for some crime previously and competently judged, and not by arbitrary and absolute will, are not the only rights of the nation and of the subjects nor the only fundamental laws of the monarchy; that the right of Frenchmen, one of the most useful to the monarch and one of the most precious to his subjects, is to have certain bodies of citizens, perpetual and irremovable, acknowledged in all times by the kings and by the nation, who under whatever form and name they have existed, concentrated in themselves the general right of every subject to invoke the laws, to demand their rights, and to have recourse to the Prince; whose most important functions have always been to be charged with watching over the maintenance of the established laws, to weigh in new laws their utility or the dangers of contradictions which might occur with the old laws, to verify them, and to represent to the sovereign all that is prejudicial to the rights of his subjects or to the primordial and constitutive laws of his kingdom ...; that this necessary surety cannot exist without irremovability of the title of those to whom are confided so important functions, that they have always been regarded as one of the principal safeguards of public liberty against the abuse of arbitrary power; that they are an integral part of the constitution of the State, and are found as much as any other law in the order of the fundamental laws of the monarchy.”[72] However, the apparent attempt to be explicit here originates primarily, not in a desire to state distinctly the constitutional law, but rather to protect the prerogatives of the _Parlements_ by coupling them with certain principles generally recognized as inviolable.