Lèse-majesté. There is the crime of divine lèse-majesté and human lèse-majesté.

The crime of divine lèse-majesté is an offence committed directly against God, such as apostasy, heresy, sorcery, simony, sacrilege and blasphemy.

This crime is surely one of the most detestable; therefore it is punished harshly, even sometimes by death. Some have thought that it was not a public crime and, consequently, the lord judges would know that; but since the welfare of the state requires that divine religion not be disturbed, one ought to consider this crime of divine lèse-majesté as a royal case.

The crime of human lèse-majesté is an offence committed against a king or other sovereign: This crime is also very serious, given that sovereigns are the image of God on earth, and that all power comes from God.

In England, one calls a crime of high treason what we call the crime of human lèse-majesté.

One can distinguish within the crime of human lèse-majesté, several counts or different degrees that make the crime more or less serious.

The first count, which is the most serious, is conspiracy or plot formed against the State or against the person of the Sovereign to kill him, either by the sword or by fire, by poison or otherwise.

The second count is when someone has drafted and broadcast libels and defamatory posters against the honor of the king, or to incite the people to sedition or rebellion.

The manufacture of counterfeit money, dueling, infraction of safe-conducts given by the prince to the enemy, his ambassadors or hostages, are also considered crimes of lèse-majesté.

Some authors distinguish three or four counts for lèse-majesté, others up to eight counts, which are as many different cases as which the majesty of the prince is offended, but in the matter of the crime of lèse-majesté, strictly speaking one can only distinguish two counts, as we have just explained.

All kinds of people are accepted as accusers in the matter of this crime, and one can be denounced and prosecuted by all kinds of people, even those deemed infamous: Even a son can accuse his father, and the father can accuse the son.

One can also enter into proof of this crime all sorts of people, even those declared enemies of the accused; but in this case one considers their depositions only as much as reason and justice allow; the confession or declaration of the accused suffices in this matter to result in condemnation.

All those who have engaged in the crime of lèse-majesté are punished; and even those who have knowledge of it and have not revealed it are equally guilty of the crime of lèse-majesté.

He who dares to make an attempt on the person of the king is treated as a parricide because kings are considered the common father of their people.

The sole intent of making an attempt against the state or prince is punishable by death when proven.

It is generally accepted that the knowledge of the crime of lèse-majesté in the first count belongs to parliament; the other counts are solely recognized as royal cases.

The crime of lèse-majesté in the first count is punishable by the harshest death, which is by being drawn and quartered.

The judgment on 29 September 1595 of Jean Castel, who wounded Henri IV with a knife to his face, declared him convicted of the crime of divine and human lèse-majesté in the first count for the very evil and very cruel parricide attempted on the person of the king. He was condemned to make amends and to say on his knees that he had regrettably and treasonably made this inhuman and very abominable parricide, and wounded the king with a knife to his face, and through false and damnable instruction had said that he was allowed to kill kings, and that King Henri IV, who was on the throne at the time, was not at all of the church until he had the approval of the pope. From there, he was led on a cart to the Place de Greve, where he was tortured on his arms and legs, and his right hand holding the knife with which he tried to commit this parricide was cut off, and afterwards his body was drawn and dismembered by four horses and his body parts were thrown into the fire and consumed, and his ashes were thrown to the winds; his possessions were collected and confiscated by the king. Before the execution he was put under ordinary and extraordinary torture in order to make him reveal his accomplices. The court also prohibited any person from pronouncing similar words anywhere which it declared to be scandalous, seditious, contrary to the word of God, and condemned them as heretical according to Holy Law.

The house of Jean Chastel, which was opposite the Porte des Barnabites, was razed; and in its place a pyramid was erected with inscriptions; it was knocked down in 1606.

The judgment on 27 March 1610 against Ravaillac for the parricide committed on the person of King Henri IV was given in the assembled grand chambre, tournelle and chambre de l’édit. The punishment to which Jean Chastel had been condemned was made even harsher against Ravaillac because the latter had caused the death of the king. It was ordered that his right hand be burned by sulfurous fire and that on the places where he was to be tortured would be thrown melted lead, boiling oil, boiling pitch-resin, melted wax and sulfur combined; it was also ordered that the house where he was born be demolished, the owner compensated in advance, with no other building to be constructed in the future on the foundation, and that in a fortnight after the publishing of the judgment with the sound of trumpets and the town crier in the city of Angoulême (his birthplace), his father and mother would vacate the kingdom, prohibited from ever returning, on pain of being hanged and strangled without any formalities or trial. Finally, his brothers and sisters, uncles and others were prohibited to bear hereafter the name of Ravaillac, and were enjoined to change it by the same sentence; and for the deputy public prosecutor to publish and execute the said judgment, subject to his responsibility.

The confiscation for the crime of lèse-majesté of the first count belongs to the king alone exclusively to all lord high-justices; the king takes these possessions as first creditor preferred to the exclusion of all other creditors; he can take them without being bound by costs or mortgages, or even substitutions.

Concerning the crime of lèse-majesté, see Julius Clarus, lib. V. sententiar. §. loesae majestatis crimen. Chopin, traité du domaine, liv. I ch.vij. and on Paris, liv. III n. 25. Lebret. traité de la souver. liv. IV. ch. v. Papon, liv. XXII. tit. i. Dupuy, traité des droits du roi, p. 141.

See also the declaration of François I. from the month of August 1539; the edict of Charles IX, from the month of December 1563, art.13; that of Henri III. from the month of January 1560, art. 6; the criminal ordinance of 1670, tit. j.art. 11