fjt_03281 - CHAMBRE DES COMPTES DU ROI HENRI III 1577

CHAMBRE DES COMPTES DU ROI / ACCOUNTS CHAMBER OF THE KING

Like the King's Council, the Chamber of Accounts is a dismemberment of the former king's court, in the part responsible for overseeing the royal domain, handling finances and auditing the accounts of the king's agents. His role was to register edicts and declarations concerning the estate, letters of ennoblement, naturalization, pensions, etc. She also recorded the marriage contracts of the royal family, the peace treaties. The Chamber of Accounts had civil and criminal jurisdiction over its own officers and over offenses committed within its enclosure near the Sainte-Chapelle. It extended its jurisdiction to the entire kingdom in certain areas (war, navy, colonies, royal treasury, roads and bridges, etc.) but the provincial chambers of accounts removed certain accounts from its jurisdiction. The Chamber of Accounts boasted of being the oldest in the kingdom, before Parliament. Its officers enjoyed important privileges: nobility, title of king's advisers, franc-salé, tax exemptions, corvées, etc..