This book is an account, based on previously unused material, of the events that marked the troubled relationship between Louis XV, the clergy of France, and the Parlement of Paris in the mid-eighteenth century. The author shows how religious disputes drove a wedge between the King and the leading magistrates of his kingdom, leading to the exile of the Parlement in 1753-4. He describes the way in which legal and procedural conflicts gave rise to a debate about the nature of the Monarchy itself, the exercise of royal authority, and the rights of the subject under the protection of law. Rejecting the notion that the activities of the Parlement can be defined simply as 'political' or 'judicial', the book challenges traditional views about the nature of absolutism and also demonstrates that it is possible to write a history of the constitutional debates without reference to social conflict. Attention is given to the role of factions and intrigues at court and elsewhere, and debates inside the Parlement are analysed for the first time, using the newly discovered reports of highly placed government spies and agents. New light is shed on the part played by Louis XV himself in exacerbating the disputes or in resolving the crisis by means of the 'Law of Silence' of 1754.