Editing Michel de l'Hôpital (section)

===Estates General===
L'Hôpital gave the opening address at the [[Estates General of 1560-1|Estates General in 1560]]. During his speech he first cautioned radical Catholics, for their violence against Protestants and general intolerance. He then turned his ire on radical Protestants, chiding them for their provocative impatience in establishing a new order. He emphasised that both Catholic and Protestant must wait until such time as a church council could be convened, to restore unity to the Christian church. In the meanwhile he stressed that it was important for all parties, to be peaceful and law abiding.{{sfn|Diefendorf|1991|p=57}} The [[Council of Trent]] had recently been declared reconvened by the Pope, as such L'Hôpital hoped that the delegates would avoid matters of religious debate, leaving those to the bishops and religiously learned.{{sfn|Sutherland|1980|p=120}}

He provided the assembled delegates an appraisal on the kingdoms finances, informing them all pensions were at least two years in arrears.{{sfn|Harding|1978|p=47}} He further informed the estates that the crown was in 43 million ''livres'' worth of debt, and that the only solution was to raise taxes, the deputies baulked at this notion, so the crown turned to the alienation of church land to remain afloat.{{sfn|Knecht|2010|p=89}}
In financial matters, the estates would recommend certain reforms to the system of the guilds. L'Hôpital however desired to go much further than the estates, and in the ordinance of Orléans he outlined an attack on the guild system. His aims were to reduce the burdens of the apprenticeship system, and release the hold that the guilds had over the labour market. He saw the engine to achieving this as being through attacks on the confraternity system, which operated alongside the guilds and strengthened them. He ordered that their capital be distributed to local schools in the baillages. This attempt to divest the guilds of their capital, would not go unanswered however, the guilds in retaliation, reinvented the confraternity as a religious organisation, and found strong support among the Catholic ultra party. This allowed them to weather his attacks until they faded in 1567 with his loss of influence.{{sfn|Thompson|1909|pp=221-223}}

An informal reconciliation between Guise and Montmorency, known as the 'triumvirate' was agreed in April 1561 to oppose the religious policy being pursued by L'Hôpital and Catherine de' Medici.{{sfn|Benedict|2003|p=69}} He was also in April attempting to drive the Ordinance of Orléans through the ''Parlement'', issuing ''lettres de jussion'' to command them to do so without further protestation. Facing remonstrances he tried to court the senior judges, inviting them to council with the prospect of involvement in high affairs of the state, however the ''Parlementaires'' were uninterested and several more rounds of ''lettres de jussion'' and remonstrances followed into November of that year.{{sfn|Salmon|1975|p=153}} In January 1563 he attempted to mollify ''Parlementaire'' opposition through a decree outlining that extraordinary courts established by the crown would be illegal without the ''Parlement'' having provided commission to the judges.{{sfn|Salmon|1975|p=155}}