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# I cannot find a good-quality photograph of this act, but the document is very famous
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/ne-mogu-naiti-snimok-etogo-akta-v-khoroshem-kachestve-no-dokument-ochen-izvestnyi/
- Published: 2026-06-15T13:26:50.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:50.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, London, Monarchies, Society

I cannot find a good-quality photograph of this act, but the document is very famous. And it begins with the following words:

> Le Roy le Veult soit baillé aux Seigneurs. A cette Bille avecque des amendemens les Seigneurs sont assentuz. A ces Amendemens les Communes sont assentuz.

And no, this is not a French state document, but the scroll bearing the text of the British "Representation of the People Act 1832", better known as the Great Reform Act or the First Parliamentary Reform.

A law passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom at Westminster, certified by the record of the royal assent of William IV, with which I began: "Le Roy le Veult soit baillé aux Seigneurs...", in French.

More precisely, in Norman French, the very tongue that William brought with him in 1066 and which for three centuries became the language of English power, the courts and the nobility. It is neither modern French nor the Parisian standard, but an archaic Anglo-Norman dialect spoken by the officials of medieval England. Hence the spelling, which today looks like a mistake: Roy instead of Roi, avecque instead of avec, assentuz instead of assentis.

Yet it is not the law itself that is written in Norman French, only the notes on its passage. The body of the "Representation of the People Act" is in English. The French lines at the top of the scroll are the clerk's working inscriptions, recording the bill's movement between the houses and the king's final assent. "Le Roy le Veult" means "The King wills it", the formula of approval. "Soit baillé aux Seigneurs" means "Let it be passed to the Lords". "Les Seigneurs sont assentuz", "les Communes sont assentuz": the Lords agree, the Commons agree. That is, French is needed not for the substance but for the procedure.

There is not one such scroll of laws in the National Archives of Great Britain, nor ten: they are all like this. Every act of the British Parliament receives royal assent, and the formula of assent is to this day pronounced and inscribed in Norman French. For ordinary public bills it is "Le Roy le Veult". For private ones, "Soit fait comme il est désiré", "let it be done as it is desired". For financial ones, the expanded "Le Roy remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult", "The King thanks his good subjects, accepts their benevolence, and so wills it". When the king refuses assent, the words are "Le Roy s'avisera", "The King will consider it"; the last time was in 1708.

The Parliament of England conducted its business entirely in French until the end of the reign of Edward III, in the second half of the 14th century. The recording of statutes in French and Latin ceased by 1488, and since then laws have been published in English. French was officially banished from the courts later still, in 1731\. But Parliament has kept the formula of royal assent just as it took shape seven hundred years ago.

And today the Clerk of the House of Lords pronounces this phrase aloud over every new law. So all the laws passed in English in substance are proclaimed as laws in French, the language of the conquerors.

God grant that in time the Norman dialect is not replaced by Urdu, which is, after all, the state language and chief language of interethnic communication in Pakistan.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_20801@15-06-2026_16-26-50.jpg)