Parlement de Dombes, Historic courthouse in Trévoux, France.

The Parlement de Dombes is a four-storey courthouse of pale stone, its central bay projecting slightly beneath a carved stone relief over a tall arched doorway. The ground floor has a rusticated base; upper storeys carry rows of rectangular windows with louvred shutters. A broad stone staircase with a metal balustrade rises on the right toward the entrance, above a paved terrace with low stone walls.

François I created the Parlement de Dombes by letters patent registered in Lyon in November 1523, making it the sovereign court of appeal of the Principality of Dombes. It first sat in Lyon at the Palais de Roanne, on borrowed territory. On 12 December 1696 Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine, moved the seat to Trévoux and required the magistrates to reside there. The court was incorporated into the Parlement de Dijon in 1771.

The courtroom walls and the beams and joists of its French-style ceiling were painted in 1698 by Pierre Paul Sevin de Tournon. Large rectangular panels framed by pilasters carry moulded centres with the arms of France beneath the royal crown. The ensemble has been protected as movable objects since 5 October 1920. Portraits of the duc du Maine and of Dombes magistrates hang in the room.

The courthouse still operates as a tribunal d'instance, a greffe and a tax office, so visits depend on court activity rather than fixed tourist hours. The entrance is reached by the broad stone staircase on the right of the facade, behind a black metal rail. The building stands outside the old medieval walls of Trévoux, on the same site since its inauguration in 1703.

The courtroom ceiling beams and walls carry frescoes painted in 1698 by Pierre Paul Sevin de Tournon, framed by pilasters and mouldings with the arms of France under a royal crown. The whole decorative scheme was classified as protected movable objects on 5 October 1920, before the building itself was listed on 28 February 2006.