gradually funk under the most abfolute Monarchy.

2

In France the royal Authority was indeed inconfiderable; but this circumftance by The no means favoured general liberty. Lords were every thing; and the bulk of the All those Nation were accounted nothing. wars which were made on the King, had not liberty for their object; for of this their Chiefs already enjoyed but too great a share: they were the mere effects of private ambition or caprice. The People did not engage in them as affociates in the support of a cause common to all; they were dragged, blindfold and like flaves, to the standard of their Leaders. the mean tirne, as the laws, by which their Mafters were Vaffals, had no relation to those by which they were themselves bound as subjects; the refistance, of which they were made the inftruments, never produced any advantageous confequence in their favour; nor did it establish any principle of freedom that could in any cafe be applicable to them.

In

The inferior Nobles, who shared in the independence of the fuperior Nobility, added also the

effects of their own infolence to the defpotism of so many Sovereigns; and the people, wearied out by their sufferings, and rendered desperate by oppreffion, at times attempted to revolt: but, being parcelled out into fo many different States, they never could agree, either on the nature of their complaints, or the time of preferring them; the infurrections, which ought to have been general, were only fucceffive and particular in the mean time the Lords, uniting to avenge their common caufe as Mafters, fell with irrefiftible advantage on Men who were thus divided; the People were separately, and by dint of arms, brought back to their former yoke; and Liberty, that precious offspring which requires fo many favourable circumftances to fofter it, was every where ftifled in its birth. (a)

At length, when by Conquefts, by efcheats, or by Treaties, the feveral provinces came to

A

(a) It may be seen in Mezeray, how the Flemings, during the great revolt which was caufed, as he says, "by the inveterate hatred of the Nobles (les Gentils"hommes) againft the people of Ghent," were crushed by the union of almoft all the Nobility of France-See Mezeray, Reign of Charles VI.

be united (a) to the extenfive and continually increasing dominions of the Monarch, they became fubjects of their new Master, already trained to obedience. The few privileges, which the Cities had been able to preferve, were little refpected by a Sovereign who had himself entered into no engagement to

(a) The word union exprelles in the French law, or History, the reduction of a Province to an immediate dependence on the Crown. The French Lawyers, who were at all times remarkably zealous for the aggrandisement of the Crown (a zeal which would not have been blameable, if it had been exerted only in the fuppreffion of lawless Ariftocracy) always contended, that when a province once came into the poffeffion of the King, even any private dominion of his before he acceded to the Throne, it became united for ever: the Ordonnance of Moulins, in the year 1566, has fince given a thorough fanction to these principles. The union of a

province might be occafioned, first, by the cafe juft mentioned, of the acceffion of the poffeffor of it to the Throne: thus at the accession of Henry IV. (the daughter of the late King being-excluded by the Salic law) Navarre and Bearn were united. Secondly, by the felony of the possessor, when the King was able to inforce, by dint of arms, the judgment paffed by the Judges he had appointed': thus the fmall Lordship of Rambouillet was feifed upon by Hugh Capet, on which authors remark that it was the first dominion that was united; and the Dutchy of Normandy was afterwards taken in the fame manner by Philip Auguftus from John, King of England, condemned for the murder of Arthur Duke of Britanny. Thirdly, by the laft will of the poffeffor:

that purpose; and, as the unions were made at different times, the King was always in a condition to overwhelm every new Province that accrued to him, with the weight of all thofe he already poffeffed.

As a farther confequence of this difference between the times of the unions, the feveral

parts

Provence was united in this manner, under the reign of Lewis XI. Fourthly, by intermarriages: this was the cafe of the County of Champagne, under Philip the Fair; and of Britanny, under Francis I. Fifthly, by the failure of heirs of the blood, and fometimes of heirs male: thus Burgundy was seised upon by Lewis XI. after the death of Charles the Bold, Duke of that province. Laftly, by purchases: thus Philip of Valois purchased the Barony of Montpellier; Henry IV. the Marquifat of Saluces; and Lewis XIII. the Principality of Sedan, &c.

Thus those different Provinces, which, with others united after a like manner, now compose the French Monarchy, not only conferred on their refpective Sovereigns different titles, but alfo differed from each other with refpect to the laws which they followed, and still follow: the one are governed. by the Roman law, and are called Pays de Droit écrit ; the others follow particular cuftoms, which in process of time were fet down in writing, and are called Pays de Droit Coutumier. In those provinces the people had, at times, purchased privileges from their Princes, which in the different provinces were alfo different, according to the wants and temper of the Princes who granted them.

of the Kingdom could entertain no views of affifting each other. When the one reclaimed its privileges, the others, long fince reduced to fubjection, had already forgotten theirs. Besides, those privileges, by reafon of the difference in the Governments under which the Pro vinces had formerly been held, were also almost every where different; the circumstances which happened in one place, bore of course little affinity to thofe which fell out in another ; the fpirit of union was loft, or rather had never exifted; each province, restrained within its particular bounds, only ferved to inforce a general fubmiffion, and the fame causes which had reduced that warlike, spirited Nation, to a yoke of subjection, concurred also to keep them under it.

Thus Liberty perished in France, because it wanted a favourable culture and proper fituation. Planted, if I may fo express myself, but just beneath the furface, it presently expanded, and fent forth fome large fhoots; but having taken no root, it was foon plucked In England, on the contrary, the feed

up.