XII Inaugural Address. 
Seigneurie were ratified and declared to be Law ; a declara- 
tion which may be considered not only as the efficient cause 
of the final extinction of the ancient Law, but of the perma- 
nent establishment of that infinite variety of customs, which 
obtained in France until the late Revolution(1). 
The authority of the Crown of France, at its ullimate 
point of depression, about the close of the tenth century» 
was merely nominal, the Royal Jurisdiction being confined 
to the Royal Domaine, which comprehended no more than 
four cities, in which the King was obeyed as feadal Lord, 
and not as Sovereign(2) ; on the other hand, the power of 
the Seigneurs at this epoch was enormous—their tyranny ex- 
orbitant.—The whole country was laid waste by the wars 
which they waged against each other, and their own vassals 
were reduced to an actual state of slavery, under the denomi- 
nation of serfs and hommes de poite, or under the pretended 
rights of personal service and corvé, were treated as if, in fact, 
they had been reduced to that wretched condition(3). By 
this state of anarchy those who were yet inthe possession 
of allodial property, were, in the first instance, induced to 
annex what they held to the Jurisdiction of some Fief, and 
to subject themselves to feudal services, for the immediate 
safety of their persons and the defence of their estates, and 
so generally was this the case that it gave rise to the maxim 
“6 nulle terre sans Seigneur,” whichat length, became the 
universal Law of France.(4) But as the Seigneurs could not, 
in every instance, protect their dependants against the Ineur- 
sions of their neighbours, and as the feudal burthens were, 
in themselves, insufferable, many vassals abandoned their 
Lords, by degrees, and sought protection in walled towns 
—— 
(1) Montesquieu, Lib. 28. cap. 4. vol. 2d p.|243. 
(2) Robertson’s Charles Y. vol. 1st. p. 366. 
(3) Dictionnaire de Jurisprudence, vol. 3d. p.16 and 17. 
(4) Robertson’s Charles V. vol. Ist. p. 223—Dict.de Jurisp. vol. 3, p: 
16—Fleury, p. 61—Robertson ibid, p, 16. 
where 
