XIV Inaugural Address. 
oppressors.(l) On the other hand, the sovereign considered 
them as iastruments which might, with great advantage, be 
employed to increase the Royal Prerogative. ‘To this end, 
they endeavoured to raise them to importance, and, with 
consummate policy, called them to assist, by their Depu- 
ties, in the States General of the nation. Availing them- 
selves, also, of their co-operation, under the idea of res- 
training the power of the seigneurs, they laboured in the 
great design of restoring to France her ancient limits, and 
to the Crown its original Jurisdiction, From time to time, 
as opportunities occurred, they reunited the dismembered 
Provinces to the Royal Domain, and reduced them to imme- 
diate dependence by conquest, by escheats and by treaties, 
(2) they abolished private warfare and judicial combats, and 
extended the administration of Justice, under the royal au- 
thority, to all persons, and to ali causes,(3) by steps of which 
the most effectual shall be more particularly noticed. 
Re fore, and during the reign of Charlemagne, Justices 
in Eyre ef the royal appointment, under the title of * Miss; 
Dominici,” visited, occasionally, the differeat Provinces, 
chiefly for the purpose of investigating the conduct of the 
Dukes and Counts in the several Jurisdictions, civil and cri- 
minal, which they exercised under the authority of the 
Crown, which was sometimes greater, and sometimes less, as 
the sovereizn was more or less feared and respected.(4) 
Louis the VI. about the year 1125, attempted to revise the 
oflice of the * Missi Dominici,” under the title of Juges des 
I’ xempts(5), but the seigneurs were in his time too powerful, 
—— 
(1) Robertson’s Charles V. vol. 1st p, 34. 
(2) This design was ultimately completed in 1735, by the re-union of 
the Provinces of Bar and Lorraine—Vide Abrégé Chronologique des 
grands Fiefs de la Couronne de France, Paris 1759, and Hargrave’s Note 
on Coke and Littleton, 366 b. 
(3) Loyseau des Seigneuries, cap. 5. sec. 63. Delolme, p. 17. Robert- 
son’s Charles Y. vol. Ist. p. 36 & 56, 
(4) Répert. 8vo vol. 40, p. 180 verbo “ Missi Dominici.” Du Cange 
verbo « Dux,» « Comites,» et « Missi.» 
(5) Reper. verbo «Missi Dominici,» vol. II. p. 573. 
and 
