Inaugwal Address. XXI 
were legally subject to their inquiry, were broaght before 
the review aud control of the Sovereign, through the medium 
of his Courts. 
Upon the re-establishment of the Royal authority, the 
local customs of France were so numerous and so yarious, 
that there were not two Seigneuiies, throughout the whole 
Kingdom, entirely governed by the same Law.(1) Some of 
the causes of this amazing diversity have been traced in the 
different usages of the Barbarians, which were introduced 
by the original conquest of Gaul---in that peculiar principle 
of their Jurisprudence, which permitted each individual to 
make choice of the Law by which he thought proper to be 
governed, and the consequent existence, not only of the cus« 
toms of each particular tribe, but ofthe Theodosian Code, 
especially among the Clergy—in the introduction of the feu- 
dal system, andthe distinctions which it created between 
feudal and allodial property—in judicial combats which 
were necessarily introductive of new usages created Uy their 
several and various issues—in the usurpations of the Sei- 
gneurs, the means which they, severally, adopted to support 
them, and the independent administration of Justice within 
the limits of their respective Jurisdictions—in the Ordinan- 
ces enacted by the Sovereign for the government of the Royal 
Domaine—in the establishment of Communes and their bye- 
laws—and in the compilation of the Canon Law, and its ge. 
neral application to all questions decided by Ecclesiastics- 
But to these causes must be added the discovery of the Jus- 
tinian Code, which was brought from Italy into France about 
the middle of the twelfth century,(2) and soon affected her 
Jurisprudence in various gradations :—In some of the Pro- 
vinces it was entirely adopted and confirmed, and declared, by 
the Royal authority, to be exclusively their Common or Mu. 
nicipal Law. In others it was recei ved as subsidiary to their 
(1) Montesquieu, Lib. 28, cap. 45. 
(2) Idem, Lib. 28, cap. 42. Robertson's Charles Y. vol, Ist. 
316. 
own 
p- 
