4 THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



' " In making ordinary sales without letters patent ; 



' " In levying fees to which they had no right ; 



1 " In making more extensive surveys than is borne out 

 by the documents ; 



' "In giving away a considerable number of acres under 

 pretext of their being waste places ; 



' " In taking firewood, either loose or in cartloads, much 

 beyond what was assigned to them by law ; 



' " In causing firewood to be delivered at their houses ; 



" In giving auction sales both ordinary and extra- 

 ordinary to merchants with whom they had an under- 

 standing, and even to domestics ; 



' " In granting firewood and forest servitude without 

 title, either for their personal profit or to gratify their 

 friends ; 



' " In permitting the clearing of different lands, and the 

 building of houses within the forest bounds, and even 

 establishments in the heart and within the skirts of the 

 forests, and sometimes making alienations, for entrance 

 moneys, of land of considerable extent and well-wooded, 

 under pretence of their being void and waste lands, from 

 all of which they have derived great advantage to them- 

 selves. The officers of the different maitrises have been 

 guilty of the same abuses not only in the case of coppice 

 woods, but even in permitting trees to be taken, and in 

 themselves taking a great number, either for their houses 

 and buildings or to dispose of them for money ; and 



' " In granting valuable trees to different persons to the 

 prej udice of the sales. 



' " The discharge of the reports of the forest watchman 

 has also been a great abuse in different maitrises or master- 

 ships, because that when a peasant has had a report made 

 against him, he has been able to make up matters with 

 the Forest Master, and the watchmen seeing the inutility 

 of their report have themselves taken money to abstain 

 from action, so that all the forests have been given up to 

 pillage," 



