108 THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



security and caution for purchasers under their own name 

 or under that of other persons interposed, under pain of 

 confiscation of the purchases, or of the price for which they 

 have been made, and of forfeiture of their privileges, and 

 their being declared plebians, and subjected to the taille or 

 tax levied on villains, or those holding land by servile tenure; 

 and under pain of deprivation of office against our Officers 

 who shall have made and consented to the sale, or suffered 

 the exploitation, or the felling and the disposal of the pro- 

 duce of the wood, with even greater pains and penalties, if 

 so happen. 



4 22. We forbid in like manner to the Officers of our 

 Forest and of the Chase, both those of the Maitrises in which 

 the sales take place and all others in whatever department 

 they may be, without distinction, and to their children, 

 sons-in-law, brothers, brothers-in-law, uncles, nephews, and 

 cousins-german, to take part in the auction sales, be it as 

 principals, associates, securities, or cautioners, under pain 

 against the officials who may be purchasers, of the confis- 

 cation of the purchase and deprivation of office, of fine 

 to be determined at the time, and banishment from the 

 department of the Maitrise in which they shall have their 

 residence, and against their relatives and allies of like pain 

 of confiscation and arbitrary fine. 



' 23. Neither the merchants, purchasers, nor other indi- 

 viduals, of what quality soever they may be, can make any 

 secret combinations, or hinder, by indirect ways, the bid- 

 dings for our woods ; and when they shall be convicted of 

 monopoly or combination or agreement between them by 

 word or writing not to bid against one another, We will it 

 that besides the confiscation of the purchases, they shall 

 be condemned to an arbitrary fine, which shall not be 

 less than a thousand livres, and to banishment from the 

 forests. 



' 24. The purchaser cannot have more than three part- 

 ners, the names ot whom he shall be bound to lodge in 

 the Registry of the Maitrise in the week of the auction, 

 and to lodge therewith a copy of their contract of co- 



