64 THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



rapes, brigandages, and outrages committed on travellers, 

 they cannot take cognisance of these, although they may 

 have been committed in the forests or on the waters, 

 unless the criminals have been taken in the flagrant act 

 of misdemeanour, in which case they shall and shall only 

 take evidence and give decreet, and forthwith send on the 

 prisoner, with the charges, in all safety to the judges to 

 whom, according to the ordinances, it pertains to take 

 cognisance of the crime. 



' 9. The competence of the judges in matters pertaining 

 to the waters and forests shall not be affected by the 

 domicile of the accused, nor by any privilege relating to 

 what has been done, or by anything soever, but simply 

 by the locality, if it relate to depredations, abuses, or 

 malservations, or by the situation of the waters and of 

 the forests, if it be a question relative to usages and of 

 proprietorships, or to the fulfilment of contracts of merch- 

 andise which are brought before them. 



' 10. It is not our intention that in disputes of different 

 parties our forest officials should take cognisance of the 

 proprietorship of waters and forests belonging to com- 

 munities or private parties, except when there may happen 

 to be a necessary connection subsisting between this and 

 some act of reformation and visitation, or where it may be 

 started incidentally, and adduced in defence against pro- 

 secution ; but when the question relates to petitory or 

 possession, exchanges, subdivisions, sales by auction, 

 family or feudal redemption, and other actions which 

 are directly and principally arising out of proprietorship 

 unconnected with any act of reformation and visitation, 

 the cognisance of them shall pertain to the baillifs, 

 seneschals, and other ordinary judges. 



' 11. Our officers shall exercise in the waters and forests 

 of prelates, and other ecclesiastics, princes, chapters, 

 regular communities, secular or la} T , and of all private 

 parties, of whatsoever rank they may be, the same juris- 

 diction which they exercise in ours, in all that relates 

 to matters of usage, misdemeanours, abuses, and malver- 



