OF WOODS, &c., BELONGING TO COMMUNITIES. 143 



' 12. If for the greater advantage of the community it 

 be judged expedient by the Grand-Master that the ordin- 

 ary fellings should be sold, he shall remit the auction sale 

 to the Judge of the locality, who shall be bound to proceed 

 with the formalities prescribed for the sales of our woods, 

 if there be not a Court of Maitrise or Grurie in the same 

 parish, in this case our Officers shall make the sale free of 

 expense, and the proceeds must be employed exclusively 

 on extraordinary repairs or urgent business of the com- 

 munity, under pain of fourfold restitution, and five 

 hundred livres fine against the Mayor, Baillie, Syndic, or 

 principal inhabitants, who may have diverted the money 

 to other purposes. 



' 13. Injured woods shall be pruned at the expense of 

 the community, and be kept enclosed like all other coppice 

 wood until the shoots are ac least six years old, under the 

 penalties enjoined in this matter for our forests. 



'14. We enjoin on the inhabitants to appoint annually 

 one or more Guards for the conservation of their communal 

 woods, in default of which the Judge of the locality shall 

 see this done, and officially determine the salary which 

 shall be paid by the community. 



* 15. The Guards shall take the oath, and make their 

 reports before the Officers of the Maitrise or Grurie, if 

 their residence be not above four leagues distant ; but, in 

 case the Court be more distant, the oath and the reports 

 may be made before the ordinary Judge of the localities, 

 who shall be bound to conform themselves in instructions 

 and judgments relative to abuses and depredations, to 

 forms and penalties prescribed for abuses and depredations 

 committed in our woods. 



' 16. Our Officers may make visitations when they think 

 good in the woods of the parishes, to take cognisance of 

 the good or bad exploitation there, and if they find depre- 

 dations, abuses, negligencies, or malversations have been 

 committed by private persons or by Officers, Guards, or 

 Syndics, they shall repress them by fines and penalties, 

 following the rigour of our ordinances ; and in these cases 



