158 THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



ent to fell in our forests to make the roads of sufficient 

 breadth, shall be sold as the Grand- Master shall advise for 

 our greatest profit, and those of ecclesiastics and com- 

 munities shall remain theirs in compensation for the 

 expense to which they may have been put for the uproot- 

 ing of them. 



' 6. We will that at angles or corners where two roads 

 or three roads cross, which may be met with in the great 

 roads and royal highways of the forests, our Officers of 

 Maitrises shall immediately, at our expense in woods which 

 belong to us, and in others at the expense of the towns 

 nearest and most interested, plant crosses, posts, or pyra- 

 mids, with inscriptions and marks indicative of the place 

 to which each road leads, without it being permitted to any 

 person to break, remove, tear, or deface such crosses, posts, 

 inscriptions, and marks, under pain of three hundred 

 livres fine, and exemplary punishment. 



' 7. The proprietors of heritages abutting on navigable 

 rivers shall leave along the banks a space of at least twenty- 

 four feet broad for a royal road and horse tract, without 

 their being able to plant trees, or maintain any fence or 

 hedge, within thirty feet on the side on which the boats 

 are dragged, and ten feet on the other side, under pain of 

 five hundred livres fine, and confiscation of the trees, and 

 those guilty of the contravention shall be compelled to 

 repair and put the roads again in good condition at their 

 own expense. 



CHAPTER XXIX. Of Dues of Tolls, Crossings, and others. 



'Art. 1. We suppress all the dues which have been 

 established within a hundred years without title on the 

 rivers, and we prohibit them to be levied under any pre- 

 text whatever, under charge of exaction, and of quadruple 

 restoration to the profit of the merchants and passengers 

 against the seigneurs or their farmers ; We will also that 

 all barriers, dykes, chains, and other obstructions to roads, 

 embankments, bridges, passages, rivers, sluices, and narrow 



