345D THE PLEBISCITE IN ANCIENT AND FEUDAL TIMES 47 



This is a case wherein we have to deal not only with the 

 consent or refusal of assent of the people to be transferred 

 but also of the will of the entire nation in the matter of 

 transfer of any of its parts. 



With the decline of feudalism at the end of the 13th cen- 

 tury the former feudal lordships concentrated around the 

 king as the strong national figure representing the multitude 

 of former feudal lords as the national sovereign. " Gradu- 

 ally even the larger seigneuries fell into the hands of the 

 representatives of the monarchy."^^ A national conscious- 

 ness arose out of the Hundred Years War. The kingdom 

 was reestablished on a stable basis. Assemblies of the three 

 social states came into being for the established provinces 

 and for the entire kingdom. The principle that the seigneur 

 could not cede his vassal to another lord without the 

 former's consent was extended to the realm in the sense 

 that the king as sovereign could not cede French territory to 

 a foreign potentate without the consent of the £tats Gene- 

 raux as the representative body of the realm. The principle 

 of the inviolability of French soil was born f^ the same prin- 

 ciple by which Thiers tried to prevent the cession of Alsace- 

 Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War. 



" In general the chief feudal states have all taken proper 

 measures to assure the perpetuity of their dynasties by pro- 

 claiming the indivisibility of their power and of their 

 domain. They have suppressed the custom of partition, and 

 they have let the integral transmission of the seigneurie to 

 the oldest male pass into law."" We should not find it 

 difficult to see in this practice the motive for the principle 

 of the inalienability of the realm as applied to the entire 

 kingdom, especially if we consider that the holders of these 

 chief feudal states sat as representatives of their state in the 

 fitats Generaux with which, as has been stated, lay at least 

 nominally the right of consent or refusal in the case of any 

 proposed surrender of French soil to a non-French ruler. 



"^ Luchaire, p. 244. 



"" Soliere. p. 3 ; sec also below, p. — , note — . 



»" Luchaire, p. 239. 



