in ifs relation to Agriculture. 
441 
tectcd by tlie samo laws and immunities. Nihil dijfert locis 
privatis Jlnmen jmvatum* From the foregoing it may then be 
inferred that the Roman law recognised two kinds of ownership 
of water — the public and the private — and this is precisely the 
l)asis of the French law of water, as will presently appear. 
Wherever the power of Imperial Rome was extended, the 
Roman laws were implanted. This explains how much of that 
old legislation is now to be found in the codes of modern 
nations. When, however, the irresistible onslaught of barbarism 
had caused the total disruption of that mighty fabric of civilisa- 
tion, the new political institutions which sprang out of the chaos 
of military despotism, although retaining more or less of the 
Roman code, bore from their feudal character the impress of 
oligarchy. Notwitlistauding the efforts of the early Franks 
to maintain the public rights to the free use of navigable 
rivers, the lords were as yet too powerful and too lawless not 
to take advantage of their comparative independence, by laying 
on the rivers that traversed their estates various tolls and 
imposts, which rendered the public navigation of these streams 
all but an impossibility. It is only within comparatively modern 
times that the feudal rights obtained by the lords were finally 
wrenched from their grasp, and restored to the ownership of the 
nation. This excellent result was due to the celebrated ordi- 
nance of 1G69, which is one of the most glorious achievements 
of Louis XlV.'s I'eign. 
One of the most crying abuses of the feudal power of the 
nobles, and one most detrimental to agriculture, had been the 
reckless readiness with which the lords had granted rights of 
erecting mills and other hydraulic works upon the rivers within 
their jurisdiction. These structures, in obsti'ucting the channel 
of rivers, not only impeded the navigation, but in rainy seasons 
led to calamitous inundations that swamped all the country 
round, and periodically ruined the agricultural peasantry. One 
of the first measures decreed by Louis XIV. was the annihila- 
tion of all such concessions granted by the lords since the year 
1566, and the assumption by the king, through his regularly 
appointed agents, of the police, administration, and general 
management of all French rivers. 
It must not be inferred, however, from this that all abuses 
were reformed, all obstructions removed. The truth is, nothing, 
or next to nothing, was done. The king had merely confiscated 
the alleged rights of the many to his exclusive personal advan- 
tage ; but, nevertheless, the principle of public ownership of 
* ' De Fluminibus,' lib. i„ § 4. 
