700 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
The practice of writing Political Testaments continued 
among the French until as late as 1889. 9 
§6 One of the most important elements of the Will is the 
provision for the disposition of the body after death. About 
one out of every two wills makes such a provision. As earlier 
examples of this tendency we may cite the will of Favonius, a 
Roman soldier who, dying in the Spanish peninsular (B. C. 
144), begged that his body be taken back to Roman soil for 
burial; 1 2 the will of Augustus Caesar also makes provisions for 
the details of his funeral (A. D. 14) ; 3 and in the will of Arbo- 
gaste, (678) bishop of Strassburg, the testator asks that he be 
buried under the gibbets of malefactors. 4 
This tendency finds place also in literary documents. Jacob 
is represented, in the book of Genesis, as very careful to instruct 
his sons to carry his bones back from Egypt to be buried in the 
cave of Macpelah. 5 In the Testament of Adam the testator is 
made to ask that his bones be buried at Jerusalem, 6 and The 
Testament of the Forty Martyrs is primarily a request for 
burial. 7 i 
The feeling that the soul as well as the body should be dis¬ 
posed of by will was a natural one. So there grew up the cus¬ 
tom of bequeathing the soul to God and the body to the earth 
or worms. 6 This feature naturally found its way into the Lit¬ 
erary Testament as well. 7 
1 Barbier, s. v. Testament, quotes the following titles: Testament 
politique d’un vieux soldat jrancais, royal, republicain, et consulaire , 
ou revue de la Revolution francaise, (1819); Testament politique de 
Vannee 1821, ou avis et lecons a ma fille (1872); Testament d’un 
emigre (1800); Testament politique (Par le comte Revel) (1826); 
Testament d'un republieain (1858); the Catalogue of the British Mu¬ 
seum notes Le Testament politique d'un ancien Legitimiste, Paris, 
1889. 
2 Peignot, I, 4. 
s See page 440'. 
4 Peignot, I, 42. 
s Genesis, XLIX, 29. 
e See page 449. 
7 . See page 450. CT. Robin Hood’s Death, Child, No. 120. 
s See Peignot, I, 56, 70, 123, 138, 172. The Boston Traveler of March 
17, 1908, give an account of a modern will in which this formula sur¬ 
vives. The will is that of A. M. Russel of Washington County, Pennsyl¬ 
vania. After disposing of his property he mlakes the following provi¬ 
sion : “I hereby direct that my soul shall be returned to the God who 
gave it, and that my body shall be consigned to the earth whence it 
came.” Russel then moralizes on the shortness of life, and urges upon 
