III. second. rity to every department of government. The SECT. power of electing kings, of enacting laws, of redressing grievances, of conferring donations on the prince, of passing judgment in the last resort, with respect to every person and to every cause, resided in this great convention of the nation. Under the second race of kings, notwithstanding the power and splendour which the conquests of Under the Charlemagne added to the crown, the general assemblies of the nation continued to possess extensive authority. The right of determining which of the royal family should be placed on the throne, was vested in them. The princes, elevated to that dignity by their suffrage, were accustomed regularly to call and to consult them with respect to every affair of importance to the state, and without their consent no law was passed, and no new tax was levied. BUT, by the time that Hugh Capet, the father Under the of the third race of kings, took possession of the third. throne of France, such changes had happened in the political state of the kingdom, as considerably affected the power and jurisdiction of the general assembly of the nation. The royal authority, in the hands of the degenerate posterity of Charlemagne, had dwindled into insignificance and contempt. Every considerable proprietor of land had formed his territory into a barony, almost independent of the sovereign. The dukes or governors of provinces, the counts or governors of towns and small districts, and the great officers of the SECT. TH. The power of the gene siderable and exten sive. crown, had rendered these dignities, which originally were granted only during pleasure or for life, hereditary in their families. Each of these had usurped all the rights which hitherto had been deemed the distinctions of royalty, particularly the privileges of dispensing justice within their own domains, of coining money, and of waging war. Every district was governed by local customs, acknowledged a distinct lord, and pursued a separate interest. The formality of doing homage to their sovereign, was almost the only act of subjection which those haughty barons would perform, and that bound them no farther than they were willing to acknowledge its obligation [PP]. IN a kingdom broken into so many indepenral assem- dent baronies, hardly any common principle of bly less con-union remained; and the general assembly, in its deliberations, could scarcely consider the nation as forming one body, or establish common regulations to be of equal force in every part. Within the immediate domains of the crown, the king might publish laws, and they were obeyed, because there he was acknowledged as the only lord. But if he had aimed at rendering these laws general, that would have alarmed the barons as an encroachment upon the independence of their jurisdiction. The barons, when met in the great national convention, avoided, with no less care, the enacting of general laws to be observed in every part of the kingdom, because the execution of them must have been vested in the king, and [PP] NOTE XXXVIIL would have enlarged that paramount power, which was the object of their jealousy. Thus, under the descendants of Hugh Capet, the States General (for that was the name by which the supreme assembly of the French nation came then to be distinguished) lost their legislative authority, or at least entirely relinquished the exercise of it. From that period, the jurisdiction of the States General extended no farther than to the imposition of new taxes, the determination of questions with respect to the right of succession to the crown, the settling of the regency when the preceding monarch had not fixed it by his will, and the presenting remonstrances enumerating the grievances of which the nation wished to obtain redress. As, during several centuries the monarchs of Europe seldom demanded extraordinary subsidies of their subjects, and the other events, which required the interposition of the States, rarely occurred, their meetings in France were not frequent. They were summoned occasionally by their kings, when compelled by their wants or by their fears to have recourse to the great convention of their people; but they did not, like the Diet in Germany, the Cortes in Spain, or the Parliament in England, form an essential member of the constitution, the regular exertion of whose powers was requisite to give vigour and order to govern. ment. WHEN the states of France ceased to exercise The crown begins to legislative authority, the kings began to assume acquire leit. They ventured at first on acts of legislation authority, gislative III. SECT with great reserve, and after taking every precaution that could prevent their subjects from being alarmed at the exercise of a new power. They did not at once issue their ordinances in a tone of authority and command. They treated with their subjects; they pointed out what was best; and allured them to comply with it. By degrees, however, as the prerogative of the crown extended, and as the supreme jurisdiction of the royal courts came to be established, the kings of France assumed more openly the style and authority of lawgivers; and, before the beginning of the fif teenth century, the complete legislative power was vested in the crown [QQ]. HAVING secured this important acquisition, the steps which led to the right of imposing taxes were rendered few and easy. The people, accustomed to see their sovereigns issue ordinances, by their sole authority, which regulated points of the greatest consequence with respect to the property of their subjects, were not alarmed when they were required, by the royal edicts, to contribute certain sums towards supplying the exigencies of government, and carrying forward the measures of the nation. When Charles VII. and Louis XI. first ventured to exercise this new power, in the manner which I have already described, the gra dual increase of the royal authority had so imperceptibly prepared the minds of the people of France for this innovation, that it excited no commotion in the kingdom, and seems scarcely to have given rise to any murmur or complaint. [29] NOTE XXXIX. III. Govern France narchical, WHEN the kings of France had thus engrossed SECT. every power which can be exerted in government; when the right of making laws, of levying money, ment of of keeping an army of mercenaries in constant pay, › becomes of declaring war, and of concluding peace, center- purely moed in the crown, the constitution of the kingdom, which, under the first race of kings, was nearly democratical; which, under the second race, became an aristocracy; terminated, under the third race, in a pure monarchy. Every thing that tended to preserve the appearance, or revive the memory, of the ancient mixed government, seems from that period to have been industriously avoided. During the long and active reign of Francis I. the variety as well as extent of whose operations obliged him to lay many heavy impositions on his subjects, the States General of France were not once assembled, nor were the people once allowed to exert the power of taxing themselves, which, according to the original ideas of feudal government, was a right essential to every freeman. cise of pre the privi nobility; Two things, however, remained, which mode- The exerrated the exercise of the regal prerogative, and re- rogative restrained it within such bounds as preserved the strained by constitution of France from degenerating into mere leges of the despotism. The rights and privileges claimed by the nobility, must be considered as one barrier against the absolute dominion of the crown. Though the nobles of France had lost that political power which was vested in their order as a body, they still retained the personal rights and pre-eminence which they derived from their rank. They pre |