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30.4. 4. The same Subject continued.

Csar says [7] that "when any of the princes declared to the assembly that he intended to set out upon an expedition and asked them to follow him, those who approved the leader and the enterprise stood up and offered their assistance. Upon which they were commended by the multitude. But, if they did not fulfil their engagements, they lost the public esteem, and were looked upon as deserters and traitors."

What Csar says in this place, and what we have extracted in the preceding chapter from Tacitus, are the substance of the history of our princes of the first race.

We must not therefore be surprised that our kings should have new armies to raise upon every expedition, new troops to encourage, new people to engage; that to acquire much they were obliged to incur great expenses; that they should be constant gainers by the division of lands and spoils, and yet give these lands and spoils incessantly away: that their demesne should continually increase and diminish; that a father upon settling a kingdom on one of his children [8] should always give him a treasure with it: that the king's treasure should be considered as necessary to the monarchy; and that one king could not give part of it to foreigners, even in portion with his daughter, without the consent of the other kings. [9] The monarchy moved by springs, which they were continually obliged to wind up.

Footnotes

[7]

"De Bello Gall.," lib. vi, 22.

[8]

See the "Life of Dagobert."

[9]

See Gregory of Tours, book vi, on the marriage of the daughter of Chilperic. Childebert sends ambassadors to tell him that he should not give the cities of his father's kingdom to his daughter, nor his treasures, nor his bondmen, nor horses, nor horsemen, nor teams of oxen, &c.