The law of the Burgundians notices
[20]
that when
those people settled in Gaul, they were allowed two-thirds of the land,
and one-third of the bondmen. The state of villainage was therefore
established in that part of Gaul before it was invaded by the
Burgundians.
[21]
The law of the Burgundians, in points relating to the two nations,
makes a formal distinction in both, between the nobles, the freeborn and
the bondmen.
[22]
Servitude was not therefore a thing peculiar to the
Romans; nor liberty and nobility to the Barbarians.
This very same law says,
[23]
that if a Burgundian freedman had not
given a certain sum to his master, nor received a third share of a
Roman, he was always supposed to belong to his master's family. The
Roman proprietor was therefore free, since he did not belong to another
person's family; he was free, because his third portion was a mark of
liberty.
We need only open the Salic and Ripuarian laws to be satisfied that
the Romans were no more in a state of servitude among the Franks than
among the other conquerors of Gaul.
The Count de Boulainvilliers is mistaken in the capital point of his
system: he has not proved that the Franks made a general regulation
which reduced the Romans into a kind of servitude.
As this author's work is penned without art, and as he speaks with
the simplicity, frankness, and candour of that ancient nobility whence
he descends, every one is capable of judging of the good things he says,
and of the errors into which he has fallen. I shall not, therefore,
undertake to criticise him; I shall only observe that he had more wit
than enlightenment, more enlightenment than learning; though his
learning was not contemptible, for he was well acquainted with the most
valuable part of our history and laws.
The Count de Boulainvilliers and the Abbé du Bos have formed two
different systems, one of which seems to be a conspiracy against the
commons, and the other against the nobility. When the sun gave leave to
Phton to drive his chariot, he said to him, "If you ascend too high, you
will burn the heavenly mansions; if you descend too low, you will reduce
the earth to ashes; do not drive to the right, you will meet there with
the constellation of the Serpent; avoid going too much to the left, you
will there fall in with that of the Altar: keep in the middle."
[24]
