University of Virginia Library

30.25. 25. Of the French Nobility.

The Abbé du Bos maintains that at the commencement of our monarchy there was only one order of citizens among the Franks. This assertion, so injurious to the noble blood of our principal families, is equally affronting to the three great houses which successively governed this realm. The origin of their grandeur would not, therefore, have been lost in the obscurity of time. History might point out the ages when they were plebeian families; and to make Childeric, Pepin, and Hugh Capet gentlemen, we should be obliged to trace their pedigree among the Romans or Saxons, that is, among the conquered nations.

This author grounds his opinion on the Salic law. [195] By that law, he says, it plainly appears that there were not two different orders of citizens among the Franks: it allowed a composition of two hundred sous for the murder of any Frank whatsoever; [196] but among the Romans it distinguished the king's guest, for whose death it gave a composition of three hundred sous, from the Roman proprietor to whom it granted a hundred, and from the Roman tributary to whom it gave only a composition of forty-five. And as the difference of the compositions formed the principal distinction, he concludes that there was but one order of citizens among the Franks, and three among the Romans.

It is astonishing that his very mistake did not set him right. And, indeed, it would have been very extraordinary that the Roman nobility who lived under the domination of the Franks should have had a larger composition, and been persons of much greater importance than the most illustrious among the Franks, and their greatest generals. What probability is there that the conquering nation should have so little respect for themselves, and so great a regard for the conquered people? Besides, our author quotes the laws of other barbarous nations which prove that they had different orders of citizens. Now it would be a matter of astonishment that this general rule should have failed only among the Franks. Hence he ought to have concluded either that he did not rightly understand or that he misapplied the passages of the Salic law, which is actually the case.

Upon opening this law, we find that the composition for the death of an Antrustio. [197] that is, of the king's vassal, was six hundred sous; and that for the death of a Roman, who was the king's guest, was only three hundred. [198] We find there likewise that the composition [199] for the death of an ordinary Frank was two hundred sous; [200] and for the death of an ordinary Roman, was only one hundred. [201] For the death of a Roman tributary, [202] who was a kind of bondman or freedman, they paid a composition of forty-five sous: but I shall take no notice of this, any more than of the composition for the murder of a Frank bondman or of a Frank freedman, because this third order of persons is out of the question.

What does our author do? He is quite silent with respect to the first order of persons among the Franks, that is the article relating to the Antrustios; and afterwards upon comparing the ordinary Frank, for whose death they paid a composition of two hundred sous, with those whom he distinguishes under three orders among the Romans, and for whose death they paid different compositions, he finds that there was only one order of citizens among the Franks, and that there were three among the Romans.

As the Abbé is of opinion that there was only one order of citizens among the Franks, it would have been lucky for him that there had been only one order also among the Burgundians, because their kingdom constituted one of the principal branches of our monarchy. But in their codes we find three sorts of compositions, one for the Burgundians or Roman nobility, the other for the Burgundians or Romans of a middling condition, and the third for those of a lower rank in both nations. [203] He has not quoted this law.

It is very extraordinary to see in what manner he evades those passages which press him hard on all sides. [204] If you speak to him of the grandees, lords, and the nobility, these, he says, are mere distinctions of respect, and not of order; they are things of courtesy, and not legal privileges; or else, he says, those people belonged to the king's council; nay, they possibly might be Romans: but still there was only one order of citizens among the Franks. On the other hand, if you speak to him of some Franks of an inferior rank, [205] he says they are bondmen; and thus he interprets the decree of Childebert. But I must stop here a little, to inquire farther into this decree. Our author has rendered it famous by availing himself of it in order to prove two things: the one that all the compositions we meet with in the laws of the Barbarians were only civil fines added to corporal punishments, which entirely subverts all the ancient records; [206] the other, that all freemen were judged directly and immediately by the king. [207] which is contradicted by an infinite number of passages and authorities informing us of the judiciary order of those times. [208]

This decree, which was made in an assembly of the nation, [209] says that, if the judge finds a notorious robber, he must command him to be tied, in order to be carried before the king, si Francus fuerit; but if he is a weaker person (debilior persona), he shall be hanged on the spot. According to the Abbé du Bos, Francus is a freeman, debilior persona is a bondman. I shall defer entering for a moment into the signification of the word Francus, and begin with examining what can be understood by these words, a weaker person, In all languages whatsoever, every comparison necessarily supposes three terms, the greatest, the less degree, and the least. If none were here meant but freemen and bondmen, they would have said a bondman, and not a man of less power. Therefore debilior persona does not signify a bondman, but a person of a superior condition to a bondman. Upon this supposition, Francus cannot mean a freeman, but a powerful man; and this word is taken here in that acceptation, because among the Franks there were always men who had greater power than others in the state, and it was more difficult for the judge or count to chastise them. This construction agrees very well with many capitularies [210] where we find the cases in which the criminals were to be carried before the king, and those in which it was otherwise.

It is mentioned in the Life of Louis the Debonnaire, [211] written by Tegan, that the bishops were the principal cause of the humiliation of that emperor, especially those who had been bondmen and such as were born among the Barbarians. Tegan thus addresses Hebo, whom this prince had drawn from the state of servitude, and made Archbishop of Rheims: "What recompense did the Emperor receive from you for so many benefits? He made you a freeman, but did not ennoble you, because he could not give you nobility after having given you your liberty." [212]

This passage, which proves so strongly the two orders of citizens, does not at all confound the Abbé du Bos. He answers thus: [213] "The meaning of this passage is not that Louis the Debonnaire was incapable of introducing Hebo into the order of the nobility. Hebo, as Archbishop of Rheims, must have been of the first order, superior to that of the nobility." I leave the reader to judge whether this be not the meaning of that passage; I leave him to judge whether there be any question here concerning a precedence of the clergy over the nobility. "This passage proves only," continues the same writer, [214] "that the free-born subjects were qualified as noblemen; in the common acceptation, noblemen and men who are free-born have for this long time signified the same thing." What! because some of our burghers have lately assumed the quality of noblemen, shall a passage of the Life of Louis the Debonnaire be applied to this sort of people? "And perhaps," continues he still, [215] "Hebo had not been a bondman among the Franks, but among the Saxons, or some other German nation, where the people were divided into several orders." Then, because of the Abbé du Bos' "perhaps," there must have been no nobility among the nation of the Franks. But he never applied a "perhaps" so badly. We have seen that Tegan distinguishes the bishops, [216] who had opposed Louis the Debonnaire, some of whom had been bondmen, and others of a barbarous nation. Hebo belonged to the former and not to the latter. Besides, I do not see how a bondman, such as Hebo, can be said to have been a Saxon or a German; a bondman has no family, and consequently no nation. Louis the Debonnaire manumitted Hebo; and as bondmen after their manumission embraced the law of their master, Hebo had become a Frank, and not a Saxon or German.

I have been hitherto acting offensively; it is now time to defend myself. It will be objected to me that indeed the body of the Antrustios formed a distinct order in the state from that of the freemen; but as the fiefs were at first precarious, and afterwards for life, this could not form a nobleness of descent, since the privileges were not annexed to an hereditary fief. This is the objection which induced M. de Valois to think that there was only one order of citizens among the Franks; an opinion which the Abbé du Bos has borrowed of him, and which he has absolutely spoiled with so many bad arguments. Be that as it may, it is not the Abbé du Bos that could make this objection. For after having given three orders of Roman nobility, and the quality of the king's guest for the first, he could not pretend to say that this title was a greater mark of a noble descent than that of Antrustio. But I must give a direct answer. The Antrustios or trusty men were not such because they were possessed of a fief, but that they had a fief given them because they were Antrustios or trusty men. The reader may please to recollect what has been said in the beginning of this book. They had not at that time, as they had afterwards, the same fief: but if they had not that, they had another, because the fiefs were given at their birth, and because they were often granted in the assemblies of the nation, and, in fine, because as it was the interest of the nobility to receive them it was likewise the king's interest to grant them. These families were distinguished by their dignity of trusty men, and by the privilege of being qualified to swear allegiance for a fief. In the following book [217] I shall demonstrate how, from the circumstances of the time, there were freemen who were permitted to enjoy this great privilege, and consequently to enter into the order of nobility. This was not the case at the time of Gontram, and his nephew Childebert; but so it was at the time of Charlemagne. But though in that prince's reign the freemen were not incapable of possessing fiefs, yet it appears, by the above-cited passage of Tegan, that the emancipated serfs were absolutely excluded. Will the Abbé du Bos, who carries us to Turkey to give us an idea of the ancient French nobility; [218] will he, I say, pretend that they ever complained among the Turks of the elevation of people of low birth to the honours and dignities of the state, as they complained under Louis the Debonnaire and Charles the Bald? There was no complaint of that kind under Charlemagne, because this prince always distinguished the ancient from the new families; which Louis the Debonnaire, and Charles the Bald did not.

The public should not forget the obligation it owes to the Abbé du Bos for several excellent performances. It is by these works, and not by his history of the Establishment of the French Monarchy, we ought to judge of his merit. He committed very great mistakes, because he had more in view the Count of Boulainvilliers' work than his own subject.

From all these strictures I shall draw only one reflection: if so great a man was mistaken, how cautiously ought I to tread?

Footnotes