3 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. Means

' 2. Laws concealed

In France, in feudal France, the rule of action was rendered intricate and dark enough by accidental causes: little industry was necessary to make it more so.

There was the whole body of the Roman law imported in the lump. Lay and Ecclesiastical, Imperial and Pontifical. There was the noble army of commentators each striving with his fellows who should make[?] obscurity more obscure, confusion worse confounded. There was the galaxy of customary[?], that is of provincial laws: a separate set for every province, the sovereignty of a guardian[?] petty sovereign swallowed up in the preponderant sovereignty of the descendants of [...?] Capet.

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