Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/69

1920 NEW MONARCHY IN FRANCE 61 muni suorum decreto deliberatum sit et constitutum. Sanctum est enim nomen legis, sanctum et regis. . . . Hie si tyrannus expellendus est.'- ' Eiiciendus est', 'communi suorum decreto', what phrases are these ? It might almost be a pamphlet for the ' Seize ' that we have stumbled into, or an excerpt from the Franco-GaUia ? If this is to be the considered sentence of the teachers of the civil law, kings might well think that they had best turn common lawyers, and the universities be checked in a course which could bring nothing with it but disaster to the royal cause. ^ In short, Connan's utterance went further than that of any other writer on the law here quoted. It is doubtless the part of wisdom not to elaborate in too great detail any theory based on quotations, representative it is hoped, but all of them, to a greater or a less degree, o6i^er in their nature. This much at least is certain. The French civilians of the seven- teenth century approached the study of the Roman law from different points of view. Whether, however, their method of approach to it arose from an historical or from a more purely analytical predilection, whether they directed their interest more towards the content or the system, the very nature of the law they taught forced them into the position of advocacy for the centralized and universal as opposed to the decentralized and the particular. The example set by them was to be followed with profound effect by students and teachers of French law. Dumou- lin was the first only of a school which embraced names like Coquille, Loisel, Pithou, and even Pothier. And who can doubt that the effect was, besides being professional, political as well ? Just in so far as political partisanship was not characteristic of them, the civilians of the sixteenth century in France presented a united front. Their doctrine was effective because it treated of sovereignty and not sovereigns. The salutary lessons which by inference from their writings could be learned as to the danger of impairing the unity or simplicity of the former gained force from the remarks upon popular sovereignty to be found in Alciat, the argument from expediency to be found in Cujas orDoneau, or the strong words on the duty of rebellion expressed in Connan's works. ' Comment. lur. Civ. i. 8. See the following passage in the same book : ' Postquam vero coepissent ii, quibus ad hunc modum fuerat data rerum omnium potestaa, contra rationis praescriptionem multa pro animi libidinem facere, et periculosum videretur unius arbitrio fortunas et vitam omnium committi, quidam eiectis regibus leges posuerunt, alii retentis regibus tanquam frenos legum iniecerunt, ut eos nimia potentia ferocientes duritia iuris cohiberent' : 161. 7. - In England, for instance, Henry VIII had founded the Regius Professorships at Cambridge in 1540 and at Oxford, it is said, in 1535. Ten years before, Francis I had persuaded Alciat to leave Milan for France, where he lectured at Avignon, Bourges, and Paris. Paris was not to shine as a school of law, however, till a much later date>