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 chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 133 Merovingians, instead of imposing an uniform rule of conduct on their various subjects, permitted each people, and each family of their empire, freely to enjoy their domestic institu- tions; 74 nor were the Eomans excluded from the common benefits of this legal toleration. 75 The children embraced the law of their parents, the wife that of her husband, the freed- man that of his patrons ; and, in all causes, where the parties were of different nations, the plaintiff, or accuser, was obliged to follow the tribunal of the defendant, who may always plead a judicial presumption of right or innocence. A more ample latitude was allowed, if every citizen, in the presence of the judge, might declare the law under which he desired to live and the national society to which he chose to belong. Such an indulgence would abolish the partial distinctions of victory, and the Roman provincials might patiently acquiesce in the hard- ships of their condition; since it depended on themselves to assume the privilege, if they dared to assert the character, of free and warlike Barbarians. 76 When justice inexorably requires the death of a murderer, Pecuniary each private citizen is fortified by the assurance that the laws, homicide the magistrate, and the whole community are the guardians of his personal safety. But in the loose society of the Germans 74 The Ripuarian law declares and defines this indulgence in favour of the plaintiff (tit. xxxi. [§ 3] in torn. iv. p. 240), and the same toleration is understood, or expressed, in all the Codes, except that of the Visigoths of Spain. Tanta diversitas legum (says Agobard in the ninth century) quanta non solum in [singulis] regioni- bus, aut civitatibus, sed etiam in multis domibus habetur. Nam plerumque con- tingit ut simul eant aut sedeant quinque homines, et nullus eorum communem legem cum altero habeat (in torn. vi. p. 356). He foolishly proposes to introduce an uniformity of law, as well as of faith. 73 Inter Eomanos negotia causarum Eomanis legibus preecipimus terminari. Such are the words of a general constitution promulgated by Clotaire, the son of Clovis, and sole monarch of the Franks (in torn. iv. p. 116) about the year 560. 76 This liberty of choice has been aptly deduced (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxviii. 2) from a constitution of Lothaire I. (Leg. Langobard, 1. ii. tit. lvii. in Codex Linde- brog. p. 664), though the example is too recent and partial. From a various read- ing in the Salic law (tit. xliv. not. xlv.) [tit. xli. (xliv. ed. Herold.), col. 244-51, ed. Hessels] the Abbe de Mably (torn. i. p. 290-293) has conjectured that, at first a Barbarian only, and afterwards any man (consequently a Eoman), might live according to the law of the Franks. I am sorry to offend this ingenious conjecture by observing that the stricter sense (Barbarum) is expressed in the reformed copy of Charlemagne, which is confirmed by the Royal and Wolfenbuttle Mss. The looser interpretation (hominem) is authorised only by the Ms. of Fulda from whence Heroldus published his edition [a.d. 1557]. See the four original texts of the Salic law, in torn. iv. p. 147, 173, 196, 220. [Out of numerous editions of the Lex Salica in the present century, may be mentioned that of J. H. Hessels (1880) and that of R. Behrend (2nd ed., 1897).]