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 134 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii revenge was always honourable, and often meritorious ; the independent warrior chastised, or vindicated, with his own hand, the injuries which he had offered, or received ; and he had only to dread the resentment of the sons, and kinsmen, of the enemy whom he had sacrificed to his selfish or angry passions. The magistrate, conscious of his weakness, inter- posed, not to punish, but to reconcile; and he was satisfied if he could persuade, or compel, the contending parties to pay, and to accept the moderate fine which had been ascertained as the price of blood. 77 The fierce spirit of the Franks would have opposed a more rigorous sentence ; the same fierceness despised these ineffectual restraints ; and, when their simple manners had been corrupted by the wealth of Gaul, the public peace was continually violated by acts of hasty or deliberate guilt. In every just government, the same penalty is inflicted, or at least is imposed, for the murder of a peasant or a prince. But the national inequality established by the Franks, in their criminal proceedings, was the last insult and abuse of con- quest. 78 In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly pronounced that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than that of a Barbarian. The Antrustion,™ a name expressive 77 In the heroic times of Greece, the guilt of murder was expiated by a pecuniary satisfaction to the family of the deceased (Feithius, Antiquitat. Homeric. 1. ii. c. 8). Heineccius, in his preface to the Elements of Germanic Law, favourably suggests that at Eome and Athens homicide was only punished with exile. It is true ; but exile was a capital punishment for a citizen of Eome or Athens. 78 This proportion is fixed by the Salic (tit. xliv. in torn. iv. p. 147), and the Eipuarian (tit. vii. xi. xxxvi. in torn. iv. p. 237, 241), laws ; but the latter does not distinguish any difference of Eomans. Yet the orders of the clergy are placed above the Franks themselves, and the Burgundians and Alemanni between the Franks and the Eomans. 79 The Antrustiones, qui in truste Dominicd sunt, letidi, fideles, undoubtedly represent the first order of Franks ; but it is a question whether their rank was personal, or hereditary. The Abbe de Mably (torn. i. p. 334-347) is not displeased to mortify the pride of birth (Esprit. 1. xxx. c. 25), by dating the origin of French nobility from the reign of Clotaire II. (a.d. 615). [The antrustions were the members of the king's trustis or eomitatus. Elevation to the position is thus described by Venantius Fortunatus, 7, 16 : Jussit et egregios inter residere potentes, convivam reddens, proficiente gradu. The antrustions must be distinguished from the fideles and leudes. The fideles were all subjects who had taken the oath to the king ; the leudes were the more important of the fideles, and thus included the antrustions. We find the leudes contrasted (1) with men of no influence and (2) with powerful ecclesiastics. Their position in regard to the king had nothing to do with commendation. Those who " commended " themselves were termed the king's vassi, or homines, " vassals ". Compare Waitz, Deutsche Verfassungs- geschichte, ii. 1, 348 sqq. The origin of vassaldom has nothing to do with the eomitatus. The rank of the antrustion was personal, not hereditary. Cp. Waitz, ib. p. 340. See further Guilhermioz, L'origine de la noblesse en France au moyen