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 522 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xliv institute an action or complaint of inofficious testament, to sup- pose that their father's understanding was impaired by sickness or age, and respectfully to appeal from his rigorous sentence to Legacies the deliberate wisdom of the magistrate. In the Bonian juris- prudence, an essential distinction was admitted between the in- heritance and the legacies. The heirs who succeeded to the entire unity, or to any of the twelve fractions, of the substance of the testator represented his civil and religious character, as- serted his rights, fulfilled his obligations, and discharged the gifts of friendship or liberality which his last will had bequeathed under the name of legacies. But, as the imprudence or prodigality of a dying man might exhaust the inheritance and leave only risk and labour to his successor, he was empowered to retain the Falcidian portion ; to deduct, before the payment of the legacies, a clear fourth for his own emolument. A reasonable time was allowed to examine the proportion between the debts and the estate, to decide whether he should accept or refuse the testa- ment ; and, if he used the benefit of an inventory, the demands of the creditors could not exceed the valuation of the effects. The last will of a citizen might be altered during his life or re- scinded after his death : the persons whom he named might die before him, or reject the inheritance, or be exposed to some legal disqualification. In the contemplation of these events, he was permitted to substitute second and third heirs, to replace each other according to the order of the testament ; and the incapa- city of a madman or an infant to bequeath his property might be supplied by a similar substitution. 159 But the power of the tes- tator expired with the acceptance of the testament ; each Roman of mature age and discretion acquired the absolute dominion of his inheritance, and the simplicity of the civil law was never clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine the happiness and freedom of unborn generations. codicils Conquest and the formalities of law established the use of codicils. If a Roman was surprised by death in a remote pro- vince of the empire, he addressed a short epistle to his legitimate 159 ^i ie substitutions fidei-commissaires of the modern civil law is a feudal idea grafted on the Roman jurisprudence, and bears scarcely any resemblance to the ancient fidei-commissa (Institutions du Droit Francois, torn. i. p. 347-383 ; Denis- sart, Decisions de Jurisprudence, torn. iv. p. 577-604). They were stretched to the fourth degree by an abuse of the clixth Novel ; a partial, perplexed, declamatory law. and trusts