Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/66

 68 ROMAN LAW AND THE January It is another aspect of sovereignty which is stressed in the following passage* of Duaren taken from his comment on the Digest, book i, title iv, 1. 1 : Nam ius, quod princeps conatituit, vim legis habet, etsi non inter- venerit populi consenstis sed sola principis voluntas. Sic enim accipiendum est quod hinc dicitur ab Ulpiano in lib. 1 Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem : nc alias inde aliqua absurditas consequatur. Quis enim edictum Claudii pro lege habendum putet, quo admovebat populum, nihil aeque facere ad viperae morsum quam taxi arboris succiim ? Ut ait Suetonius in Claudio. Caesar quidem dixisse aliquando fertur homines debere pro legibus habere, quae diceret. Sed haec invidiosa oratio ac principe indigna exitiimi ei baud dubium attulit. Superiora verba intelhgere debemus de voluntate principis ius constituere volentis, quae voluntas legis vim habet et constitutio dicitur. This is the utterance of a teacher who, as the letter I have quoted indicates, believes in the simplicity of the Roman system and in maintaining simplicity within it. He believed in the danger of ultramontanism, as witnesses his Defensio pro libertate ecclesiae Gallicanae,^ and may thus be said in one sense to join hands with the mutually incongruous company of those whom Dr. Figgis cata- logued as believers in the doctrine of the divine right of ' kings ' or civil government. That he would have expostulated against too topical or controversial an application of his views is suggested by his quotation from Seneca's fourteenth Epistle, which he is not the only civilian of that time to quote.^ Moreover, his pupil, Doneau, is either scholarly or antiquarian, as in his interpreta- tion of Ulpian's famous dictum,' or inclined to take a frankly utilitarian attitude as to the origin of settled government. Ad urbes tuendas regna condita. Intellexerunt enim homines, plus esse praesidii et commoditatis ad res bene gerendas unius sapientis et regis in imperio quam in imperio aut totius populi aut plurium : quia vir sapiens vel per se vel sapientum consiliis adiutus facile ac statim consulere posset in commune, ac quae recte decrevisset, statim exsequi, cum ei omnes parerent : in plurium autem administratione propter varia hominum iudicia et naturalem ad differentiendum proclivitatem facile eveniret ut esleu, approuvc, soubstenu et defendu pour avoir a iamais telle authority aur runiversel monde en choses temporelles comme Sainct Pierre jadis receut en spirituelles ' : Histoire dc8 expidiiions faites par lea Oavlois, pp. 5 and 95. The popular sanction for govern- ment is stressed both here and in the conception of the French monarchy developed in his La lot salique published in the same year, 1552. ' 'Dubitandum non est quin rex qui praecipuus est fundator, tutor, custoe et propugnator ecclesiarum sui regni, non solum iure poesit, sed etiam debeat dare operam et curare ut decreta et constitutiones, quibus baud dubie propulsantur ea quae diximus incommoda, diligenter et bona fide observentur' : Defensio, etc. § 22. est, ut plurima per senatum transigantur, gratiosi in eo viri, interdum singuli quibttt potestas populi et in populum data est.'
 * * Interdum populus est quern timere debeamus ; interdum si ea civitatis disciplina
 * De iure eivili, i. 9.