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 The Epistre adressée au tygre de la France, a violent invective against the Cardinal of Lorraine, still finds admirers among students of French prose. Apparently Hotman would have been the last man to preach a Reception of Roman law in England. Being keenly alive to the faults of Justinian's books, he resisted the further romanization of French law, demanded a national code, admired the English limited monarchy, and by his Franco-Gallia made himself in some sort the ancestor of the 'Germanists.' Some of these 'elegant' French jurists were so much imbued with the historical spirit that in their hands the study of Roman law became the study of an ancient history. The following words cited and translated by Dareste from Baudouin (François Hotman, p. 19) have a wonderfully modern sound: 'Ceux qui ont étudié le droit auraient pu trouver dans l'histoire la solution de bien des difficultés, et ceux qui ont écrit l'histoire auraient mieux fait d'étudier le développement des lois et des institutions, que de s'attacher à passer en revue les armées, à décrire les camps, à raconter les batailles, à compter les morts.' &lsquo;Sine historia caecam esse iurisprudentiam, disait Baudouin:&rsquo; (Brissaud, Histoire du droit français, p. 349).

Coke, Introductory Letter to Part 10 of the Reports, and Preface to Coke upon Littleton (First Institute). The words of Hotman which moved Coke to wrath will be found in De verbis feudalibus commentarius (F. Hotmani Opera, ed. 1599, vol. II.,