Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/81

 circumstance that Counts and Dukes were generally elected from among the Barons, caused them to add the importance of their employment to the influence which they derived from their birth; and it seems that afterwards, especially when people got accustomed to the hereditary nature of those employments, the precedence arose which these titles had over that of Baron. Even now-a-days, many a noble family, without imperial or royal patent, that is to say, such a family as derives its nobility from the origin of the country itself, a family which always was noble, because it was noble—autochthonous—would refuse an elevation to the title of Count. There are instances of this.

The persons intrusted with the government of such a county naturally tried to obtain from the Emperor, that their sons, or, in default of sons, other relations, should succeed them in their employment. This also happened very often, though I do not believe that the right to that succession was ever proved, at least in the case of those functionaries in the Netherlands, the Counts of Holland, Zealand, Flanders, Hainault,—the Dukes of Brabant, Gelderland, etc. At first it was a favour, soon it became a custom, at last a necessity; but never did that succession become a law.

Almost in the same way, as to the choice of persons,—because there can be no question of similarity of position,—a native functionary is placed at the head of a district