Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/497

 and he imposes silence upon his Attorney-General and other Officers in this matter. Nevertheless, His said Majesty declares that children, the issue of such marriages, shall only inherit the household goods and the earnings or acquisitions of their parents, and in default of such children the nearest relations are to inherit: and the wills, donations and other dispositions, made and to be made, by persons of said description, of the said household goods and earnings, are declared valid. His said Majesty declares that the said professed Monks or Priests and Nuns shall not succeed to any family inheritance directly or collaterally, except, only, they may take possession of what is left or shall be left to them by will, excepting, always, those by direct and collateral succession: as for those who made profession before the age stipulated by the Ordinances of Orleans and Blois, the tenor of said Ordinances shall be obeyed, each for the time of its being binding. 40th.—His Majesty's will and pleasure is, that persons of the said religion, who have contracted marriages or shall contract them, who are within the third or fourth degree of consanguinity, shall not be disturbed, nor the validity of the marriages called in question: in like manner, there shall be no dispute about the right of succession to property of the children born, or who shall be born from such marriages : and as for such marriages as shall have been already contracted between those of the second, or of the second and third degree, making appeal to the King, they shall be furnished with such grant or patent as shall be all-sufficient to protect them from molestation, and their children from disputed succession.

4lst.—In order to judge of the validity of marriages made and contracted by those of the said religion, and to decide upon their legality, if the defendant be of the said religion, the Royal Judge shall have cognizance of the cause, and where the Catholic is defendant, the cognizance shall belong to the Ecclesiastical-Judge. If both parties be of the said religion, the cognizance shall belong to the Royal Judges. His said Majesty's will is, that with regard to said marriages and differences growing out of them, the Ecclesiastical and the Royal Judges, together with the Chambers established by the Edict, shall respectively have the cognizance.

42d.—Gifts and legacies made, or that shall be made, by the last will of the dying, or the disposition of the living, towards the maintenance of Ministers, Doctors, Scholars or poor persons of the said pretended Reformed religion, or for other pious purposes, shall