Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/139

Rh the land lies untilled, and the whole country becomes a desert.

Is it to be imagined that the laws which abolish the property of land, and the succession of estates, will diminish the avarice and cupidity of the great? By no means. They will rather stimulate this cupidity and avarice. The great men will be prompted to use a thousand oppressive methods, imagining they have no other property than the gold and silver which they are able to seize upon by violence or to conceal.

To prevent therefore the utter ruin of the state, the avidity of the prince ought to be moderated by some established custom. Thus in Turky the prince is satisfied with the right of three per cent, on the value of inheritances. But as he gives the greatest part of the lands to his soldiery, and disposes of them as he pleases, as he seizes on all the estates of the officers of the empire at their decease, as he has the property of the estates of those who die without issue, and the daughters have only the usufruct, it thence follows that the greatest part of the estates of the country are possessed in a precarious manner.

By the laws of Bantam the king seizes on the whole inheritance, even wife, children, and habitation. In order to elude the cruellest part of this law, they are obliged to marry their children at eight, nine, or ten years of age, and sometimes younger, to the end that they may not be a wretched part of the father s succession. Rh