Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/156

104 The difference of rank, birth and condition, established in monarchical governments, is frequently attended with distinctions in the nature of property; and the laws relative to the constitution of this government, may augment the number of these distindtions. Hence among us, goods are divided into real estates, purchases, dowries, paraphernalia, paternal and maternal estates, moveables of different kinds; estates held in fee simple, or in tail; acquired by descent or conveyance; allodial, or held by soccage; ground rents, or annuities. Each sort of goods is subject to particular rules, which must be complied with in the disposal of them. These things must needs diminish the simplicity of the laws.

In our governments, the fiefs are become hereditary. It was necessary that the nobility should have a fixt property, that is, the fief should have a certain consistency, to the end that the proprietor of the fief might be always in a capacity of serving the prince. This must have been productive of great varieties; for instance, there are countries where fiefs could not be divided among the brothers; in others the younger brothers may be allowed a more generous subsistence.

The monarch who knows each of his provinces, may establish different laws, or tolerate different customs. But the despotic prince knows nothing, and can attend to nothing; he must take general measures; he governs by a rigid and inflexible will, which throughout his whole dominions produces the same effects; every thing bends under his feet. Rh