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N the ancient French laws we find the true spirit of monarchy. In cases relating to pecuniary punishments the common people are less severely punished than the nobility. But in criminal cases it is quite the reverse; the nobleman loses his honor and his voice in court, while the peasant, who has no honor to lose, undergoes a corporal punishment.

HE people of Rome had some share of probity. Such was the force of this probity, that the legislator had frequently no farther occasion than to point out the right road, to induce them to follow it; one would imagine that instead of precepts it was sufficient to give them counsels.

The punishments of the regal laws and those of the twelve tables were almost all abolished in the time of the republic, in consequence either of the Valerian , Rh