Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/456

404 We need here on]y transcribe the title of the Allodial lands of the Salic law, that famous text of which so many have spoken, and which so few have read.

"If a man dies without issue, his father or mother shall succeed him. 2. If he has neither father nor mother, his brother or sister shall succeed him. 3. If he has neither brother nor sister, the sister of his mother shall succeed him. 4. If his mother has no sister, the sister of his father shall succeed him. 5. If his father has no sister, the nearest relation by the male shall succeed. 6. Not any part of the Salic land shall pass to the females; but it shall belong to the males, that is, the male children shall succeed their father."

It is plain that the first five articles relate to the inheritance of a man who dies without issue; and the sixth to the succession of him who has children.

When a man dies without children, the law ordains that neither of the two sexes shall have the preference to the other, except in certain cases. In the two first degrees of succession, the advantages of the males and females were the same; in the third and fourth, the females had the preference, and the males in the fifth.

Tacitus gives us the seeds of these extravagancies: "The sister's childern, says he, are as dear to Rh