Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/465

Rh But even in this chance they followed the original spirit of the nation; for the acts did not pass in the name of the young king. So that the Franks had a double administration, the one which concerned the person of the infant king, and the other which regarded the kingdom; and in the fiefs there was a difference between the guardianship and the civil administration.

LOVIS was not the only prince amongst the Franks who had invaded Gaul. Many of his relations had entered this country with particular tribes; but as he had much greater success, and could give considerable establishments to those that followed him, the Franks ran to him from all the tribes, so that the other chiefs found themselves too weak to resist him. He formed a design of exterminating his whole race, and he succeeded. He feared, says Gregory of Tours, lest the Franks should chufe another chief. His children and successors followed this practice to the utmost of their power. Thus the brother, the uncle, the nephew, and what is still worse, the father or the son, were perpetually conspiring against their whole family. The law continually divided the monarchy; while fear, ambition, and cruelty, wanted to reunite it. Rh