Note 335 — Chapter IX · The State. (continued 2)

Counts and judges (Scabini) were to name the law they would live by, and judge accordingly—“Comites et judices confiteantur qua lege vivere debent, et secundum ipsam judicent,” Pertz. Leg., vol. 1, Capit. p. 101, sec. 48. So the Romans were to choose the law they would live by—Do. Hlot. Const. Rom., ad an 824, p. 239–40. Hundred Court and Tithing Court, Scabinus and Sagibaro, all the machinery of the free Salic law, gradually disappeared, until the government of the people, whose very name was once synonymous with freedom, was expressed in the words “l’etat c’est moi.” It must always be recollected that our Third Estate differs in a most important particular from the Tiers Etat, or Bourgeoisie, of the Continent. It includes the Minores Barones, the representatives of the Meliores pagenses or Probi homines; to whose keeping the free institutions of our ancestors were committed long before the existence of a Burgherhood.