Note 89 — PART III. THE BATTURE AT NEW-ORLEANS.

The following instances will give some idea of the steps by which the Roman gained on the Feudal laws. A law of Burgundy provided that 'Si quis post hoc barbarus vel testari voluerit, vel donare, aut Romanam consuetudinem, aut barbaricam, esse servandam, sciat.' 'If any barbarian subject hereafter shall desire to dispose by legacy or donation, let him know that either the Roman or barbarian law is to be observed.' And one of Lotharius II. of Germany, going still further, gives to every one an election of the system under which he chose to live. 'Volumus ut cunctus populus Romanus interrogatur quali lege vult vivere: ut tali lege, quali professi sunt vivere vivant: illisque denuntiatur, ut hoc unusquisque, tam judices, quam duces, vel reliquus populus sciat, quod si offensionem contra eandem legem fecerint, eidem legi, quâ profitentur vivere, subjaceant.' 'We will that all the Roman people shall be asked by what law they wish to live: that they may live under such law as they profess to live by: and that it be published, that every one, judges, as well as generals, or the rest of the people, may know that if they commit offence against the said law, they shall be subject to the same law by which they profess to live.' Encyc. Method. Jurisprudence, Coutume. 399. Presenting the uncommon spectacle of a jurisdiction attached to persons, instead of places. Thus favored, the Roman became an acknowledged supplement to the feudal or customary law: but still, not under any act of the legislature, but as 'raison écrite,' written reason: and the cases to which it is applicable, becoming much the most numerous, it constitutes in fact the mass of their law.