only on condition of remaining with them; if absent at the time of
their decease he is the inheritor." This is what was styled in the
language of the day an estate "with excellent dues." -Elsewhere the
seignior inherits from collaterals, brothers or nephews, if they were
not in community with the defunct at the moment of his death, which
community is only valid through his consent. In the Jura and the
Nivernais, he may pursue fugitive serfs, and demand, at their death,
not only the property left by them on his domain, but, again, the
pittance acquired by them elsewhere. At Saint-Claude he acquires this
right over any person that passes a year and a day in a house
belonging to the seigniory. As to ownership of the soil we see still
more clearly that he once had entire possession of it. In the district
subject to his jurisdiction the public domain remains his private
domain; roads, streets and open squares form a part of it; he has the
right to plant trees in them and to take trees up. In many provinces,
through a pasturage rent, he obliges the inhabitants to pay for
permits to pasture their cattle in the fields after the crop, and in
the open common lands, (les terres vaines et vagues). Unnavigable
streams belong to him, as well as islets and accumulations formed in
them and the fish that are found in them. He has the right of the
chase over the whole extent of his jurisdiction, this or that commoner
being sometimes compelled to throw open to him his park enclosed by
walls.

One more trait serves to complete the picture. This head of the
State, a proprietor of man and of the soil, was once a resident
cultivator on his own small farm amidst others of the same class, and,
by this title, he reserved to himself certain working privileges which
he always retained. Such is the right of banvin, still widely
diffused, consisting of the privilege of selling his own wine, to the