corporations, guilds, villages, towns, counties, provinces, we
find that for a long period each of these bodies exercised what
was called "the Right of War." The history of France and Germany
shows how reluctantly this mode of trial yielded to the forms of
reason and order. France, earlier than Germany, ordained "Trial by
Proofs," and eliminated the duel from judicial proceedings, this
important step being followed by the gradual amalgamation of
discordant provinces in the powerful unity of the Nation,----so
that Brittany and Normandy, Franche-Comte and Burgundy, Provence
and Dauphiny, Gascony and Languedoc, with the rest, became the
United States of France, or, if you please, France. In Germany the
change was slower; and here the duel exhibits its most curious
instances. Not only feudal chiefs, but associations of tradesmen
and of domestics sent defiance to each other, and sometimes to
whole cities, on pretences trivial as those which have been the
occasion of defiance from nation to nation. There still remain to
us Declarations of War by a Lord of Frauenstein against the free
city of Frankfort, because a young lady of the city refused to
dance with his uncle,--by the baker and domestics of the Margrave
of Baden against Esslingen, Reutlingen, and other imperial
cities,--by the baker of the Count Palatine Louis against the
cities of Augsburg, Ulm, and Rottweil,--by the shoe-blacks of the
University of Leipsic against the provost and other members,--and
by the cook of Eppstein, with his scullions, dairy-maids, and
dish-washers, against Otho, Count of Solms. [Footnote: Coxe,
History of the House of Austria. (London, 1820) Ch. XIX., Vol. I.
p. 378.] This prevalence of the duel aroused the Emperor
Maximilian, who at the Diet of Worms put forth an ordinance
abolishing the right or liberty of Private War, and instituting a
Supreme Tribunal for the determination of controversies without