situation of the French jurists was peculiar and continued to be so
down to the outbreak of the revolution. On the one hand, they formed
the best instructed and nearly the most powerful class in the nation.
They had made good their footing as a privileged order by the side of
the feudal aristocracy, and they had assured their influence by an
organisation which distributed their profession over France in great
chartered corporations possessing large defined powers and still
larger indefinite claims. In all the qualities of the advocate, the
judge, and the legislator, they far excelled their compeers throughout
Europe. Their juridical tact, their ease of expression, their fine
sense of analogy and harmony, and (if they may be judged by the
highest names among them) their passionate devotion to their
conceptions of justice, were as remarkable as the singular variety of
talent which they included, a variety covering the whole ground
between the opposite poles of Cujas and Montesquieu, of D'Aguesseau
and Dumoulin. But, on the other hand, the system of laws which they
had to administer stood in striking contrast with the habits of mind
which they had cultivated. The France which had been in great part
constituted by their efforts was smitten with the curse of an
anomalous and dissonant jurisprudence beyond every other country in
Europe. One great division ran through the country and separated it
into _Pays du Droit Ecrit_ and _Pays du Droit Coutumier_, the first
acknowledging the written Roman law as the basis of their
jurisprudence, the last admitting it only so far as it supplied
general forms of expression, and courses of juridical reasoning which
were reconcileable with the local usages. The sections thus formed
were again variously subdivided. In the _Pays du Droit Coutumier_
province differed from province, county from county, municipality from
municipality, in the nature of its customs. In the _Pays du Droit
Ecrit_ the stratum of feudal rules which overlay the Roman law was of
the most miscellaneous composition. No such confusion as this ever
existed in England. In Germany it did exist, but was too much in
harmony with the deep political and religious divisions of the country
to be lamented or even felt. It was the special peculiarity of France
that an extraordinary diversity of laws continued without sensible
alteration while the central authority of the monarchy was constantly
strengthening itself, while rapid approac