e heirs of the murdered
man: but here a fit of coughing attacked and carried off his holiness,
so that whatever penance he intended to inflict was never known.
Clotaire, however, determined to expiate his crime, long pondered upon
the meaning of the pope's dying words, and at last concluded that, as
there was nothing higher than a king, the words 'highest satisfaction'
meant that he should raise the heir of Vauthier to the royal dignity.
Accordingly, he by charter erected the seigniory of Yvetot into a
kingdom--an act in perfect consonance with the ancient French feudal
law, which enfranchised the family of the vassal from all homage and
duty, if his lord laid violent hands upon him.

From that time until the latter part of the eighteenth century, the
descendants of Vauthier reigned as independent sovereigns of their
little kingdom of Yvetot, owing neither tribute, service, nor
allegiance to any other power. Consequently, until the great
Revolution, which, like the bursting of a pent-up deluge, changed the
features of the whole country, the inhabitants of Yvetot paid no taxes
to the government of France.

Historians and jurisconsults have written many grave and learned
dissertations on the curious position of this little kingdom shut up
in a greater one; and, though they differ in some trifling respects,
they all coincide in concluding, that the king of Yvetot, being
independent of any other potentate, was never obliged to engage in
quarrels which did not concern him, and accordingly lived in peace
with his neighbours, whom he never pretended to frighten. Moreover, in
spite of courtiers and counsellors, statecraft and politics were
unknown in Yvetot; thus the king remained neuter during the various
wars that raged around him, though he could bring an army of one
hundred and twenty royal troops into the field. The seriousness of
these disquisitions has been occasionally enlivened by a spice of
pleasantry. We are told how the king of Yvetot kept his own seals, and
was his own minister of finance; that his court consisted of a
bishop, a dean, and four canons, not one of whom ranked higher in the
church than a parish cure; four notaries, dignified by the title of
judges, representing the states of the kingdom, formed the senate, and
composed his majesty's privy-council; four of the best-looking of the
tenants' daughters were ladies of the bed-chamber and maids of honour
to the queen; four stalwart body-guards attended on