he claims one-half or one-third of treasure-trove, and, on the coast, he takes for himself the waif of wrecks.  And finally, what is more fruitful, in these times of misery, he becomes the possessor of abandoned lands that have remained untilled for ten years.-Other advantages demonstrate still more clearly that he formerly possessed the government of the canton.  Such are, in Auvergne, in Flanders, in Hainaut, in Artois, in Picardy, Alsace, and Lorraine, the dues de poursoin ou de sauvement (care or safety within the walls of a town), paid to him for providing general protection.  The dues of de guet et de garde (watch and guard), claimed by him for military protection; of afforage, are exacted of those who sell beer, wine and other beverages, whole-sale or retail.  The dues of fouage, dues on fires, in money or grain, which, according to many common-law systems, he levies on each fireside, house or family.  The dues of pulvérage, quite common in Dauphiny-and Provence, are levied on passing flocks of sheep.  Those of the lods et ventes (lord’s due), an almost universal tax, consist of the deduction of a sixth, often of a fifth or even a fourth, of the price of every piece of ground sold, and of every lease exceeding nine years.  The dues for redemption or relief are equivalent to one year’s income, aid that he receives from collateral heirs, and often from direct heirs.  Finally, a rarer due, but the most burdensome of all, is that of acapte ou de plaid-a-merci, which is a double rent, or a year’s yield of fruits, payable as well on the death of the seignior as on that of the copyholder.  These are veritable taxes, on land, on movables, personal, for licenses, for traffic, for mutations, for successions, established formerly on the condition of performing a public service which he is no longer obliged to perform.

Other dues are also ancient taxes, but he still performs the service for which they are a quittance.  The king, in fact, suppresses many of the tolls, twelve hundred in 1724, and the suppression is kept up.  A good many still remain to the profit of the seignior, — on bridges, on highways, on fords, on boats ascending or descending, several being very lucrative, one of them producing 90,000 livres[25].  He pays for the expense of keeping up bridge, road, ford and towpath.  In like manner, on condition of maintaining the market-place and of providing scales and weights gratis, he levies a tax on provisions and on merchandise brought to his fair or to his market. — At Angoulême a forty-eighth of the grain sold, at Combourg near Saint-Malo, so much per head of cattle, elsewhere so much on wine, eatables and fish[26] Having formerly built the oven, the winepress, the mill and the slaughterhouse, he obliges the inhabitants to use these or pay for their support, and he demolishes all constructions, which might enter into competition with him[27].  These, again, are evidently monopolies and octrois going back to the time when he was in possession of public authority.