feudal tower has been preserved. Elsewhere it is
plastered over anew, and more particularly in the appanages. In these
domains, comprising more than twelve of our departments, the princes of
the blood appoint to all offices in the judiciary and to all clerical
livings. Being substitutes of the king they enjoy his serviceable and
honorary rights. They are almost delegated kings, and for life; for they
not only receive all that the king would receive as seignior, but again
a portion of that which he would receive as monarch. For example, the
house of Orleans collects the excises,[1222] that is to say the duty on
liquors, on works in gold or silver, on manufactures of iron, on steel,
on cards, on paper and starch, in short, on the entire sum-total of one
of the most onerous indirect taxes. It is not surprising, if, having
a nearly sovereign situation, they have a council, a chancellor, an
organized debt, a court,[1223] a domestic ceremonial system, and that
the feudal edifice in their hands should put on the luxurious and formal
trappings which it had assumed in the hands of the king.

Let us turn to its inferior personages, to a seignior of medium rank,
on his square league of ground, amidst the thousand inhabitants who were
formerly his villeins or his serfs, within reach of the monastery, or
chapter, or bishop whose rights intermingle with his rights. Whatever
may have been done to abase him his position is still very high. He is
yet, as the intendants say, "the first inhabitant;" a prince whom
they have half despoiled of his public functions and consigned to
his honorary and available rights, but who nevertheless remains
a prince.[1224]--He has his bench in the church, and his right of
sepulture in the choir; the tapestry bears his coat of arms; they bestow
on him incense, "holy water by distinction." Often, having founded the
church, he is its patron, choosing the curate and claiming to control
him; in the rural districts we see him advancing or retarding the hour
of the parochial mass according to his fancy. If he bears a title he
is supreme judge, and there are entire provinces, Maine and Anjou,
for example, where there is no fief without the judge. In this case
he appoints the bailiff; the registrar, and other legal and judicial
officers, attorneys, notaries, seigniorial sergeants, constabulary on
foot or mounted, who draw up documents or decide in his name in
civil and criminal cases on the first trial. He appoints