d as the price of blood. The fierce spirit of the Franks would
have opposed a more rigorous sentence; the same fierceness despised
these ineffectual restraints; and, when their simple manners had been
corrupted by the wealth of Gaul, the public peace was continually
violated by acts of hasty or deliberate guilt. In every just government
the same penalty is inflicted, or at least is imposed, for the murder
of a peasant or a prince. But the national inequality established by the
Franks, in their criminal proceedings, was the last insult and abuse of
conquest. In the calm moments of legislation, they solemnly pronounced,
that the life of a Roman was of smaller value than that of a Barbarian.
The _Antrustion_, a name expressive of the most illustrious birth or
dignity among the Franks, was appreciated at the sum of six hundred
pieces of gold; while the noble provincial, who was admitted to the
king's table, might be legally murdered at the expense of three hundred
pieces. Two hundred were deemed sufficient for a Frank of ordinary
condition; but the meaner Romans were exposed to disgrace and danger by
a trifling compensation of one hundred, or even fifty, pieces of gold.
Had these laws been regulated by any principle of equity or reason, the
public protection should have supplied, in just proportion, the want of
personal strength. But the legislator had weighed in the scale, not of
justice, but of policy, the loss of a soldier against that of a slave:
the head of an insolent and rapacious Barbarian was guarded by a
heavy fine; and the slightest aid was afforded to the most defenceless
subjects. Time insensibly abated the pride of the conquerors and the
patience of the vanquished; and the boldest citizen was taught, by
experience, that he might suffer more injuries than he could inflict.
As the manners of the Franks became less ferocious, their laws were
rendered more severe; and the Merovingian kings attempted to imitate the
impartial rigor of the Visigoths and Burgundians. Under the empire of
Charlemagne, murder was universally punished with death; and the use of
capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the jurisprudence
of modern Europe.

The civil and military professions, which had been separated by
Constantine, were again united by the Barbarians. The harsh sound of the
Teutonic appellations was mollified into the Latin titles of Duke, of
Count, or of Praefect; and the same officer assumed, within his distric