When Bodin found he could not prevent this resolution being carried, he
contrived to get inserted in the petition drawn up by the states the
clause "without war," which practically rendered nugatory all its other
clauses. While he thus resisted the clergy and nobility he successfully
opposed the demand of the king to be allowed to alienate the public
lands and royal demesnes, although the chief deputies had been won over
to assent. This lost him the favour of the king, who wanted money on any
terms. In 1581 he acted as secretary to the duc d'Alencon when that
prince came over to England to seek the hand of Queen Elizabeth. Here he
had the pleasure of finding that the _Republique_ was studied at London
and Cambridge, although in a barbarous Latin translation. This
determined him to translate his work into Latin himself (1586). The
latter part of Bodin's life was spent at Laon, which he is said to have
persuaded to declare for the League in 1589, and for Henry IV. five
years afterwards. He died of the plague in 1596, and was buried in the
church of the Carmelites.

With all his breadth and liberality of mind Bodin was a credulous
believer in witchcraft, the virtues of numbers and the power of the
stars, and in 1580 he published the _Demonomanie des sorciers_, a work
which shows that he was not exempt from the prejudices of the age.
Himself regarded by most of his contemporaries as a sceptic, and by some
as an atheist, he denounced all who dared to disbelieve in sorcery, and
urged the burning of witches and wizards. It might, perhaps, have gone
hard with him if his counsel had been strictly followed, as he confessed
to have had from his thirty-seventh year a friendly demon, who, if
properly invoked, touched his right ear when he purposed doing what was
wrong, and his left when he meditated doing good.

His chief work, the _Six livres de la Republique_ (Paris, 1576), which
passed through several editions in his lifetime, that of 1583 having as
an appendix _L'Apologie de Rene Herpin_ (Bodin himself), was the first
modern attempt to construct an elaborate system of political science. It
is perhaps the most important work of its kind between Aristotle and
modern writers. Though he was much indebted to Aristotle he used the
material to advantage, adding much from his own experience and
historical knowledge. In harmony with the conditions of his age, he
approved of absolute governments, though at the same time they must, he
t