ontesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, xxviii. c. 14,) who
understands why the judicial combat was admitted by the Burgundians,
Ripuarians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Lombards, Thuringians, Frisons, and
Saxons, is satisfied (and Agobard seems to countenance the assertion)
that it was not allowed by the Salic law. Yet the same custom, at least
in case of treason, is mentioned by Ermoldus, Nigellus (l. iii. 543, in
tom. vi. p. 48,) and the anonymous biographer of Lewis the Pious, (c.
46, in tom. vi. p. 112,) as the "mos antiquus Francorum, more Francis
solito," &c., expressions too general to exclude the noblest of their
tribes.]

A devouring host of one hundred and twenty thousand Germans had formerly
passed the Rhine under the command of Ariovistus. One third part of
the fertile lands of the Sequani was appropriated to their use; and the
conqueror soon repeated his oppressive demand of another third, for the
accommodation of a new colony of twenty-four thousand Barbarians, whom
he had invited to share the rich harvest of Gaul. [85] At the distance
of five hundred years, the Visigoths and Burgundians, who revenged the
defeat of Ariovistus, usurped the same unequal proportion of two thirds
of the subject lands. But this distribution, instead of spreading over
the province, may be reasonably confined to the peculiar districts where
the victorious people had been planted by their own choice, or by the
policy of their leader. In these districts, each Barbarian was connected
by the ties of hospitality with some Roman provincial. To this unwelcome
guest, the proprietor was compelled to abandon two thirds of his
patrimony, but the German, a shepherd and a hunter, might sometimes
content himself with a spacious range of wood and pasture, and resign
the smallest, though most valuable, portion, to the toil of the
industrious husbandman. [86] The silence of ancient and authentic
testimony has encouraged an opinion, that the rapine of the Franks was
not moderated, or disguised, by the forms of a legal division; that
they dispersed themselves over the provinces of Gaul, without order or
control; and that each victorious robber, according to his wants, his
avarice, and his strength, measured with his sword the extent of his new
inheritance. At a distance from their sovereign, the Barbarians might
indeed be tempted to exercise such arbitrary depredation; but the firm
and artful policy of Clovis must curb a licentious spirit, which would
aggravate the