misery of the vanquished, whilst it corrupted the union
and discipline of the conquerors. [861] The memorable vase of Soissons
is a monument and a pledge of the regular distribution of the Gallic
spoils. It was the duty and the interest of Clovis to provide rewards
for a successful army, settlements for a numerous people; without
inflicting any wanton or superfluous injuries on the loyal Catholics of
Gaul. The ample fund, which he might lawfully acquire, of the Imperial
patrimony, vacant lands, and Gothic usurpations, would diminish the
cruel necessity of seizure and confiscation, and the humble provincials
would more patiently acquiesce in the equal and regular distribution of
their loss. [87]

[Footnote 85: Caesar de Bell. Gall. l. i. c. 31, in tom. i. p. 213.]

[Footnote 86: The obscure hints of a division of lands occasionally
scattered in the laws of the Burgundians, (tit. liv. No. 1, 2, in tom.
iv. p. 271, 272,) and Visigoths, (l. x. tit. i. No. 8, 9, 16, in
tom. iv. p. 428, 429, 430,) are skillfully explained by the president
Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 7, 8, 9.) I shall only add,
that among the Goths, the division seems to have been ascertained by the
judgment of the neighborhood, that the Barbarians frequently usurped the
remaining third; and that the Romans might recover their right, unless
they were barred by a prescription of fifty years.]

[Footnote 861: Sismondi (Hist des Francais, vol. i. p. 197) observes,
they were not a conquering people, who had emigrated with their
families, like the Goths or Burgundians. The women, the children, the
old, had not followed Clovis: they remained in their ancient possessions
on the Waal and the Rhine. The adventurers alone had formed the invading
force, and they always considered themselves as an army, not as a
colony. Hence their laws retained no traces of the partition of the
Roman properties. It is curious to observe the recoil from the national
vanity of the French historians of the last century. M. Sismondi
compares the position of the Franks with regard to the conquered people
with that of the Dey of Algiers and his corsair troops to the peaceful
inhabitants of that province: M. Thierry (Lettres sur l'Histoire de
France, p. 117) with that of the Turks towards the Raias or Phanariotes,
the mass of the Greeks.--M.]

[Footnote 87: It is singular enough that the president de Montesquieu
(Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 7) and the Abbe de Mably (Observatio