Chapter 1: About the Simplicity of Civil Laws in Different Governments

Monarchical government does not admit of laws as simple as the despotic. Tribunals are required. Those tribunals give judgments. The judgments must be preserved; they must be learned, so that one may judge today as they judged yesterday, and so that citizens’ lives and property may be safe and stable like the state's constitution itself.

The administration of a justice that decides not only of life and property but, in a monarchy, also of honor demands scrupulous inquiries. The judge's meticulousness increases to the extent that he has a larger depository and that he rules on greater interests.

Therefore, one must not be surprised to discover in the laws of these states, so many regulations, restrictions, and extensions which multiply individual cases and seem to make an art of reason itself.

The differences of rank, origin, and status established by monarchical government often lead to distinctions in the nature of property. And laws relative to the constitution of this state can increase the number of these distinctions. Among us, thus, properties are distinguished by titles held as individuals, community property, or from conquest; as dowried, or a wife's goods apart from the dowry; as paternal and maternal. There are several types of movable goods: free or substituted; in the lineage or not; nobles, by free hold, or plebeians; real estate rents, or rents set by the price of money. Each sort of property is subjected to individual rules. To dispose of it one must follow the rules, which further eliminates simplicity.

In our modern governments fiefs have become hereditary. It was required that the nobility have some continuity to the end that the owner of the fief would be in a position to serve the prince. That had to produce much variety. For example, there are some countries in which they have not been able to divide fiefs among brothers. In others cadets have been able to have their subsistence more extensively.

The monarch who knows each of his provinces is able to establish diverse laws or to allow differing customs. But the despot knows nothing and is able to give attention to nothing. A general direction is necessary for him. He governs by a rigid will which is the same throughout. All is leveled beneath his feet.