When Clovis, the king of the Franks, in the first decade of the 6th century defeated the Visigoths and took possession of the country (see p. 29), he found communal forests of the villagers (_vicus_), property of seigneurs (_equites_), royal forests and State forests, remnants of Roman origin. The latter properties and much of the Mark forests he claimed for himself and divided two-thirds among his vassals; but the larger part of the other third became also gradually property of the nobility and church, so that, by the 12th century, only a relatively small royal property remained. Afterwards, the royal or State property grew again in various ways, as the power of the kings grew. In 1539, Francis I declared the same inalienable. But neither himself nor his successors paid heed to this self-imposed prohibition and, whenever financial troubles made it expedient, they disposed of some of their holdings. By the ordinance of 1566 (_Edit de Moulins_), King Charles IX again declared the domain of the crown inalienable. Nevertheless he himself in the same year, and repeatedly afterwards, sold parts of his domain. Henry III, in 1579, renewed the ordinance of non-alienation and restored some of the last parcels to the domain by the exercise of the royal right. Himself and his successors, however, continually broke this contract, and the royal domain decreased while that of the seigneurs grew. Similarly to what happened in Germany, the church property was taken by machination or force to increase the holdings of kings or seigneurs. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the revolution in 1789, the royal domain comprised not more than 1,200,000 acres, producing a net income of 1.2 million dollars. Then followed an era of ups and downs, continuous changes of policy, increases and decreases of the property until with the inauguration of the republic, in 1871, comparative stability was secured. In 1791, after the revolution, the royal property became national domain, and by further spoliation of church property, and otherwise, attained an area of 4,300,000 acres. In the law of 1791, a distinction was made between the inalienable domain, which comprises roads, canals, fortresses, harbors, etc., and the alienable national domain, including the forest and other property derived from royal or crown domains. To this national domain was added, by the law of 1792, the forest property of the refugees of the revolution which was, however, later for the most part restored or indemnified. Finally, when, by the treaty of Basel (1795), the French frontier had been pushed to the Rhine, the total state forest had grown to around 6,500,000 acres, nearly one-third of the total forest area.