subsequens matrimonium_ was strictly confined to the children of a concubine, and did not extend to any other description of bastards.... Another kind of legitimation, _per oblationem curiæ_, was introduced by Theodosius II., A.D. 445. As the duties of a _decurio_ were very onerous, and accompanied with risk, a natural son who undertook the office was thereby rendered legitimate. A natural daughter who married a _decurio_ had the same privilege. Finally, Justinian added a third species of legitimation, _per rescriptum principis_, when the emperor declared natural children legitimate upon the requisition of the father in certain special circumstances; as, for instance, when marriage with the concubine had become impossible, and there were no lawful children--or when the father, who had from some fortuitous cause been prevented from legitimating his natural children in his lifetime, declared in his testament that they should succeed to him as lawful children and heirs _ab intestato_.... The doctrine of legitimation by subsequent marriage is said to have been established in the canon law by two constitutions of Pope Alexander III., preserved in the decretals of Gregory. The canon law was more indulgent than the Roman law, in granting the privilege of legitimacy not merely to the offspring of concubinage, but to children begotten in fornication, when their parents were afterwards married, provided the father and mother were capable of contracting marriage at the date of the sexual intercourse.... Legitimation by subsequent marriage was never acknowledged by the law of England. When the clergy struggled to introduce the rule of the canon law, it was indignantly rejected by the famous statute of Merton, the English barons declaring with one voice, ‘quod nolunt leges Angliæ mutare quæ usitatæ sunt et approbatæ.’ From the earliest period the English law has considered a child born before marriage (_ante natus_) as illegitimate. And it has been decided, that even where the child is born and the parents are subsequently married in a foreign country, the law of which allows legitimation by subsequent marriage, he is nevertheless incapable of inheriting land in England.... On the other hand, the rule of the canon law, which allowed the legitimation of all bastards, provided they were not the offspring of an incestuous or adulterous connection, has been followed both in France and Scotland, not by authority of the decretals, but _in consequence of the equity and expedience of the rule itself_.[33] By the French Civil Code (art. 331-333) it is declared: (1) ‘Children born out of wedlock, other than those born of an incestuous or adulterous intercourse, may be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their father and mother, provided the children have been legally acknowledged before marriage, or in the act of celebration itself. (2) Legitimation may take place even in favour of deceased children who