[26] From the end of the fifteenth century there were no serfs in Auvergne, as is shown by the municipal law of 1510; "_Toutes personnes estans et demeurans au dict pays sont francs et de franche condition._" All persons being and dwelling in the said country are free and of free condition. Nevertheless, there were still "_héritaiges tenus à condition de mainmorte_."--(_Coutume, titre_ xxvii. _art._ 1.) But on the confines of Auvergne, in the Pays de Combrailles, there were persons "_de serve condition, de mainmorte et de suyte_;" _ibid. art._ 2, which means that the servitude of those persons was attached to their flesh and bone; that it followed them every where, even when they abandoned their inheritance and fled the country. One is glad to hear Fléchier and Talon stigmatising, in the names of religion and humanity, those iniquitous rights, which subsisted more than a century after them. _Personal_ servitude was abolished only by an edict of August 1779; for which Louis XVI. and his minister Necker are to be thanked. It took ten more years and the revolution of 1789 to do away with _real_ servitude, which was general in France.--_Mémoires_, p. 112. [27] This included Upper and Lower Auvergne, the Bourbonnais, the Nivernais, the Forez, the Beaujolais, the Lyonnais, the Pays de Combrailles, Berry and the Upper and Lower Marche.--Vide _Mémoires_, Introduction, xvi. [28] In plain good French, Each gentleman From morn till night Doth swell his rents, And multiply his gain. Observes no faith, Takes field and hay, The farmer's grass and grain; Then plays the steward With his pease and pork, And cudgels all at leisure; And like a king, with crown on head, Proclaims it his good pleasure. [29] An anecdote told of Louis XIII. and Mademoiselle d'Hutefort. [30] A species of thread lace, in which there was formerly a great trade in Upper Auvergne. It is now scarcely used except by peasant women, and its manufacture is almost abandoned. [31] Ranke, _Fürsten und Völker_, vol. i. p. 170. [32] Uchali was a famous renegade, a Calabrian by birth, who, from being a slave of the Grand Seignior's, became King of Argel.--See Brantôme, _Hommes Illustres_, vol. i. p. 286. [33] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. iii. p. 224. [34] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, p. 300. [35] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 178. [36] Brantôme, HOMMES ILLUSTRES. [37] DOCUMENTOS INEDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE ESPAÑA, vol. iii. p. 182. [38] Ranke, FÜRSTEN UND VÖLKER VON SUD EUROPA, vol. i. p. 178. [39] _Memorial de Antonio Perez del Hecho de su Caso_, pp. 304-308. [40] Ibid. [41] Ibid. [42] _Antonio Perez et Philipe II._, par Mons. Mignet, 1 vol. 3d ed. [43] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p. 247-257. [44] _Documentos ineditos para la Historia de España_, vol. vii. p. 265. [45] "Look there, look at the big gentleman on the little horse."