four robes a year, and no more, and the women as many. A knight who has 3000 livres, in land, may have three robes a year and no more; and one of these three robes shall be for summer. At the principal meals of the day no one shall have but two viands and a pork soup, and let him not deceive about it. It is ordained that no prelate or baron shall have a robe for body of more than 25 Tournish sous, a Paris ell.” In 1294 it was decreed “that every manner of people, who have not an income of 6000 Tournish livres, shall not use, and will not be able to use, any gold or silver plate for drinking, for eating, or for other use, and that no person, under penalty of fine and imprisonment, shall practice any fraud about it.” In France, laws of this character disappeared near the end of the 16th century. Under Louis XV. all such laws were practically a dead letter. “These ordinances are the history of but yesterday,” says an able and profound student of French legislation; “but ideas and sentiments have gone far in advance of facts. We have difficulty in comprehending the interference of government in the domestic affairs of families, and in contracts which concern only private individuals. Opinion has undergone an entire revolution. Sumptuary laws can no longer be proposed. We need not think the change is due to our wisdom, to our pretended superiority to the ancients; let us simply recognize that the essential principle of society has changed; the world moves on another basis.... In no century were these laws observed to any great extent. Enactments of this kind were never effectual in France. Since the Revolution, no sumptuary laws have been enacted, and yet the luxury of attire which formerly distinguished the nobility has disappeared. A duke dresses like anybody else, and he would be ridiculed if he sought to distinguish himself by a manner of dress different from others.”