(60.) Does not the law, in forbidding to kill, include also stabbing, poisoning, burning, drowning, lying in ambush, open violence, in a word, and all means tending to homicide? Does the law, which restrains husbands and wives from bequeathing property to one another, only refer to direct and immediate ways of giving?[794] Has it made no provision against those that are indirect? Was it the cause of the introduction of trustees, and does it even tolerate them? When the dearest of wives outlives her husband, does a man bequeath his estate to a trusty friend as an acknowledgment of his friendship, or is it not rather a proof of his complete confidence and reliance on that friend who will make a right use of what has been intrusted to him? Will a man make over his estate to anyone whom he even suspects of not restoring it to the person for whom it is really intended? Is any speech or any letter needed, and is a contract or an oath necessary for such a collusion? Does not every man on such an occasion feel what he can expect from another man? If, on the contrary, the property of such an estate is vested in a trustee, why does he lose his reputation by retaining it? What, then, is the reason of all these satires and lampoons?[795] Why is he compared to a guardian who betrays his trust, to a servant robbing his master of a sum of money he has to take somewhere? Such a comparison is wrong. Is it considered infamous not to perform a piece of liberality, and for a man to keep for his own use what is his own? How strangely perplexed, how terribly burdened, must such a trustee feel! If a man, out of respect for the laws, appropriates to himself a trust, he can no longer be thought an honest man; if, out of love for a deceased friend, he fulfils his intentions, and restores to the widow what has been intrusted to him, he lends his name, and transgresses the law. The law, then, does not harmonise with the opinions of men. Perhaps so, but it does not suit me to say whether the law is wrong or whether the people are mistaken. (61.) I have been told that certain individuals or certain bodies of men contest with one another for precedence, and that presidents of Parliaments[796] and peers dispute as to who shall go first. In my opinion either of the contending parties who avoids appearing when Parliament meets, yields, is conscious of its own weakness, and decides in favour of its competitors. (62.) Typhon supplies a certain nobleman of high rank with horses, dogs, and everything. On the strength of that lordʼs protection he behaves most audaciously, and does what he likes in his own province, without fear of being punished; he becomes a murderer, perjures himself, sets fire to his neighboursʼ houses, and needs not look for a refuge. At last the prince is obliged to punish him himself.[797]