The Constituent Assembly had retained, until the proprietors could be compensated, feudal duties presumed to be due for a grant of land. The Legislative Assembly, following a theory which had been entertained by many lawyers--that land was originally free--had decreed the abolition of all duties without indemnity, except in cases where the proprietors could prove the original title, showing that the duties were really due for a grant of land. This as a rule was impossible, the duties being due by prescription only. The new law gave rise to suits, and the Convention destroyed the last vestiges of the feudal system by decreeing the abolition without indemnity of all duties which bore a feudal character. Before the ejection of the Girondists entails were abolished, and parents were also prohibited from making wills favouring one child more than another. Parents were now further prohibited from giving more than a tenth of their property to strangers, or more than a sixth to collateral relations. Illegitimate children were put on the same footing as legitimate. The Legislative Assembly had instituted civil marriages, and had permitted divorce, on the mere ground of incompatibility of temper, with the consent of both parties. A new civil code, clear and simple, and in accordance with the legislation of the revolutionary Assemblies, was being prepared to take the place of the chaos of old laws and customs. The work, however, was but in progress, and the new code was not promulgated by the Convention. Negro slavery was abolished, and men of colour in the colonies received the rights of French citizens. A decree was passed for the establishment of primary schools to be maintained by the State. Instruction was to be gratuitous, attendance compulsory, and no religious teaching allowed. Laws were also passed for the institution of three schools of medicine and a school of natural history at Paris. But little was in reality effected for the instruction of any class. Money and power were both wanting. Instigated by its Committee of Public Instruction, the Convention repeatedly ordered the preservation of the valuable monastic libraries. None the less, the books were neglected, plundered, and scattered. Primary schools, if opened, were, in the country, unattended. Of higher education little was to be had. Suspected of reactionary tendencies, all academies and learned societies had been broken up. Most colleges had disappeared; a few dragged on a feeble existence. ♦Cambon’s financial measures.♦