The following may be taken as an example:--The intermediate commission of the Provincial Assembly of the Île-de-France claimed the administration of the _Dépôt de Mendicité_. The _Intendant_ insisted upon its remaining in his own hands, ‘inasmuch,’ said he, ‘as this establishment is not kept up by the funds of the province.’ During the discussion, the intermediate commission communicated with the intermediate commissions of other provinces, in order to learn their opinions. Among other answers given to its questions, exists one from the intermediate commission of Champagne, informing that of the Île-de-France that it had met with the very same difficulties, and had offered the same resistance. Note (LXXVI.)--Page 172, line 2. In the minutes of the first Provincial Assembly of the Île-de-France, the following declaration may be found, proceeding from the mouth of the reporter of the committee:--‘Up to the present time the functions of syndic, which are far more onerous than honourable, are such as to indispose from accepting them all those who unite a sufficient competency to the intelligence to be expected from their position in life.’ Note (LXXVII.)--Page 173, line 9. FEUDAL RIGHTS, WHICH STILL EXISTED AT THE PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION, ACCORDING TO THE FEUDAL LAWYERS. It is not the intention of the author here to write a treatise upon feudal rights, and, least of all, to attempt any research into their possible origin. It is simply his desire to point out those which were still exercised in the eighteenth century. These rights played so important a part at that time, and have since retained so large a space in the imagination of the very persons who have no longer anything to suffer from them, that it was a most interesting task to find out precisely what they were when the Revolution destroyed them all. For this purpose a great number of _terriers_, or rolls of feudal manors, were studied,--those of the most recent date being selected. But this manner of proceeding led to nothing; for the feudal rights, although regulated by a legal code, which was the same throughout the whole of feudal Europe, were infinitely various in their kinds, according to the province, or even the districts, where they existed. The only system, then, which appeared likely to lead, in an approximate manner, to the required result, was the following:--These feudal rights were continually giving rise to all sorts of disputes and litigation. In these cases it was necessary to know how these rights were acquired, how they were lost, in what they consisted exactly, which were the dues that could only be collected by virtue of a Royal patent, which those that could only be established by private title, which those on the contrary that had no need of formal titles, and might be collected upon the strength of local custom, or even in virtue of long usage. Again, when they were for sale, it was necessary to know in what manner