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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 Excerpt:...a revenue. It was not merely a duty; it was a debt and a duty at the same time. 129. In France, could the seignior, by the " baild cews," stipulate for such dues as he might think proper; and those dues, however high they might be, having once been accepted by the censitaire, were they binding on this last? Could he object to his contract? Here again authorities will suffice. Some authors have adopted the system of the distinction between seigniorial dues as ordinary dues, forming a common right, and as extraordinary dues requiring, before they could be exacted, a special title, or, at least, a long possession. The quotations which follow, in so far as they may relate to the question discussed by these authors, namely, to what extent could those dues be affected, either by prescription or by a judicial sale, are without any bearing on the propositions which I am just now examining. I invoke these authorities only to prove that under the reign of the Custom of Paris, it was permitted, by means of the "bail d cens," which is the primitive convention between a seignior and a censitaire, to fix the amount of cens et rentes and that this amount governed the relations between them. 130. Henrion de Pansey has already said that" the seignior is the judge of the qualification, of the nature and of the amount of the cens. Let us again cite this author § 8. p. 273: "There are two descriptions of cens, the one moderate "only of a few deniers, which is the most ordinary and "which is regarded as being of common right in the " cou"tumes censuelles;" the other more considerable, much "more rare, and which consists of a rent in money, or an "important portion (partie notable) of the product of the "...