Particular Donations.
The donations of citizens are treated quite differently. The codes are unanimously agreed that no one can give away the property of another as well as that no person can take it. It is a universal law.
In France, jurisprudence was uncertain on this object, as on almost all others, until the year 1731, when the equitable Chancellor d'Aguesseau, having conceived the design of making the law uniform, very weakly began the great work by the edict on donations. It is digested in forty-seven articles, but, in wishing to render all the formalities concerning donations uniform, Flanders was excepted from the general law, and in excepting Flanders, Artois was forgotten, which should have enjoyed the same exception; so that in six years after the general law, a particular one was obliged to be made for Artois.
These new edicts concerning donations and testaments were principally made to do away with all the commentators who had considerably embroiled the laws, having already compiled six commentaries upon them.
It may be remarked that donations, or deeds of gift, extend much farther than to the particular person to whom a present is made. For every present there must be paid to the farmers of the royal domain—the duty of control, the duty of "insinuation" the duty of the hundredth penny, the tax of two sous in the livre, the tax of eight sous in the livre, etc.
So that every time you make a present to a citizen you are much more liberal than you imagine. You have also the pleasure of contributing to the enriching of the farmers-general, but, after all, this money does not go out of the kingdom like that which is paid to the court of Rome.
DRINKING HEALTHS.
What was the origin of this custom? Has it existed since drinking commenced? It appears natural to drink wine for our own health, but not for the health of others.
The "propino" of the Greeks, adopted by the Romans, does not signify "I drink to your good health," but "I drink first that you may drink afterwards"—I invite you to drink.