The king has abolished this second tithe in Poitou, by letters-patent, registered by the Parliament of Paris July 11, 1769. It would be well worthy of the justice and beneficence of his majesty to make a similar law for other provinces, which are in the same situation as those of Poitou, Franche-Comté, etc.
By M. CHR., Advocate of Besançon.
IMPOTENCE.
I commence by this question, in favor of the impotent—"frigidi et maleficiati," as they are denominated in the decretals: Is there a physician, or experienced person of any description, who can be certain that a well-formed young man, who has had no children by his wife, may not have them some day or other? Nature may know, but men can tell nothing about it. Since, then, it is impossible to decide that the marriage may not be consummated some time or other, why dissolve it?
Among the Romans, on the suspicion of impotence, a delay of two years was allowed, and in the Novels of Justinian three are required; but if in three years nature may bestow capability, she may equally do so in seven, ten, or twenty.
Those called "maleficiati" by the ancients were often considered bewitched. These charms were very ancient, and as there were some to take away virility, so there were others to restore it; both of which are alluded to in Petronius.
This illusion lasted a long time among us, who exorcised instead of disenchanting; and when exorcism succeeded not, the marriage was dissolved.
The canon law made a great question of impotence. Might a man who was prevented by sorcery from consummating his marriage, after being divorced and having children by a second wife—might such man, on the death of the latter wife, reject the first, should she lay claim to him? All the great canonists decided in the negative—Alexander de Nevo, Andrew Alberic, Turrecremata, Soto, and fifty more.
It is impossible to help admiring the sagacity displayed by the canonists, and above all by the religious of irreproachable manners in their development of the mysteries of sexual intercourse. There is no singularity, however strange, on which they have not treated. They have discussed at length all the cases in which capability may exist at one time or situation, and impotence in another. They have inquired into all the imaginary inventions to assist nature; and with the avowed object of distinguishing that which is allowable from that which is not, have exposed all which ought to remain veiled. It might be said of them: "Nox nocti indicat scientiam."