Their incomes did not arise from salaries paid in money, but consisted of lands, of which they had the revenues during the continuance of their authority.

These lands being situated in the limits of their administration, each regarded them as his property only for the time being, and considered himself as a tenant at will.

How unfavorable such a system was to culture and improvement may be well imagined.

The force of possession was, however, frequently opposed to the seigniorial rights of the crown; and thus, though all civil dignity and the revenues attached to it were but personal and reclaimable at will, still many dignitaries, taking advantage of the barbarous state of the country in which their isolated cantons were placed, sought by every possible means to render their power and prerogatives inalienable and real.

The force of the monarchical government, which consists mainly in its centralization, was necessarily weakened by the intervention of local obstacles, before it could pass from the heart of the empire to its limits.