Page 102 - index

lnw; t.hey were raid to be deterniinations of what the 1aw
should lie.
Assuniing this ta be so, there is sonie reason to suppose,
froin Lamoignon's preliminary inquiries and proceedings
before publishing his arrêtés, that he evolved the principle
of An.êt.6 50 from decisions of the Parlianient of Paris.
Thc jurisprudence haviiiy taken a direction which left the
qiiestion to be deteiniined in each case hy the Court on the
view of its eircuinst,auces, had prodiirr+~i uncertainty, and
this inconvenience he wished to prevent by a definiterule.
Whntever may have been the diversity of opinions and
decisions on the subject. thc general effect of t,hern points
irresistihly to the conclusion tha.t brfore the Ordinonce of
1731, the Raman law, "Si uiiyuaiii," bad not heen intro-
duced in al1 its fullness in Francc, at Ieast iiito that part of
it nithin the jiirisdictioii of the Parliameiit of Paris. It
seems to their I~>i.dshipü that, before that Ordinance, the
lau~ had, in pffect, hecome this, that donations were not
revokcd hy the hirth of children, when theproperty given
was not of large value in rclation to the entire estate of the
donor, and it could be presunied, from the circumstances
of the particular casel thn.t the gift would have been made
if the donor had contemplated t,he biith of children. These
questions in case of dispute aould, necesa~ily, be decided
by the Courts.
It waa urgcd that a rule ahich reqiiired the decision of
a Court on these questions could not be the true one, as
heing inconsistent with the principln which irnplies the
existence of a iesolutire condition in the gift itself; but this
is really not 90: for if the nilr be m above supposed, the le-
gal effect of it woiild ho, that in a given state of facts the
Inn- did not attach the resolutive condition to the gift, but
when that state of facts dit not exist it did i~ttnch it. The
determination I>J, the Court,s of the question of fact in no
way changes the legal nature of thc condition (if there be
one) as a remlutive condition. When the facts are found
in one way, the law implies tbat the gift was always