ACT OF NOTORIETY of the Châtelet of Paris, on the Movable Nature of the Enslaved of the Colonies, and their subjection, in that capacity, to the law of the Domicile of their enslavers, and to the general Maxim that…

UPON the Petition presented to us by Magdeleine Marin, widow of the Sieur Jean François Marin, in his lifetime Esquire in the Town of La Ciotat in Provence; stating that by will of 31 January 1776, the Sieur her husband named her heir to half of the property, both movable and immovable, left by him. Among the said property there is a plantation on the Island of Saint-Domingue and a considerable stock of movables, such as livestock, furnishings, harvested sugars, utensils, and a work gang of enslaved people attached to the cultivation of the plantation. Under Art. 282 of the Custom of Paris, which forbids spouses the faculty of benefiting one another by gifts between living persons and by will, it is certain that the designation made in favor of the Dame Marin, for the property situated in America, governed by this Custom, was null as to the immovables.