Droit dʹAubaine

In France the king was entitled, at the death of foreign residents (except Swiss and Scots), to all their movable estates; the law was only abolished in 1819. Aubain means “alien,” and droit dʹaubaine the “right over an alien’s property.”

“Had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits dʹaubaine: my shirts and black pair of breeches, portmanteau and all, must have gone to the king of France.”—Sterne: Sentimental Journey (Introduction).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.