In public law. A compact or convention between two or more independent governments. An agreement made by a temporal sovereign with the pope, relative to ecclesiastical matters. In French law. A compromise effected by a bankrupt with his creditors, by virtue of which he engages to pay within a certain time a certain proportion of his debts, and by which the creditors agree to discharge the whole of their claims in consideration of the same. Arg. Fr. Merc. Law, 558.