Bodin already hints at this final crystallizing of the concept at several points in his Repwbligae." Although he continues to write in traditional terms about rulers "who maintain their estats," he also uses the word estat on several occasions as a synonym for republique. Most significantly ofall, he feels able to speak of 'the state in itself (l'estat en soi), describing it both a form of authority independent of particular types of government, and as the locus of "indivisible and incommunicable sovereignty