ny
faults; it has more than once either aspired to overstep its proper
limits or failed to fulfil all its duties; but history would be
ungrateful and untruthful not to bring into the light the virtues this
body has displayed from its humble cradle, and the services it has
rendered to France, to her security at home, to her moral dignity, to her
intellectual glory, and to the progress of her civilization with all its
brilliancy and productiveness, though it is still so imperfect and so
thwarted.

Another fact which has held an important place in the history of France,
and exercised a great influence over her destinies, likewise dates from
this period; and that is the exclusion of women from the succession to
the throne, by virtue of an article, ill understood, of the Salic law.
The ancient law of the Salian Franks, drawn up, probably, in the seventh
century, had no statute at all touching this grave question; the article
relied upon was merely a regulation of civil law prescribing that "no
portion of really Salic land (that is to say, in the full territorial
ownership of the head of the family) should pass into the possession of
women, but it should belong altogether to the virile sex." From the time
of Hugh Capet heirs male had never been wanting to the crown, and the
succession in the male line had been a fact uninterrupted indeed, but not
due to prescription or law. Louis the Quarreller, at his death, on the
5th of June, 1316, left only a daughter, but his second wife, Queen
Clemence, was pregnant. As soon as Philip the Long, then Count of
Poitiers, heard of his brother's death, he hurried to Paris, assembled a
certain number of barons, and got them to decide that he, if the queen
should be delivered of a son, should be regent of the kingdom for
eighteen years; but that if she should bear a daughter he should
immediately take possession of the crown. On the 15th of November, 1316,
the queen gave birth to a son, who was named John, and who figures as
John I. in the series of French kings; but the child died at the end of
five days, and on the 6th of January, 1317, Philip the Long was crowned
king at Rheims. He forthwith summoned--there is no knowing exactly where
and in what numbers--the clergy, barons, and third estate, who declared,
on the 2d of February, that "the laws and customs, inviolably observed
among the Franks, excluded daughters from the crown." There was no doubt
about the fact; but the law was not