history during more than a century; and it will
therefore be necessary to give a particular account of the springs and
causes of it.

It had long been a prevailing opinion, that the crown of France could
never descend to a female; and in order to give more authority to this
maxim, and assign it a determinate origin, it had been usual to derive
it from a clause in the Salian code, the law of an ancient tribe among
the Franks; though that clause, when strictly examined, carries only
the appearance of favoring this principle, and does not really, by the
confession of the best antiquaries, bear the sense commonly imposed
upon it. But though positive law seems wanting among the French for the
exclusion of females, the practice had taken place; and the rule was
established beyond controversy on some ancient as well as some modern
precedents. During the first race of the monarchy, the Franks were so
rude and barbarous a people, that they were incapable of submitting to
a female reign; and in that period of their history there were frequent
instances of kings advanced to royalty, in prejudice of females who
were related to the crown by nearer degrees of consanguinity. These
precedents, joined to like causes, had also established the male
succession in the second race; and though the instances were neither so
frequent nor so certain during that period, the principle of excluding
the female line seems still to have prevailed, and to have directed the
conduct of the nation. During the third race, the crown had descended
from father to son for eleven generations, from Hugh Capet to Lewis
Hutin; and thus, in fact, during the course of nine hundred years, the
French monarchy had always been governed by males, and no female, and
none who founded his title on a female, had ever mounted the throne.
Philip the Fair, father of Lewis Hutin, left three sons, this Lewis,
Philip the Long, and Charles the Fair, and one daughter, Isabella, queen
of England. Lewis Hutin, the eldest, left at his death one daughter, by
Margaret, sister to Eudes, duke of Burgundy; and as his queen was then
pregnant, Philip, his younger brother, was appointed regent, till it
should appear whether the child proved a son or a daughter. The queen
bore a male, who lived only a few days: Philip was proclaimed king: and
as the duke of Burgundy made some opposition, and asserted the rights of
his niece, the states of the kingdom, by a solemn and deliberate decree,
gave her