shows that there are exceptions to it. At the same time, the position of the early Capetians must not be judged by the splendour of the late Kings of France. They were comparatively poor and comparatively obscure, and for long could hardly make head against even the humbler of their nominal vassals.

This, then, I believe to be the true secret of the so-called Salic rule of succession. There is nothing, even now, very uncommon in the frame of mind which leads men to think that everything, of which they know or remember nothing to the contrary, has existed from all time and that it ought to continue for ever. But in an age in which historical knowledge was all but non-existent, and in which the mass of mankind lived by usage, such a habit of thought must have been incomparably stronger; and we cannot doubt that men's minds were powerfully affected by this uninterrupted continuation of male descents in the royal family of France, which even to us is impressive. Nobody, they would say, has reigned in France but a King the son of a King. There had been no occasion to call to the throne a collateral relative, much less a kinsman through women. Amid a general flux of men's ideas on the subject of succession to thrones, the French law would at all events have appeared to have solidified. And, such being the preconceived notions of Frenchmen, there is no doubt that they were strengthened

by the provision of the real Salic law, which said that land—or, as it was once read, Salic land-should descend exclusively to males through males. This legal provision was in fact irrelevant to the question, but it may very easily have been misunderstood; and it is a significant circumstance that manuscripts of the true Salic Code, the Lex Salica of the Germans, appear to have been found in the Royal Library at Paris from the time of its first foundation.

The supposed Salic rule, excluding women and their descendants from royal successions, has been adopted in later days in many countries in which women were at one time permitted to succeed. In constitutionally governed States, female successions have always been popular; and quite recently, in Spain and Portugal, the establishment of constitutional government coincided with the overthrow of the rule which excluded queens from the throne. The Spanish monarchy was composed of portions in most of which the throne might be filled by a woman, but when the younger branch of the Bourbons obtained the Crown of Spain, they introduced the so-called Salic rule. This system of succession is manifestly thought to be convenient wherever, whether there be a Constitution or not, a large measure of authority resides with the sovereign. Thus the succession to the German Empire, following that of the Prussian kingdom, is now Salic; and in

Russia, where an extremely peculiar rule of succession prevailed, one of the most usual successions being that of the widow of the late Emperor, the exclusive devolution of the Crown through males on males was for the first time introduced by the Emperor Paul I.

The explanation given by French historians of the memorable rule which first sprang up in their country has nothing to do with reasons of convenience. They say that the exclusion of women and their issue was the fruit of the intense national spirit of Frenchmen. If it had not been for this principle the King of France might have been an Englishman, or a German, or a Spaniard, according to the nationality of his mother's husband; and this was contrary to the genius of France, which imperatively required that the King should be a Frenchman. But this is the error, not so very uncommon in the philosophy of history, of taking the consequence for the cause. It was not the national spirit of Frenchmen which created the Salic rule, but the Salic rule had a great share in creating the French national spirit. No country grew together originally so much through chance and good luck as France. Originally confined to a small territory round Paris, province after province became incorporated with it through feudal forfeitures, through royal marriages, or through the failure of lines of vassals even more powerful than

the King to whom they owed allegiance. But owing to the Salic rule, the King always belonged to the heart and core of the monarchy. The King of England who first annexed Ireland was a Frenchman. The King of England who united Scotland with her was a Scotchman. But the King of France was

from first to last born and educated a Frenchman The same vein of character may be seen running through the whole series of French Kings, broken only perhaps in the unhappy Prince who closed the dynasty in the last century. Hence the whole authority of the French Kings was exerted to bring each successive acquisition of the Crown into political and social conformity with the original kernel of the kingdom. And in this way was created the French love of unity, the French taste for centralisation, the French national spirit. The undoubted power which France possesses of absorbing into herself and imbuing with her national character all the populations united with her has been attributed to the French Revolution; in reality it is much older, and may be traced in great part to the Salic rule of royal succession.

CHAPTER VI.

THE KING, IN HIS RELATION TO EARLY

CIVIL JUSTICE.

WHENEVER in the records of very ancient societies, belonging to races with which we have some affinity, we come upon a personage resembling him whom we call the King, he is almost always associated with the administration of justice. The King is often much more than a judge. He is all but invariably a general or military chief. He is constantly a priest and chief priest. But, whatever else he may be, he seldom fails to be a judge, though his relation to justice may not be exactly that with which we are familiar.

The examples of this association which I will give must be few among many. The monuments of jurisprudence which lay claim to the highest antiquity are those of the Hindus, one of which has long been vaguely known to Europeans under the name of the Code of Manu. Many similar collections of ancient Indian legal rules have of late been discovered, and some have been translated, but it is to be ob