he might deserve so much good fortune, and under the inspiration of so many prosperous circumstances, he gave himself up to deep piety.  Wishing to have a certainty of leaving, after his death, an heir to the throne, he conferred with his grandees, and after holding council with them he first sent a deputation to the metropolitan of Rheims, who was then at Orleans, and subsequently went himself to see him touching the association of his son Robert with himself upon the throne.  The archbishop having told him that two kings could not be, regularly, created in one and the same year, he immediately showed a letter sent by Borel, duke of inner Spain, proving that that duke requested help against the barbarians. . . .  The metropolitan, seeing advantage was likely to result, ultimately yielded to the king’s reasons; and when the grandees were assembled, at the festival of our Lord’s nativity, to celebrate the coronation, Hugh assumed the purple, and he crowned solemnly, in the basilica of Sainte-Croix, his son Robert, amidst the acclamations of the French.”

[Illustration:  Hugh Capet elected King——­300]

Thus was founded the dynasty of the Capetians, under the double influence of German manners and feudal connections.  Amongst the ancient Germans royal heirship was generally confined to one and the same family; but election was often joined with heirship, and had more than once thrust the latter aside.  Hugh Capet was head of the family which was the most illustrious in his time and closest to the throne, on which the personal merits of Counts Eudes and Robert had already twice seated it.  He was also one of the greatest chieftains of feudal society, duke of the country which was already called France, and count of Paris—­of that city which Clovis, after his victories, had chosen as the centre of his dominions.  In view of the Roman rather than Germanic pretensions of the Carlovingian heirs and of their admitted decay, the rise of Hugh Capet was the natural consequence of the principal facts as well as of the manners of the period, and the crowning manifestation of the new social condition in France, that is, feudalism.  Accordingly the event reached completion and confirmation without any great obstacle.  The Carlovingian, Charles of Lorraine, vainly attempted to assert his rights; but after some gleams of success, he died in 992, and his descendants fell, if not into obscurity, at least into political insignificance.  In vain, again, did certain feudal lords, especially in Southern France, refuse for some time their adhesion to Hugh Capet.  One of them, Adalbert, count of Perigord, has remained almost famous for having made to Hugh Capet’s question, “Who made thee count?” the proud answer, “Who made thee king?” The pride, however, of Count Adalbert had more bark than bite.  Hugh possessed that intelligent and patient moderation, which, when a position is once acquired, is the best pledge of continuance.  Several facts indicate that he did not underestimate