of these Mischiefs:  But a Kingdom is continually supplied with the Wisdom and Advice of the grave Persons that are in it. Solomon, the wisest of Mankind, was in his old Age seduced by Harlots; Rehoboam, by young Men; Ninus, by his own Mother Semiramis; Ptolomaeus sirnamed Auletes, by Harpers and Pipers.  Our Ancestors left to their Kings the Choice of their own Privy-Counsellors, who might advice them in the Management of their private Affairs; but such Senators as were to consult in common, and take care of the publick Administration, and instruct the King in the Government of his Kingdom, they reserved to the Designation of the Publick Convention.

In the Year 1356:  after King John had been taken Prisoner by the English, and carried into England, a Publick Council of the Kingdom was held at Paris.  And when some of the King’s Privy-Counsellors appeared at that Convention, they were commanded to leave the Assembly; and it was openly declared, that the Deputies of the Publick Council wou’d meet no more, if those Privy-Counsellors shou’d hereafter presume to approach that Sanctuary of the Kingdom.  Which Instance is recorded in the Great Chronicle writ in French, Vol. 2. sub Rege Johanne, fol. 169.  Neither has there ever yet been any Age wherein this plain Distinction between a King and a Kingdom, has not been observed.  The King of the Lacedemonians (as Xenophon assures us) and the Ephori, renewed every Month a mutual Oath between each other; the King swore that he wou’d govern according to the written Laws; and the Ephori swore that they wou’d preserve the Royal Dignity, provided he kept his Oath. Cicero, in one of his Epistles to Brutus, writes:  “Thou knowest that I was always of Opinion, that our Commonwealth ought not only to be deliver’d from a King, but even from Kingship, Scis mihi semper placuisse non Rege folum, sed Regno liberari rempublicam.”—­Also in his Third Book de Legibus—­“But because a Regal State in our Commonwealth, once indeed approved of, was abolish’d, not so much upon the Account of the Faults of a Kingly Government, as of the Kings who governed; it may seem that only the Name of a King was then abolish’d, &c.”

* * * * *

CHAP.  XVI.

    Of the Capevingian Race, and the Manner of its
    obtaining the Kingdom of Francogallia.