CHAPTER XVIII .-- --THE KINGSHIP IN FRANCE.
That the kingship occupied an important place and played an important part in the history of France is an evident and universally recognized fact.

But to what causes this fact was due, and what particular characteristics gave the kingship in France that preponderating influence which, in weal and in woe, it exercised over the fortunes of the country, is a question which has been less closely examined, and which still remains vague and obscure.

This question it is which we would now shed light upon and determine with some approach to precision.

We cannot properly comprehend and justly appreciate a great historical force until we have seen it issuing from its primary source and followed it in its various developments.
At the first glance, two facts strike us in the history of the kingship in France.

It was in France that it adopted soonest and most persistently maintained its fundamental principle, heredity.