Unity and heredity, those two essential principles of monarchy, have been the invariable characteristics of the kingship in France.
A second fact, less apparent and less remarkable, but, nevertheless, not without importance or without effect upon the history of the kingship in France, is the extreme variety of character, of faculties, of intellectual and moral bent, of policy and personal conduct amongst the French kings.

In the long roll of thirty-three kings who reigned in France from Hugh Capet to Louis XVI.

there were kings wise and kings foolish, kings able and kings incapable, kings rash and kings slothful, kings earnest and kings frivolous, kings saintly and kings licentious, kings good and sympathetic towards their people, kings egotistical and concerned solely about themselves, kings lovable and beloved, kings sombre and dreaded or detested.

As we go forward and encounter them on our way, all these kingly characters will be seen appearing and acting in all their diversity and all their incoherence.

Absolute monarchical power in France was, almost in every successive reign, singularly modified, being at one time aggravated and at another alleviated according to the ideas, sentiments, morals, and spontaneous instincts of the monarchs.