Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
With the accession of Hugh Capet to the throne of France, Normandy had become a most loyal as well as powerful fief of the crown. The tenth century witnessed also an attempt on the part of the serfs of the Duchy to throw off something of the awful grip of the feudal power.
Pepin and Charlemagne," said the memorialists, "who were foreigners and Saxons by nation, did as much in order to get possession of a kingdom to which they had no other right except that which they acquired there by their prudence and force, and after them Hugh Capet, much inferior to them in force and authority, following their example, had the same good fortune for himself and his posterity, and one which still endures.
On the contrary, many a people has gradually emerged from this condition by the aid of a central authority, whose position has made it the rival, and has ended by making it the master, of the local despots, and which, above all, has been single. French history, from Hugh Capet to Richelieu and Louis XIV., is a continued example of this course of things.
To try and save that traitor, Marie Antoinette, the widow of Louis Capet, was just the sort of scheme that would originate in the brain of Paul Deroulede. He had always been at heart an aristocrat, and the feeling of chivalry for a persecuted woman was only the outward signs of his secret adherence to the hated class.
All the family of the Capets shall be banished from the French territory, those excepted who are under the sword of the law, and the offspring of Louis Capet, who shall both remain in the Temple. Art. xiii. Marie Antoinette shall be delivered over to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and shall be immediately conducted to the prison of the Conciergerie.
The head of this branch, Charles, was made Duc de Vendome by Francois I. in 1515; he was father of Antoine, Duc de Vendome, who, by marrying the heroic Jeanne d'Albret, became King of Navarre, and of Louis, who founded the House of Conde; lastly, Antoine was the father of Henri IV. He was, therefore, a very distant cousin to Henri III; the Houses of Capet, of Alencon, of Orleans, of Angouleme, of Maine, and of Burgundy, as well as the elder Bourbons, had to fall extinct before Henri of Navarre could become heir to the crown.
It has been shown how insignificant and inert, as sovereigns, were the first three successors of Hugh Capet. The goodness to his people displayed by King Robert was the only kingly trait which, during that period, deserved to leave a trace in history.
"From that night on I have been sick and miserable," moaned Jeanne Marie; "from that night I have not been able to sleep." "You hear, citizen doctor, my wife was so terrified with that, that it made her sick, and now you shall have a proof of the disobedience of the little viper. Capet, come here." The boy rose slowly from his chair, and stole along with drooping head to his master.
"That never can be; for, before the brother of Louis XVI. can ascend the throne as Louis XVIII., his rightful predecessor, Louis XVII., must have died." "He has died, and the French government has placed in its archives the certificate of the death of Louis Charles Capet, signed by the physicians and the servants of the Temple.
It was France that first brought an orderly nationalism out of feudal chaos; it was her royal house of Capet that rallied Europe to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre and led the greatest of the crusades to Palestine.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking