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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.
He based his pretensions upon the fact that his mother Isabella was the daughter of Philip the Fair. Philip, who died in 1314, had been followed by his three sons in succession, none of whom had left a male heir, so that the direct male line of the Capetians was extinguished in 1328. The lawyers thereupon declared that it was a venerable law in France that no woman should succeed to the throne.
After the sagacious Hugh Capet, the first three Capetians, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., were very mediocre individuals, in character as well as intellect; and their personal insignificance was one of the causes that produced the emptiness of French history under their sway.
As for the king himself, he accepted both views of his position and made use both of the older theory of kingship and of his feudal suzerainty to secure more and more control over his realms. For over three hundred years the direct male line of the Capetians never once failed. It rarely happened, moreover, that the crown was left in the weak hands of a child.
There remained in France one puissant prince, the last of the feudal semi-sovereigns, and the head of that only one of the provincial dynasties sprung from the dynasty of the Capetians which still held its own against the kingly house.
Take, for instance, this case of the little Dauphin, Louis XVII. It really does not matter to day whether the boy got away or whether he died in prison. It does not prolong the line of the Capetians the heir to that is present in the Duke of Orleans.
There are irregularities and scandals which the great qualities and the personal glory of princes may cause to be not only excused but even forgotten, though certainly the three Capetians who immediately succeeded the founder of the dynasty offered their people no such compensation; but it must not be supposed that they had fallen into the plight of the sluggard Merovingians or the last Carlovingians, wandering almost without a refuge.
It must not be forgotten, however, that it required more than two centuries after Hugh's accession for the French kings to create a real kingdom which should include even half the territory embraced in the France of to-day. For almost two hundred years the Capetians made little or no progress toward real kingly power. In fact, matters went from bad to worse.
The Capetians lost Poitou, but Henry failed to take advantage of his rival's weakness, and the real masters of the situation were the local barons. Fifteen more years were to elapse before the definitive French conquest of Poitou.
The slow conversion of the feudal monarchy of the early Capetians into the absolute despotism of Louis XIV. was accomplished by the king gradually conquering his vassals one after another, and adding their domains to his own.
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