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.

Death of Louis V, the last of the Carlovingian line; Hugh Capet is elected king of France; this inaugurates the Capetian dynasty.

It was only under the Capetians that the Royal Council took a permanent footing, or even assembled at stated periods.

North Africa had long been in more direct communication with the old Empires of immemorial luxury, and was therefore farther advanced in the arts of living than the Spain and France of the Dark Ages; and this is why, in a country that to the average modern European seems as savage as Ashantee, one finds traces of a refinement of life and taste hardly to be matched by Carlovingian and early Capetian Europe.

If Philippe chances to fall into one of his Capetian rages it means death.

THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES 306 XV.

From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth century, to the epoch when the Capetians take the place of the Carlovingians.

Thus was founded the dynasty of the Capetians, under the double influence of German manners and feudal connections.

The accession of the Capetians was a work independent of all foreign influence, and strictly national, in Church as well as in State.

CHAPTER XIV.THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES.

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.

It would not be right, however, to draw therefrom conclusions as to the abasement of Capetian royalty in the eleventh century, with too great severity.

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.

Thus the claims of the two dynasties of Charlemagne and of Hugh Capet were united in his person; and, although the authority of the Capetians was no longer disputed, contemporaries were glad to see in Louis VIII.

He was, besides, the first Capetian whom the king his father had not considered it necessary to have consecrated during his own life so as to impress upon him in good time the seal of religion.

From the tenth century and the accession of the Capetians the policy of the Holy See had been enterprising, bold, full of initiative, often even aggressive, and more often than not successful in the prosecution of its designs.

The Capetians achieved the French kingship.

The city of Bourges was one of the most complete examples of successive transformations and denominations attained by a Roman municipality from the sixth to the thirteenth century under the Merovingians, the Carlovingians, and the earliest Capetians.

And so the Capetian kings with any intelligence, such as Louis VI., Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and Philip the Handsome, were careful to keep a hand over their provosts, sergeants, and officers of all kinds, in order that their power should not grow so great as to become formidable.

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.

CHARLES IV., THE FAIR, third son of Philip the Fair, king of France from 1322 to 1328; lost to France Guienne, which was taken from him by the English; was the last of the Capetians; d. 1328.

He reached the court during the reign of one of the Capetian kings.

Huon eventually became ruler of this realm in Oberon's stead; and his daughter, Claretie, whose equally marvelous adventures are told at great length in another, but far less celebrated, chanson de geste, is represented as the ancestress of all the Capetian kings of France.

Ancestress of Capetian race, 181. CLAR'ICE.

"Reynard the Fox" in, 35; Charlemagne principal hero of, 129; Ogier in, 135, 138; Charlemagne in, 140, 141, 144, 148; Huon embarks for, 174; Capetian kings of, 181; legend of Holy Grail in, 182; Merlin brings armies from, 210; viking raids in, 276; king of, 289. FRANKS.