A government in which a nation that had an hereditary king chose a person to exercise
the regal authority seems very extraordinary; but, independently of the
circumstances of the times, I apprehend that the notions of the Franks
in this respect were derived from a remote source.
The Franks were descended from the Germans, of whom Tacitus says
[42]
that in the choice of their king they were determined by his noble
extraction, and in that of their leader, by his valour. This gives us an
idea of the kings of the first race, and of the mayors of the palace;
the former were hereditary, the latter elective.
No doubt but those princes who stood up in the national assembly and
offered themselves as the conductors of a public enterprise to such as
were willing to follow them, united generally in their own person both
the power of the mayor and the king's authority. By the splendour of
their descent they had attained the regal dignity; and their military
abilities having recommended them to the command of armies, they rose to
the power of mayor. By the regal dignity, our first kings presided in
the courts and assemblies, and enacted laws with the national consent;
by the dignity of duke or leader, they undertook expeditions and
commanded the armies.
In order to be acquainted with the genius of the primitive Franks in
this respect, we have only to cast an eye on the conduct of
Argobastes,
[43]
a Frank by nation, on whom Valentinian had conferred the
command of the army. He confined the emperor to his own palace, where he
would suffer nobody to speak to him, concerning either civil or military
affairs. Argobastes did at that time what was afterwards practised by
the Pepins.
