31.16. 16. Confusion of the Royalty and Mayoralty. The Second Race.
The connection of my subject has made me invert the order of time, so as to
speak of Charlemagne before I had mentioned the famous epoch of the
translation of the crown to the Carlovingians under King Pepin; a
revolution, which, contrary to the nature of ordinary events, is more
remarked perhaps in our days than when it happened.
The kings had no authority; they had only an empty name. The regal
title was hereditary, and that of mayor elective. Though it was latterly
in the power of the mayors to place any of the Merovingians on the
throne, they had not yet taken a king of another family; and the ancient
law which fixed the crown in a particular family was not yet erased from
the hearts of the Franks. The king's person was almost unknown in the
monarchy; but royalty was not. Pepin, son of Charles Martel, thought it
would be proper to confound those two titles, a confusion which would
leave it a moot point whether the new royalty was hereditary or not; and
this was sufficient for him who to the regal dignity had joined a great
power. The mayor's authority was then blended with that of the king. In
the mixture of these two authorities a kind of reconciliation was made;
the mayor had been elective, and the king hereditary; the crown at the
beginning of the second race was elective, because the people chose; it
was hereditary, because they always chose in the same family.
[117]
Father le Cointe, in spite of the authority of all ancient
records
[118]
denies that the Pope authorised this great change; and one
of his reasons is that he would have committed an injustice.
[119]
A fine
thing to see a historian judge of that which men have done by that which
they ought to have done; by this mode of reasoning we should have no
more history.
Be that as it may, it is very certain that immediately after Duke
Pepin's victory, the Merovingians ceased to be the reigning family. When
his grandson, Pepin, was crowned king, it was only one ceremony more,
and one phantom less; he acquired nothing thereby but the royal
ornaments; there was no change made in the nation.
This I have said in order to fix the moment of the revolution, that
we may not be mistaken in looking upon that as a revolution which was
only a consequence of it.
When Hugh Capet was crowned king at the beginning of the third race,
there was a much greater change, because the kingdom passed from a state
of anarchy to some kind of government; but when Pepin took the crown,
there was only a transition from one government to another, which was
identical.
When Pepin was crowned king there was only a change of name; but
when Hugh Capet was crowned there was a change in the nature of the
thing, because by uniting a great fief to the crown the anarchy ceased.
When Pepin was crowned the title of king was united to the highest
office; when Hugh Capet was crowned it was annexed to the greatest fief.
Footnotes
[117]
See the will of Charlemagne, and the division which Lewis
the Debonnaire made to his children in the assembly of the states held at Querzy,,
produced by Goldast, "quem populus eligere velit, ut patri suo succedate in
regni hæreditate."
[118]
The anonymous "Chronic.," in the year 752; and "Chronic. Centul.,"
in the year 754.
[119]
Fabella quæ post Pippini mortem excogitata est, equitati ac sanctitati Zachariæ papæ plurimum adversatur . . . "Ecclesiastic Annals of the French," tome 2, p. 319.
