I have already bestowed the empire on a daughter in defiance of the
Golden Bull. I shall have no difficulty in conferring on a daughter the
kingdom of France. I have a better right to dispose of this realm than
Pope Julian II., who deprived Louis XII. of it, and transferred it by
his own single authority to the emperor Maximilian. I am better
authorized to plead in behalf of the daughters of the house of France,
than Pope Gregory XIII. and Cordelier Sextus-Quintus were to exclude
from the throne our princes of the blood, under the pretence actually
urged by these excellent priests, that Henry IV. and the princes of
Condé were a "bastard and detestable race" of Bourbon--refined and holy
words, which deserve ever to be remembered in order to keep alive the
conviction of all we owe to the bishops of Rome. I may give my vote in
the states-general, and no pope certainly can have any suffrage on it. I
therefore give my vote without hesitation, some three or four hundred
years from the present time, to a daughter of France, then the only
descendant remaining in a direct line from Hugh Capet. I constitute her
queen, provided she shall have been well educated, have a sound
understanding, and be no bigot. I interpret in her favor that law which
declares "_que fille ne doit mie succéder_"--that a daughter must in no
case come to her succession. I understand by the words, that she must in
no case succeed as long as there shall be any male. But on failure of
males, I prove that the kingdom belongs to her by nature, which ordains
it, and for the benefit of the nation.
I invite all good Frenchmen to show the same respect as myself for the
blood of so many kings. I consider this as the only method of preventing
factions which would dismember the state. I propose that she shall reign
in her own right, and that she shall be married to some amiable and
respectable prince, who shall assume her name and arms, and who, in his
own right, shall possess some territory which shall be annexed to
France; as we have seen Maria Theresa of Hungary united in marriage to
Francis, duke of Lorraine, the most excellent prince in the world.
What Celt will refuse to acknowledge her, unless we should discover some
other beautiful and accomplished princess of the issue of Charlemagne,
whose family was expelled by Hugh Capet, notwithstanding the Salic law?
or unless indeed we should find a princess fairer and more accomplished
still, an unquestionable descendant from Clovis, whose family was before
expelled by Pepin, his own domestic, notwithstanding, be it again
remembered, the Salic law.
I shall certainly find no involved and difficult intrigues necessary to
obtain the consecration of my royal heroine at Rheims, or Chartres, or
in the chapel of the Louvre--for either would effectually answer the
purpose; or even to dispense with any consecration at all. For monarchs
reign as well when not consecrated as when consecrated. The kings and
queens of Spain observe no such ceremony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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