In all the fiefs we have in France, duchies, counties, baronies, and other honourable lordships, which are nearly and even greatly royal in their rights and privileges, many women, married and unmarried, have succeeded; as in Bourbon, Vendôme, Montpensier, Nevers, Rhétel, Flandres, Eu, Bourgogne, Artois, Zellande, Bretaigne; and even like Mathilde, who was Duchesse de Normandie; Eléonore, Duchesse de Guyenne, who enriched Henry II., King of England; Béatrix, Comtesse de Provence, who brought that province to King Louis, her husband; the only daughter of Raimond, Comtesse de Thoulouse, who brought Thoulouse to Alfonse, brother of Saint-Louis; also Anne, Duchesse de Bretaigne, and others. Why, therefore, should not the kingdom of France call to itself in like manner the daughters of France? Did not the beautiful Galatea rule in Gaul when Hercules married her after his conquest of Spain?--from which marriage issued our brave, valiant, generous Gauls, who in the olden time made themselves laudable. Why should the daughters of dukes in this kingdom be more capable of governing a duchy or a county and administering justice (which is the duty of kings) than the daughters of kings to rule the kingdom of France? As if the daughters of France were not as capable and fitted to command and reign as those of other kingdoms and fiefs that I have named! For still greater proof of the iniquity of the Salic law it is enough to show that so many chroniclers, writers, and praters, who have all written about it, have never yet agreed among themselves as to its etymology and definition. Some, like Postel, consider that it takes its ancient name and origin from the Gauls, and is only called Salic instead of Gallic because of the proximity and likeness in old type between the letter S and the letter G. But Postel is as visionary in that (as a great personage said to me) as he is in other things. Jean Ceval, Bishop of Avranches, a great searcher into the antiquities of Gaul and France, tried to trace it to the word _salle_, because this law was ordained only for _salles_ and royal palaces. Claude Seissel thinks, rather inappropriately, that it comes from the word _sal_ in Latin, as a law full of salt, that of sapience, wisdom, a metaphor drawn from salt. A doctor of laws, named Ferrarius Montanus, will have it that Pharamond was otherwise called Salicq. Others derive it from Sallogast, one of the principal councillors of Pharamond. Others again, wishing to be still more subtle, say that the derivation is taken from the frequent sections in the said law beginning with the words: _si aliquis, si aliqua_. But some say it comes from François Saliens; and it is so mentioned in Marcellin.[14]