These, if we except a long quarrel respecting the archbishopric of Rheims, are the sole events of the reign of Hugh Capet, which is supposed to have occupied nine years. Some modern historians regard the founder of the third dynasty of French monarchs as a hero and a master spirit, whose talents won for him a crown. Others, amongst whom is Sismondi,[i] represent him as a pious sluggard, indebted solely to fortune for his elevation. Both are in extreme. We see no proof of his heroism. But his was an iron age, in which the exertions of individuals had slight power in changing the course of events. Nor does it follow that, because he was pious, he was pusillanimous. He made war on the count of Montreuil, to recover the relics of St. Riquier, which that count had stolen. Hugh Capet compelled him to surrender them, and himself bore the memorable remains on his royal shoulders to the abbey of the saint. Such is the account of the chroniclers. But if we observe that Hugh at the same time built and fortified Abbeville, the monarch will not seem altogether sunk in the superstitious votary. [Illustration: ROBERT II, KING OF FRANCE] “Who made thee count?” demanded Hugh Capet of a refractory noble, supposed by some to be Talleyrand, count of Angoulême. “The same right that made thee king,” was the bold reply. Such was the measure of the new monarch’s authority. The great feudatories, in consenting to place the crown on one of their own body, thought less of his elevation than of humbling the throne. Their views were sound, if they considered but themselves--short sighted, if they looked forward to posterity. Feudality ascended the throne with Hugh Capet; and, despite the precautions or intentions of the founders, the head of so powerful a system could not long remain powerless himself. Organised as society now was in regular and successive gradations of inferior and superior, a supreme chief became necessary to complete the whole. There was something wanting to crown the structure. The nobles imagined to adorn it with the lifeless image of royalty. But their statue, like Pygmalion’s, took life as it became the object of veneration, and grew at length to wield its sceptre with a muscular arm. [Sidenote: [996-1035 A.D.]]