igure, with features rather masculine and strongly marked in
their regularity. If one may say so, the sculptor has drawn for us
Mahaut's character as well as her features; she was of the masculine
type, strong and energetic rather than lovable. For a woman who would
hold her own in those days, the qualities she possessed were, in fact,
essential; to rule Artois in the fourteenth century there was need of an
amazon rather than of a lovely, fragile, soft-hearted daughter of love.
We do not mean that Mahaut was cold, heartless, merely a politician; she
was far better both in morals and in kindness of heart than the average
lady of her time. She was generous, and yet not a hopeless spendthrift;
she was pious and devoted to the glorious memory of her great-uncle
Saint Louis, whom she must have seen when a child, and yet not a narrow
bigot, displaying her religious feeling rather in acts of charity than
in acts of pure devotion. No niche awaits her among the heroines of
France, for she is a figure neither heroic nor romantic; but she lived
her life, the full, healthy, and useful life of a stirring and good lady
of the manor in the fourteenth century.

CHAPTER IX

JEANNE DE MONTFORT

WE are now coming to a period in the history of France when woman,
though she may not play a part either more prominent or more honorable,
will be a centre of universal interest to the subjects of France and of
England. Much ink and much fluid of a brighter hue and a more precious
quality will be shed in the war between the lawyers and the soldiers of
France on the one hand, and those of England on the other; and all to
establish the legal status of woman in the eyes of the French law. The
great question is: Shall the succession to the crown of France be
governed by the laws and customs prevailing in many other countries and
in a large part of France itself, whereby women are entitled to inherit
equally with men; or shall the ancient law of the Salian Franks apply,
the _Loi Salique_, "let no part of the Salian land pass into the hands
of a woman"? Since the question has been argued by many a scholiast and
many a historian and settled for all time by the arms of Frenchmen
defending their right to rule France as seemed best to them, we shall
give but small attention to the niceties of the legal argument; but an
exposition of the principal facts seems essential.

The argument of the French lawyers was that the Salian land was now
represente