matters, that you should be informed of everything," said his Majesty,
"it is proper that you should know that I have two kinds of right to all
that there is over there. Firstly, because the crown of France has been
usurped from me, my ancestors having been unjustly excluded by foreign
occupation of it; and secondly, because I claim the same crown as first
male of the house of Valois."

Here certainly were comprehensive pretensions, and it was obvious that
the king's desire for the establishment of the Catholic religion must
have been very lively to enable him to invent or accept such astonishing
fictions.

But his own claims were but a portion of the case. His daughter and
possible spouse had rights of her own, hard, in his opinion, to be
gainsaid. "Over and above all this," said Philip, "my eldest daughter,
the Infanta, has two other rights; one to all the states which as
dower-property are joined by matrimony and through females to this crown,
which now come to her in direct line, and the other to the crown itself,
which belongs directly to the said Infanta, the matter of the Salic law
being a mere invention."

Thus it would appear that Philip was the legitimate representative, not
only of the ancient races of French monarchs--whether Merovingians,
Carlovingians, or otherwise was not stated but also of the usurping
houses themselves, by whose intrusion those earlier dynasties had been
ejected, being the eldest male heir of the extinct line of Valois, while
his daughter was, if possible, even more legitimately the sovereign and
proprietor of France than he was himself.

Nevertheless in his magnanimous desire for the peace of the world and the
advancement of the interests of the Church, he was, if reduced to
extremities, willing to forego his own individual rights--when it should
appear that they could by no possibility be enforced--in favour of his
daughter and of the husband whom he should select for her.

"Thus it may be seen," said the self-denying man, "that I know how, for
the sake of the public repose, to strip myself of my private property."

Afterwards, when secretly instructing the Duke of Feria, about to proceed
to Paris for the sake of settling the sovereignty of the kingdom, he
reviewed the whole subject, setting forth substantially the same
intentions. That the Prince of Bearne could ever possibly succeed to the
throne of his ancestors was an idea to be treated only with sublime scorn
by all right-