Madame de SÉvignÉ said that Providence favors the best battalions. It was she who was the author of that remark, and not Frederick-the-great nor Napoleon nor others to whom it is attributed. It has not always proved true. Henry V., ablest of the Plantagenets, at the head of the best armies then existing, tried to wrest the sceptre of France from the palsied hand of Charles VI., and perished in the attempt. From the loins of that crazy monarch and his worse than crazy queen, came forth that House of Tudor which, by the ordeal of battle, displaced the Plantagenet on the throne of England.

Much bad logic and worse history has been put forth in good English, touching the claim of Edward III. to the throne of France. It is often said that Edward denied the validity of the salic law. He did nothing of the kind. His theory was that the salic law, while it excluded females, did not exclude their progeny, and he claimed the crown of France by right of his mother Isabella daughter of Philip-the-fair. But even this theory gave the right to somebody else, as Hume has shown, and as we propose to make visible to the naked eye.

Edward’s theory would have given the crown of France to Charles-the-bad, grandson of Louis X. It went to Philip of Valois, Philip VI. by right of unbroken male descent from Hugh Capet, as it did long afterwards to the House of Bourbon.