chapter 6, section 1.

BURGUNDY: A. D, 888-1032. The French Dukedom. The Founding Of The First Capetian House.

Of the earliest princes of this northwestern fragment of the old kingdom of Burgundy little seems to have been discoverable. The fief and its title do not seem to have become hereditary until they fell into the grasping hands of the Capetian family, which happened just at the time when the aspiring counts of Paris were rising to royal rank. In the early years of the tenth century the reigning count or duke was Richard-le-Justicier, whose distinguishing princely virtue is recorded in his name. This Richard-le-Justicier was a brother of that Boso, or Boson, son-in-law of the Emperor Louis II., who took advantage of the confusions of the time to fashion for himself a kingdom of Burgundy in the South (Cis-Jurane Burgundy, or Provence,--see above). Richard's son Raoul, or Rudolph, married Emma, the daughter of Robert, Count of Paris and Duke of France, who was soon afterwards chosen king, by the nobles who tired of Carlovingian misrule. King Robert's reign was short; he fell in battle with the Carlovingians, at Soissons, the next year (A. D. 923). His son Hugh, called Le Grand, or The Great, found it more to his taste to be king-maker than to be king. He declined the proffered crown, and brought about the coronation of his brother-in-law, the Burgundian Rudolph, who reigned for eleven years. When he died, in 934, Hugh the Great still held the crown at his disposal and still refused to wear it himself. It now pleased this king-maker to set a Carlovingian prince on the throne, in the person of Louis d'Outre Mer, a young son of Charles the Simple, who had been reared in England by his English mother. But, if Duke Hugh cared nothing for the name, he cared much for the substance, of power. He grasped dominion wherever it fell within his reach, and the Burgundian duchy was among the states which he clutched. King Rudolph left no son to inherit either his dukedom or his kingdom. He had a brother, Hugh, who claimed the Duchy; but the greater Hugh was too strong for him and secured, with the authority of the young king, his protegé, the title of Duke of Burgundy and the larger part of the domain. "In the Duchy of France or the County of Paris Hugh-le-Grand had nothing beyond the regalities to desire, and both in Burgundy and the Duchy he now became an irremovable Viceroy. But the privileges so obtained by Hugh-le-Grand produced very important political results, both present and future. Hugh assumed even a loftier bearing than before; Burgundy was annexed to the Duchy of France, and passed with the Duchy; and the grant thereof made by Hugh Capet to his son [brother?] Henri-le-Grand, severing the same from the crown, created the premier Duchy of Christendom, the most splendid appanage which a prince of the third race [the Capetians] could enjoy--the rival of the throne."

_Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England,