The Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Volume III. A History of the House of Valois

Excerpt

CHARLES, COMTE DE VALOIS, was the younger brother of Philip the Fair, and therefore uncle of the three sovereigns lately dead.  His eldest son Philip had been appointed guardian to the Queen of Charles IV.; and when it appeared that she had given birth to a daughter, and not a son, the barons, joining with the notables of Paris and the, good towns met to decide who was by right the heir to the throne, “for the twelve peers of France said and say that the Crown of France is of such noble estate that by no succession can it come to a woman nor to a woman’s son,” as Froissart tells us.  This being their view, the baby daughter of Charles IV. was at once set aside; and the claim of Edward III. of England, if, indeed, he ever made it, rested on Isabella of France, his mother, sister of the three sovereigns.  And if succession through a female had been possible, then the daughters of those three kings had rights to be reserved.  It was, however, clear that the throne must go to a man, and the crown was given to Philip of Valois, founder of a new house of sovereigns.