The heir apparent of the crown of France derives his title of Dauphin
from the following very singular circumstance. In 1349, Hubert, second
Count of Dauphiny, being inconsolable for the loss of his heir and only
child, who had leaped from his arms through a window of his palace at
Grenoble into the river Isere, entered into a convent of jacobins, and
ceded Dauphiny to Philip, a younger son of Philip of Valois (for 120,000
florins of gold each of the value of twenty sols or ten pence English,)
on condition that the eldest son of the king of France should be always
after styled "the Dauphin," from the name of the province thus ceded.
Charles V., grandson to Philip of Valois, was the first who bore the
title in 1530.
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