Like a king (or, in my case, queen)

From Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon:

When we discovered that the child we were going to have in Paris last fall would be a girl - we already have a boy - everybody told us that we had been blessed with the choix du roi, the king's choice. "Why, it's the choix du roi!" the technician said as she looked at the sonogram, more or less in the tone of the host on Jeopardy! announcing the Daily Double. "It's the choix du roi!" said the woman in the two-hour photo place on the rue du Bac when we told her. "A little girl coming after a little boy?" said my friend Pascal, the philosopher, with evident pleasure. "Why, then, it's the choix du roi!"

I was so fed up that I said, "Please explain it to me." It was an ironic, rhetorical question. But he didn't miss a beat.

"I will be happy to explain it," he said. "In Latin countries we have what we call Salic law, which means that only your son can inherit the throne. For your Anglo-Saxon royal families, it doesn't matter if the king has a nana or a mec." A nana is a doll, and a mec is a guy. "But you see, a French king, under Salic law, had to consolidate his hold on the throne by having a boy. And he had to have a girl, so that she could be offered in marriage to another king, and in this way the royal possessions would be expanded, since the daughter's son would be a king too. He," he said, gesturing toward Luke, "is your strong piece, to be kept in reserve, while she" - he gestured toward Martha's belly - "is your pawn to build your empire. That's why it's the king's choice: first a boy to hold the throne, then a girl to get another. Tendresse has nothing to do with it. That's why it's the choix du roi."

Looks like we are in for some changes around here. :)