THE KINGDOM OF FRANCE.
♦Origin and growth of France.♦
The process by which a great power grew up to the west of the Western
Empire has something in common with the process by which the powers
spoken of in the later sections of the last Chapter split off from the
Western Empire. As in the case of Switzerland and the United Provinces,
so in the case of France, a land which had formed part of the dominions
of Charles the Great became independent of his successors. ♦Comparison
with Austria.♦ As in the case of Austria to the east, so in the case
of France to the west, a duchy of the old Empire grew into a power
distinct from the Empire, and tried to attach to itself the old
Imperial titles and traditions. ♦Different nature of the Austrian and
the French territories.♦ But there is more than one point of difference
between the two cases. As a matter of geography, the power of the
Austrian house has for some centuries largely rested on the possession
of dominions beyond the boundaries of the Carolingian Empire, while
it has been only for a moment, and that chiefly by the annexation of
territory from Austria itself, that France has ever held any European
possessions beyond the Carolingian frontier.[18] ♦Difference in the
process of separation.♦ But the true difference lies in the date and
circumstances of the separation. ♦The other powers split off after
the Empire has become German.♦ The Swabian, Lotharingian, Frisian,
and Austrian lands which gradually split off from the Empire to form
distinct states split off after the Empire had been finally annexed to
the crown of Germany, indeed after Germany and the Empire had come to
mean nearly the same thing. But France can hardly be said to have split
off from the German kingdom or from the Empire itself. The first prince
of the Western _Francia_ who bore the kingly title was indeed the man
of the King of the East-Franks.[19] But no lasting relation, such as
afterwards bound the princes of the Empire to its head, sprang out of
his homage. Again from 887 to 963 the Imperial dignity was not finally
attached to any one kingdom. It fluctuated between Germany and Italy;
it might have passed to Burgundy; it might have passed to Karolingia,
as it had once already done in the person of Charles the Bald. ♦The
Empire divided into four kingdoms, of which three are again united,
while one remains distinct.♦ The truer way of putting the matter is to
say that in 887 the Empire split up into four kingdoms, of which three
came together again, and formed the Empire in a new shape. The fourth
kingdom remained separate; it can hardly be said to have split off
from the Empire, but its separation hindered the full reconstruction
of the Empire. It has had a distinct history, a history which made
it the special rival of the Empire. ♦Karolingia receives the name of
_France_.♦ This was _Karolingia_, the kingdom of the West-Franks, to
which, through the results of the change of dynasty in 987, the name of
_France_ gradually came to be applied.
♦France a nation as well as a power.♦
But there is yet another distinction of greater practical importance.
France was so early detached from the rest of the elder Frankish
dominions that it was able to form from the first a nation as well as a
power. Its separation happened at the time when the European nations
were forming. The other powers did not split off till long after those
nations were formed, and they did not in any strict sense form nations.
But France is a nation in the fullest sense. Its history is therefore
different from the history of Austria, of Burgundy, of Switzerland, or
even of Italy. As a state which had become wholly distinct from the
Empire, which was commonly the rival and enemy of the Empire, which
largely grew at the expense of the Empire, above all, as a state which
won for itself a most distinct national being, France fully deserves
a chapter, and not a mere section. Still that chapter is in some sort
an appendage to that which deals with the Imperial kingdoms of the
West. It naturally follows on our survey of those kingdoms, before we
go on further to deal with the European powers which arose out of the
dismemberment of the Empire of the East.
* * * * *
♦Extent of the royal domain at the accession of the Parisian house.
987.♦
We left Karolingia or the Western Kingdom at that point where the
modern French state took its real beginning under the kings of the
house of Paris. Their duchy of France had since its foundation been cut
short by the great grant of Normandy, and by the practical independence
which had been won by the counts of _Anjou_, _Maine_, and _Chartres_.
By their election to the kingdom the Dukes of the French added to
their duchy the small territory which up to that time had still been
in the immediate possession of the West-Frankish Kings at Laon. And,
with the crown and the immediate territory of those kings, the French
kings at Paris also inherited their claim to superiority over all the
states which had arisen within the bounds of the Western Kingdom.
♦Definition of the word _France_.♦ But the name _France_, as it was
used in the times with which we are dealing, means only the immediate
territory of the King. ♦Two forms of growth; annexation of fiefs of the
French crown and of lands altogether beyond the kingdom.♦ The use of
the name spreads with every increase of that territory, whether that
increase was made by the incorporation of a fief or by the annexation
of territory wholly foreign to the kingdom. These two processes must be
carefully distinguished. Both went on side by side for some centuries;
but the incorporation of the vassal states naturally began before the
annexation of altogether foreign territory.
♦Various feudal gradations.♦
Among the fiefs which were gradually annexed a distinction must be
drawn between the great princes who were really national chiefs owing
an external homage to the French crown, and the lesser counts whose
dominions had been cut off from the original duchy of France. And a
distinction must be again drawn between these last and the immediate
tenants of the Crown within its own domains, vassals of the Duke as
well as of the King. ♦The great vassals.♦ To the first class belong
the Dukes and Counts of _Burgundy_, _Aquitaine_, _Toulouse_, and
_Flanders_; to the second the Counts of _Anjou_, _Chartres_, and
_Champagne_. ♦Special character of Normandy.♦ Historically, _Normandy_
belongs to the second class, as the original grant to Rolf was
undoubtedly cut off from the French duchy. But the whole circumstances
of the Norman duchy made it a truly national state, owing to the French
crown the merest external homage. ♦Britanny.♦ _Britanny_, yet more
distinct in every way, was held to owe its immediate homage to the
Duke of the Normans. ♦The Twelve Peers.♦ The so-called Twelve Peers of
France seem to have been devised by Philip Augustus out of the romances
of Charlemagne; but the selection shows who were looked on as the
greatest vassals of the crown in his day. The six lay peers were the
Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine, the Counts of Flanders,
Toulouse, and Champagne. ♦Champagne.♦ This last was the only one of the
six who could not be looked upon as a national sovereign. His dominions
were _French_ in a sense in which Normandy or Aquitaine could not be
called French. ♦Different position of the Bishops in the Eastern and
Western kingdom.♦ The six ecclesiastical peers offer a marked contrast
to the ecclesiastical electors of the Empire. The German bishops became
princes, holding directly of the Empire. But the bishops within the
dominions of the great vassals of the French crown were the subjects of
their immediate sovereigns. The Archbishop of Rouen or the Archbishop
of Bourdeaux stood in no relation to the King of the French. The
ecclesiastical peerage of France consisted only of certain bishops
who were immediate vassals of the King in his character of King,
among whom was only one prelate of the first rank, the Archbishop and
Duke of _Rheims_. The others were the Bishops and Dukes of _Langres_
and _Laon_, and the Bishops and Counts of _Beauvais_, _Noyon_, and
_Châlons_. As the bishops within the dominions of the great feudatories
had no claim to rank as peers of the kingdom, neither had those
prelates who were actually within the King’s immediate territory,
vassals therefore of the Duke of the French as well as of the King.
Thus the Bishop of _Paris_ and his metropolitan the Archbishop of
_Sens_ had no place among the twelve peers.
§ 1. _Incorporation of the Vassal States._
At the accession of the Parisian dynasty, the royal domain took in the
greater part of the later _Isle of France_, the territory to which the
old name specially clung, the greater part of the later government of
_Orleans_, besides some outlying fiefs holding immediately of the King.
♦Chief vassals within the royal domain.♦ Within this territory the
counties of _Clermont_, _Dreux_, _Moulins_, _Valois_, and _Gatinois_,
are of the greatest historical importance. Two of the great rivers of
Gaul, the Seine and the Loire, flowed through the royal dominions; but
the King was wholly cut off from the sea by the great feudatories who
commanded the lower course of the rivers. ♦States on the Channel and♦
The coast of the channel was held by the princes of Britanny, Normandy,
and Flanders, and the smaller county of _Ponthieu_, which lay between
Normandy and Flanders and fluctuated in its homage between the two.
♦on the Ocean;♦ The ocean coast was held by the rulers of Britanny,
of _Poitou_ and _Aquitaine_ united under a single sovereign, and of
_Gascony_ to the south of them. ♦on the Mediterranean coast.♦ That
small part of the Mediterranean coast which nominally belonged to the
Western Kingdom was held by the counts of _Toulouse_ and _Barcelona_.
♦Neighbours of the royal domain.♦ Of these great feudatories, the
princes of Flanders, Burgundy, Normandy, and Champagne, were all
immediate neighbours of the King. To the west of the royal domain
lay several states of the second rank which played a great part in
the history of France and Normandy. ♦Chartres and Blois. 1125-1152.♦
These were the counties of _Chartres_ and _Blois_, which were for a
while united with _Champagne_. ♦Anjou and Touraine united. 1044.
| Maine.♦ Beyond these, besides some smaller counties, were _Anjou_ and
_Touraine_, and _Maine_, the great borderland of Normandy and France.
Thus surrounded by their own vassals, the early Kings of the house of
Paris had far less dealings with powers beyond their own kingdom than
their Karolingian predecessors. They were thus able to make themselves
the great power of Gaul before they stood forth on a wider field as
one of the great powers of Europe.
♦The kingdom smaller than the old duchy.♦
As regards their extent of territory, the Kings of the French at the
beginning of the eleventh century had altogether fallen away from the
commanding position which had been held by the Dukes of the French
in the middle of the tenth. But this seeming loss of power was fully
outweighed by the fact that there were now Kings and not merely Dukes,
lords and no longer vassals. ♦Advantage of the kingly position.♦
As feudal principles grew, opportunities were constantly found for
annexing the lands of the vassal to the lands of his lord. ♦First
advances of the Kings. | Gatinois. 1068. | Viscounty of Bourges. 1100.♦
Towards the end of the eleventh century the royal domain had already
begun to increase by the acquisition of the _Gatinois_ and of the
viscounty of _Bourges_, a small part only of the later province of
Berry, but an addition which made France and Aquitaine more clearly
neighbours than before. Towards the end of the twelfth century began
a more important advance to the north-east. The first aggrandizement
of France at the expense of Flanders was the beginning of an important
chain of events in European history. ♦Amiens and Vermandois. 1183.
| Valois. 1185.♦ In the early years of Philip Augustus the counties of
_Amiens_ and _Vermandois_ were united to the crown, as was the county
of _Valois_ two years later. ♦Artois. 1180-1187.♦ So for a while was
the more important land of _Artois_. Later in the reign of the same
prince came an annexation on a far greater scale, which did not happen
till the first years of the thirteenth century, but which was the
result of causes which had been going on ever since the eleventh.
♦Growth of the House of Anjou.♦
In the course of the twelfth century a power grew up within the
bounds of the Western Kingdom which in extent of territory threw the
dominions of the French King into insignificance. The two great powers
of northern and southern Gaul, Normandy and Aquitaine, each carrying
with it a crowd of smaller states, were united in the hands of a
single prince, and that a prince who was also the king of a powerful
foreign kingdom. The Aquitanian duchy contained, besides the county of
_Poitou_, a number of fiefs, of which the most important were those of
_Perigueux_, _Limoges_, the dauphiny of _Auvergne_, and the county of
_Marche_ which gave kings to Jerusalem and Cyprus. ♦Union of Aquitaine
and Gascony. 1052.♦ To these, in the eleventh century, the duchy of
_Gascony_, with its subordinate fiefs, was added, and the dominions
of the lord of Poitiers stretched to the Pyrenees. ♦Conquests of
William of Normandy. Ponthieu. 1056. | Domfront. 1049. | Maine. 1063.♦
Meanwhile Duke William of Normandy, before his conquest of England, had
increased his continental dominions, by acquiring the superiority of
_Ponthieu_ and the immediate dominion, first of the small district of
_Domfront_ and then of the whole of _Maine_. Maine was presently lost
by his successor, and passed in the end to the house of Anjou. ♦Union
of Maine and Anjou. 1110.♦ But the union of several lines in descent
in the same person united England, Normandy, Anjou, and Maine in the
person of Henry the Second.
♦Dominions of Henry the Second.♦
For a moment it seemed as if, instead of the northern and southern
powers being united in opposition to the crown, one of them was to be
itself incorporated with the crown. ♦Momentary union of France and
Aquitaine. 1137.♦ The marriage of Lewis the Seventh with Eleanor of
Aquitaine united his kingdom and her duchy. A king of Paris for the
first time reigned on the Garonne and at the foot of the Pyrenees.
♦Their separation. 1152. | Union of Aquitaine, Normandy, and Anjou.
1152-1154.♦ But the divorce of Lewis and Eleanor and her immediate
re-marriage with the Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou again severed
the southern duchy from the kingdom, and united the great powers of
northern and southern Gaul. Then their common lord won a crown beyond
the sea and became the first Angevin king of England. ♦Britanny. 1169.♦
Another marriage brought Britanny, long the nominal fief of Normandy,
under the practical dominion of its Duke. The House of Anjou thus
suddenly rose to a dominion on Gaulish soil equal to that of the French
king and his other vassals put together, a dominion which held the
mouths of the three great rivers, and which was further strengthened
by the possession of the English kingdom. But a favourable moment soon
came which enabled the King to add to his own dominions the greater
part of the estates of his dangerous vassal. ♦Claims of Arthur of
Britanny.♦ On the death of Richard, first of England and fourth of
Normandy, Normandy and England passed to his brother John, while in
the other continental dominions of the Angevin princes the claims of
his nephew Arthur, the heir of Britanny, were asserted. ♦Possible
effects of his success.♦ The success of Arthur would have given the
geography of Gaul altogether a new shape. The Angevin possessions on
the continent, instead of being held by a king of England, would have
been held by a Duke of Britanny, the prince of a state which, though
not geographically cut off like England, was even more foreign to
France. ♦Annexation of Normandy, Anjou, &c. 1202-1205.♦ On the fall of
Arthur, Philip, by the help of a jurisprudence devised for the purpose,
was able to declare all the fiefs which John held of the French crown
to be forfeited to that crown, a sentence which did not apply to the
fiefs of his mother Eleanor. In the space of two years Philip was
able to carry that sentence into effect everywhere on the mainland.
♦1258.♦ Continental Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, were joined
to the dominions of the French crown, and by a later treaty they were
formally surrendered by John’s son Henry. Poitou went with them, and
all these lands may from this time be looked on as forming part of
France. ♦Character and effects of the annexation.♦ Thus far the process
of annexation was little more than the restoration of an earlier state
of things. For all these lands, except Poitou, had formed part of the
old French duchy. ♦Territories kept by the English kings.♦ The Kings
of England still kept the duchy of Aquitaine with Gascony. ♦The Norman
Islands.♦ They kept also the insular Normandy, the Norman islands
which have ever since remained distinct states attached to the English
crown. ♦Aquitaine.♦ Aquitaine was now no longer part of the continental
dominions of a prince who was equally at home on both sides of the
Channel. It was now a remote dependency of the insular kingdom, a
dependency whose great cities clave to the English connexion, while its
geographical position and the feelings of its feudal nobility tended to
draw it towards France.
♦Sudden greatness of France.♦
The result of this great and sudden acquisition of territory was to
make the King of the French incomparably greater on Gaulish ground than
any of his own vassals. France had now a large sea-board on the Channel
and a small sea-board on the Ocean. And now another chain of events
incorporated a large territory with which the crown had hitherto stood
in no practical relation, and which gave the kingdom a third sea-board
on the Mediterranean.
* * * * *
♦Fiefs of Aragon in Southern Gaul.♦
While north-western and south-western Gaul were united in the hands
of an insular king, the king of a peninsular kingdom became only less
powerful in south-eastern Gaul. ♦Counts of Toulouse.♦ Hitherto the
greatest princes in this region had been the counts of _Toulouse_,
who, besides their fiefs of the French crown, had also possessions in
the Burgundian kingdom beyond the Rhone. But during the latter part
of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth, the Counts
of _Barcelona_, and the kings of Aragon who succeeded them, acquired
by various means a number of Tolosan fiefs, both French and Imperial.
_Carcassonne_, _Albi_, and _Nîmes_ were all under the lordship of the
Aragonese crown. ♦The Albigensian War. 1207-1229.♦ The Albigensian
war seemed at first likely to lead to the establishment of the house
of Montfort as the chief power of Southern Gaul. ♦Simon of Montfort
at Toulouse.♦ But the struggle ended in a vast increase of the power
of the French crown, at the expense alike of the house of Toulouse
and of the house of Aragon. ♦Settlement of Meaux.♦ The dominions of
the Count of Toulouse were divided. ♦Annexation of Narbonne, 1229;♦
A number of fiefs, _Beziers_, _Narbonne_, _Nîmes_, _Albi_, and some
other districts, were at once annexed to the crown. ♦of Toulouse,
1270.♦ The capital itself and its county passed to the crown fifty
years later. By a settlement with Aragon, the domains of the French
king were increased, while the French kingdom itself was nominally
cut short. ♦Roussillon and Barcelona released from homage. 1258.♦ Two
of the Aragonese fiefs, the counties of _Roussillon_ and _Barcelona_,
were relieved from even nominal homage. The name of Toulouse, except as
the name of the city itself, now passed away, and the new acquisitions
of France came in the end to be known by the name of the tongue which
was common to them with Aquitaine and Imperial Burgundy. ♦Province
of Languedoc.♦ Under the name of _Languedoc_ they became one of the
greatest and most valuable provinces of the French kingdom.
The great growth of the crown during the reign of Saint Lewis was thus
in the south; but he also extended his borders nearer home. ♦Purchase
of Blois and Chartres. 1234. | Escheat of Perche. 1257.♦ He won back
part of the old French duchy when he purchased the superiority of
_Blois_ and _Chartres_, to which _Perche_ was afterwards added by
escheat. ♦Annexation of Macon, 1239.♦ Further off, he added _Macon_ to
the crown, a possession which afterwards passed away to the House of
Burgundy.
* * * * *
♦Southern advance of the Crown.♦
Thus, during the reigns of Philip Augustus and his grandson, the
royal possessions had been enlarged by the annexations of two of
the chief vassal states, two of the lay peerages, annexations which
gave the French King a sea-board on two seas and which brought him
into immediate connexion with the affairs of the Spanish peninsula.
♦Marriage of Philip the Fair, 1284, with the heiress of Champagne and
Navarre.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, the marriage of Philip the
Fair with the heiress of _Champagne_ not only extinguished another
peerage, but made the French kings for awhile actually Spanish
sovereigns, and made France an immediate neighbour of the German
kingdom. The county of _Champagne_ had for two generations been united
with the kingdom of Navarre. These dominions were held in right of
their wives by three kings of France. ♦Separation of Navarre. 1328.
| Union of Champagne, 1335; incorporation, 1361.♦ Then Navarre, though
it passed to a French prince, was wholly separated from France, while
Champagne was incorporated with the kingdom. This last annexation gave
France a considerable frontier towards Germany, and especially brought
the kingdom into the immediate neighbourhood of the Lotharingian
bishoprics. These acquisitions, of Normandy and the states connected
with it, of Toulouse and the rest of Languedoc, and now of Champagne,
were the chief cases of incorporation of vassal states with the royal
domain up to the middle of the fourteenth century. ♦Appanages.♦ The
mere grants and recoveries of appanages hardly concern geography. We
now turn to two great struggles which, in the course of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, the Kings of France had to wage with two of
their chief vassals who were also powerful foreign princes. In both
cases, events which seemed likely to bring about the utter humiliation
of France did in the end bring to it a large increase of territory.
* * * * *
♦The Hundred Years’ War with England.♦
The former of these struggles was the great war between England and
France, called by French writers the _Hundred Years’ War_. This war
might be called either a war for the annexation of France to England
or a war for the annexation of Aquitaine to France. ♦Designs of the
French kings on Aquitaine.♦ By the peace between Henry the Third and
Saint Lewis, Aquitaine became a land held by the king of England as a
vassal of the French crown. From that time it was one main object of
the French kings to change their feudal superiority over this great
duchy into an actual possession. This object had been once obtained for
a moment by the marriage of Eleanor and Lewis the Seventh. ♦Momentary
occupation by Philip the Fair. 1294.♦ It was again obtained for a
moment by the negotiations between Edward the First and Philip the
Fair. The Hundred Years’ war began through the attempts of Philip of
Valois on the Aquitanian dominions of Edward the Third. ♦1337.♦ Then
the King of England found it politic to assume the title of King of
France. ♦1339.♦ But the real nature of the controversy was shown by
the first great settlement. ♦Peace of Bretigny. 1360.♦ At the Peace
of _Bretigny_ Edward gave up all claim to the crown of France, in
exchange for the independent sovereignty of his old fiefs and of
some of his recent conquests. _Aquitaine_ and _Gascony_, including
_Poitou_ but not including _Auvergne_, together with the districts on
the Channel, _Calais_ with _Guines_ and the county of _Ponthieu_, were
made over to the King of England without the reservation of any homage
or superiority of any kind. These lands became a territory as foreign
to the French kingdom as the territory of her German and Spanish
neighbours. ♦Renewal of the war. 1370-1374. | Losses of the English.♦
But in a few years the treaty was broken on the French side, and the
actual possessions of England beyond the sea were cut down to Calais
and Guines, with some small parts of Aquitaine adjoining the cities of
Bourdeaux and Bayonne. ♦Conquests of Henry the Fifth.♦ Then the tide
turned at the invasion of Henry the Fifth. ♦Treaty of Troyes. 1420.♦
The Treaty of Troyes united the crowns of England and France. ♦1431.♦
Aquitaine and Normandy were won back; Paris saw the crowning of an
English king, and only the central part of the country obeyed the heir
of the Parisian kingdom, no longer king of Paris but only of Bourges.
♦Conquest of Aquitaine. 1451-1453.♦ But the final result of the war was
the driving out of the English from all Aquitaine and France, except
the single district of Calais. The geographical aspect of the change is
that Aquitaine, which had been wholly cut off from the kingdom by the
Peace of Bretigny, was finally incorporated with the kingdom. ♦Final
union of Aquitaine with France.♦ The French conquest of Aquitaine,
the result of the Hundred Years’ War, was in form the conquest of a
land which had ceased to stand in any relation to the French crown.
Practically it was the incorporation with the French crown of its
greatest fief, balanced by the loss of a small territory the value of
which was certainly out of all proportion to its geographical extent.
In its historical aspect the annexation of Aquitaine was something yet
more. The first foreshadowing of the modern French kingdom was made
by the addition of Aquitaine to Neustria, of southern to northern
Gaul.[20] Now, after so many strivings, the two were united for ever.
Aquitaine was merged in France. The grant to Charles the Bald took
effect after six hundred years. ♦Beginning of the modern Kingdom of
France.♦ France, in the sense which the word bears in modern use, may
date its complete existence from the addition of Bourdeaux to the
dominions of Charles the Seventh.
* * * * *
♦Growth of the Dukes of Burgundy.♦
Thus, in the course of somewhat less than four hundred years, the
conquest of England by a vassal of France, followed by the union of
a crowd of other French fiefs in the hands of a common sovereign of
England and Normandy, had led to the union with France of all the
continental possessions of the prince who thus reigned on both sides
of the sea. Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the kingdom, the holder
of a great French fief swelled into an European power, the special
rival of his French overlord. ♦Escheat of the duchy of Burgundy. 1361.
| Grant to Philip the Hardy. 1364.♦ The duchy of Burgundy, granted
to a branch of the royal house in the earliest days of the Parisian
kingdom, escheated to the crown in the fourteenth century, and was
again granted out to a son of the reigning king. ♦Advance of the Valois
Dukes.♦ A series of marriages, purchases, conquests, transactions of
every kind, gathered together, in the hands of the Burgundian dukes,
a crowd of fiefs both of France and of the Empire.[21] The duchy
of _Burgundy_ with the county of _Charolois_, and the counties of
_Flanders_ and _Artois_, were joined under a common ruler with endless
Imperial fiefs in the Low Countries and with the Imperial _County of
Burgundy_. ♦Advance to the Somme.♦ More than this, under Philip the
Good and Charles the Bold, the Burgundian frontier was more than
once advanced to the Somme, and Amiens was separated from the crown.
♦Annexations at the death of Charles the Bold. 1479.♦ The fall of
Charles the Bold laid his dominions open to French annexation both
on the Burgundian and on the Flemish frontier. ♦Momentary annexation
of Artois and the County of Burgundy.♦ In the first moments of his
success, Lewis the Eleventh possessed himself of a large part of the
Imperial as well as the French fiefs of the fallen Duke. ♦Treaty of
Arras. 1435.♦ But in the end Flanders and Artois remained French fiefs
held by the House of Burgundy, which also kept the county of Burgundy
and the isolated county of Charolois. ♦Incorporation of the duchy of
Burgundy. 1479.♦ But France not only finally recovered the towns on
the Somme, but incorporated the Burgundian duchy, one of the greatest
fiefs of the crown. ♦French advance to the east.♦ This was the addition
of a territory which the kings of France had never before ruled, and
it marks an important stage in the advance of the French power towards
the Imperial lands on its eastern border. By the marriage of Mary of
Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria, the remains of the Burgundian
dominions passed to the House of Austria, and thereby in the end to
Spain. The result was that a French king had for a moment an Emperor
for his vassal in his character of Count of Flanders and Artois.
♦Flanders and Artois relieved from homage. 1525.♦ But by the treaty of
Madrid Flanders and Artois were relieved from all homage to France,
exactly as Aquitaine had been by the Peace of Bretigny. They now became
lands wholly foreign to France, and, as foreign lands, large parts of
them were afterwards conquered by France, just as Aquitaine was. But
the history of their acquisition belongs to the story of the advance of
France at the expense of the Empire.
♦All the great fiefs annexed except Britanny.♦
Thus, by the end of the reign of Lewis the Eleventh, all the fiefs
of the French crown which could make any claim to the character of
separate sovereignties had, with a single exception, been added to the
dominions of the crown. The one which had escaped was that one which,
more than any other, represented a nationality altogether distinct
from that of France. _Britanny_ still remained distinct under its own
Dukes. ♦1491-1499; incorporated 1532.♦ The marriages of its Duchess
Anne with two successive French kings, Charles the Eighth and Lewis
the Twelfth, added Britanny to France, and so completed the work. The
whole of the Western Kingdom, except those parts which had become
foreign ground—that is to say, insular Normandy and Calais, Barcelona,
Flanders, and Artois—was now united under the kings of Paris. Their
duchy of _France_ had spread its power and its name over the whole
kingdom. We have now to see how it also spread itself over lands which
had never formed part of that kingdom.
§ 2. _Foreign Annexations of France._
♦Foreign neighbours of Karolingia. | Imperial and Spanish neighbours.♦
When the Western Kingdom finally parted off from the body of the
Empire, its only immediate neighbours were the Imperial kingdoms to
the east, and the Spanish kingdoms to the south. ♦England.♦ The union
of Normandy and England in some sort made England and France immediate
neighbours. And the long retention of Aquitaine by England, the English
possession of Calais for more than two hundred years and of the insular
Normandy down to our own day, have all tended to keep them so. ♦Small
acquisitions of France from England and Spain.♦ But the acquisitions
of France from England, and from Spain, in its character as Spain,
have been comparatively small. Indeed the separation of the Spanish
March and the insular Normandy may be thought to turn the balance
the other way. From England France has won Aquitaine and Calais,
territories which had once been under the homage of the French King.
♦English conquest of Boulogne. 1544-1550. | 1663.♦ So in the sixteenth
century _Boulogne_ was lost to England and won back again; so in the
seventeenth century _Dunkirk_, which had become an English possession,
was made over to France. Since the final loss of Aquitaine, the wars
between England and France have made most important changes in the
English and French possessions in distant parts of the world, but they
have had no effect on the geography of England, and very little on that
of France.
♦Boundary of the Pyrenees.♦
Nearly the same may be said of the geographical relations between
France and Spain. The long wars between those countries have added to
France a large part of the outlying dominions of Spain; but they have
not greatly affected the boundaries of the two countries themselves.
♦Roussillon, its shiftings.♦ The only important exception is the county
of _Roussillon_, the land which Aragon kept on the north side of the
mountain range. ♦Finally becomes French. 1659.♦ United to France by
Lewis the Eleventh, given back by Charles the Eighth, it was finally
annexed to France by the Peace of the Pyrenees. Towards the other end
of the mountain frontier, a small portion of Spanish territory has
been annexed to France, perhaps quite unconsciously. ♦Navarre north
of the Pyrenees.♦ The old kingdom of _Navarre_, though it lay chiefly
south of the Pyrenees, contained a small territory to the north. ♦Union
of France and Navarre. 1589.♦ The accidents of female succession had
given Navarre to more than one King of France, and in the person of
Henry the Fourth the crown of France passed to a King of Navarre who
held only the part of his kingdom north of the Pyrenees. This little
piece of Spain within the borders of Gaul was thus united with France.
♦Protectorate of Andorra.♦ On the other hand, the Kings of France, as
successors of the Counts of Foix, and the other rulers of France after
them, have held, not any dominion but certain rights as advocates or
protectors, over the small commonwealth of _Andorra_ on the Spanish
side of the mountains.
* * * * *
♦Advance at the expense of the Imperial kingdoms.♦
Of far greater importance is the steady acquisition of territory
by France at the expense of the Imperial kingdoms, and of the
modern states by which those kingdoms are represented. ♦Burgundy.
| 1310-1860.♦ In the case of Burgundy, French annexation has taken the
form of a gradual swallowing up of nearly the whole kingdom, a process
which has been spread over more than five hundred years, from the
annexation of Lyons by Philip the Fair to the last annexation of Savoy
in our own day. ♦Annexations from Germany. 1552-1811.♦ The advance at
the expense of the German kingdom did not begin till the greater part
of the Burgundian kingdom was already swallowed up. ♦Late beginning of
annexations from Germany.♦ The north-eastern frontier of the Western
Kingdom changed but little from the accession of the Parisian house
in the tenth century till the growth of the Dukes of Burgundy in the
fifteenth. After Lotharingia finally became a part of the Eastern
Kingdom, there was no doubt that the homage of Flanders was due to
France, no doubt that the homage of the states which had formed the
Lower Lotharingia was due to the Empire. The frontier towards the Upper
Lotharingia and the Burgundian county also remained untouched. The
Saône remained a boundary stream long after the Rhone had ceased to be
one. ♦Effect of the Burgundian acquisitions of France;♦ It was on this
latter river that the great Burgundian annexations of France began,
annexations which gave France a wholly new European position.[22]
♦of the Dauphiny; | of Provence.♦ The acquisition of the Dauphiny of
Viennois made France the immediate neighbour of Italy; the acquisition
of Provence at once strengthened this last position and more than
doubled her Mediterranean coast. ♦Relations with the Swiss.♦ Add to
this that, though France and the Confederate territory did not yet
actually touch, yet the Burgundian wars and many other events in the
latter half of the fifteenth century enabled France to establish a
close connexion with the power which had grown up north of Lake Leman.
France had thus become a great Mediterranean and Alpine power, ready
to threaten Italy in the next generation. Later acquisitions within
the old border of the Burgundian kingdom had a somewhat different
character. ♦Annexations at the expense of Savoy;♦ Annexations at the
expense of Savoy, even when geographically Burgundian, were annexations
at the cost of a power which was beginning to be Italian rather than
Burgundian. ♦of the County of Burgundy.♦ The annexation of the County
of Burgundy goes rather with the Alsatian annexations. It was territory
won at the cost of the Empire and of the House of Austria. ♦Middle
character of the Burgundian lands.♦ But the lands between the Rhone,
the Alps, and the sea, still kept, negatively at least, their middle
character. They were lands which at least were neither German, French,
nor Italian. ♦They become French.♦ The events of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries ruled that this intermediate region should become
French. And none of the acquisitions of France ever helped more towards
the real growth of her power.
It was while the later stages of this process were going on that
the French kings added to their dominions the Aquitanian lands on
one side and the Burgundian duchy on the other. The acquisition of
Aquitaine has, besides its other characters, a third aspect which
closely connects it with the annexations between the Rhone and the
Alps. ♦Effect of French annexations on the _Langue d’oc_.♦ The strife
between Northern and Southern Gaul, between the tongue of _oil_ and the
tongue of _oc_, now came to an end. Had the chief power in Gaul settled
somewhere in Burgundy or Aquitaine, the tongue of _oil_ might now pass
for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oc_. Had French dominion in Italy
begun as soon and lasted as permanently as French dominion in Burgundy
and Aquitaine, the tongue of _si_, as well as the tongue of _oc_, might
now pass for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oil_. But now it was settled
that French, not Provençal, was to be the ruling speech of Gaul. The
lands of the Southern speech which escaped were almost wholly portions
of the dominions of other powers. There was no longer any separate
state wholly of that speech, except the little principality of Orange.
♦Extinction of the Provençal speech and nation.♦ The work which the
French kings had now ended amounted to little short of the extinction
of an European nation. A tongue, once of at least equal dignity with
the tongue of Paris and Tours, has sunk from the rank of a national
language to the rank of a provincial dialect.
* * * * *
♦Italian conquests of France.♦
The next great conquests of France were made on Italian soil, but
they are conquests which do not greatly concern geography. This
distinguishes the relations of France towards Italy from her relations
towards Burgundy. France has constantly interfered in Italian affairs;
she has at various times held large Italian territories, and brought
all Italy under French influence. But France has never permanently
kept any large amount of Italian territory. The French possession
of Naples and Milan was only temporary. ♦Not strictly extensions of
France.♦ And, if it had been lasting, the possession of these isolated
territories by the French king could hardly have been looked on as an
extension of the actual French frontier. Those lands could never have
been incorporated with France in the same way in which other French
conquests had been. Their retention would in truth have given the later
history of France quite a different character, a character more like
that which actually belonged to Spain. The long occupation of Savoyard
territory on both sides of the Alps[23] would, if it had lasted, have
been a real extension of the French kingdom. But down to our own day,
while the lands won by France from the Burgundian kingdom form a large
proportion of the whole French territory, French acquisitions from
Italy hardly go beyond the island of Corsica and the insignificant
district of _Mentone_.
* * * * *
♦Annexations at the expense of Germany.♦
The great annexations of France at the expense of the German kingdom
and the lands more closely connected with it begin in the middle of
the sixteenth century. ♦Annexation of Metz, Toul, and Verdun. 1552.♦
The first great advance was the practical annexation of the three
Lotharingian bishoprics, though their separation from the Empire was
not formally acknowledged till the Peace of Westfalia. ♦Effect of
isolated conquests.♦ This kind of conquest can hardly fail to lead to
other conquests. France now held certain patches of territory which lay
detached from one another and from the main body of the kingdom. Yet
the rounding off of the frontier was not the next step taken in this
direction. The cause was most likely the close connexion which for
somewhile existed between the ruling houses of France and Lorraine.
Before the next French advance on German ground, the frontier had
been extended in other directions. ♦Recovery of Calais, 1558; | of
Boulogne, 1550.♦ Almost at the same time as the acquisition of the
Three Bishoprics, _Calais_ was won back from England—the short English
possession of _Boulogne_ had already come to an end. ♦Surrender of
Saluzzo and annexation of Bresse, Bugey, and Gex.♦ The first year of
the sixteenth century saw the surrender of _Saluzzo_, in exchange for
_Bresse_, _Bugey_, and _Gex_. ♦Occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦
Thirty years later came the renewed occupation of Italian territory at
_Pinerolo_ and other points in Piedmont, which lasted till nearly the
end of the seventeenth century.
The next great advance was the work of the Thirty Years’ War and of the
war with Spain which went on for eleven years longer. ♦The Bishoprics
surrendered by the Empire.♦ Now came the legal cession of the
Bishoprics and the further acquisition of the Alsatian dominions and
rights of the House of Austria. The irregularities of the frontier, and
the temptation to round off its angles, were increased tenfold. ♦French
acquisitions in Elsass. 1648.♦ France received another and larger
isolated territory lying to the east both of her earlier conquests and
of the independent lands which surrounded them. A part of her dominion,
itself sprinkled with isolated towns and districts which did not
belong to her dominion, stretched out without any connexion into the
middle of the Empire. The Duchy of Lorraine, dotted over by the French
lands of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, lay between the old French land of
Champagne and the new French land of _Elsass_ or _Alsace_. ♦Breisach.♦
And while France was allowed, by the possession of _Breisach_, to
establish herself at one point on the right bank of the Rhine, her new
territory on the left bank was broken up by the continued independence
of _Strassburg_ and the other Alsatian towns and districts which were
still left to the Empire. ♦France reaches the Rhine.♦ Such a frontier
could hardly be lasting; now that France had reached and even crossed
the Rhine, the annexation of the outlying Imperial lands to the west of
that river was sure to follow.
But, even after this further advance into the heart of Germany, the
gap was not filled up at the next stage of annexation. ♦Annexation
of Bar. 1659.♦ At the Peace of the Pyrenees, France obtained the
scattered lands of the duchy of Bar, which made the greater part of
the Three Bishoprics continuous with her older possessions. ♦Bar
restored. 1661.♦ But Bar was presently restored, and, though Lorraine
was constantly occupied by French armies, it was not incorporated with
France for another century. Up to this last change the Three Bishoprics
still remained isolated French possessions surrounded by lands of the
Empire. But France advanced at the expense of the outlying possessions
of Spain, lands only nominally Imperial, as well as of the Spanish
lands on her own southern frontier. ♦Annexation of Roussillon. 1659.♦
At the Peace of the Pyrenees _Roussillon_ finally became French. No
Spanish kingdom any longer stretched north of the great natural barrier
of the peninsula. ♦Annexation in the Netherlands. 1659.♦ The same
Treaty gave France her first acquisitions in _Flanders_ and _Artois_
since they had become wholly foreign ground, as well as her first
acquisitions from _Hainault_, _Liége_, and _Luxemburg_, lands which
had never owed her homage. Here again the frontier was of the same
kind as the frontier towards Germany. ♦Isolated points held by each
power.♦ Isolated points like _Philippeville_ and _Marienburg_ were
held by France within Spanish or Imperial territory, and isolated
points like _Aire_ and _St. Omer_ were still held by Spain in what
had now become French territory. ♦Further annexations. 1668.♦ The
furthest French advance that was recognized by any treaty was made
by the earlier Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, when, amongst other places,
_Douay_, _Tournay_, _Lille_, _Oudenarde_, and _Courtray_ became French.
♦Changes at the Peace of Nimwegen. 1678.♦ By the Peace of Nimwegen
the frontier again fell back in eastern Flanders, and Courtray and
Oudenarde were restored. But in the districts more to the south
France again advanced, gaining the outlying Spanish towns in Artois,
_Cambray_ and its district, and _Valenciennes_ in Hainault. ♦1697.♦
The Peace of Ryswick left the frontier as it had been fixed by the
Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Treaty of Utrecht and Barrier Treaty. 1713-1715.♦
Finally, the Treaty of Utrecht and the Barrier Treaty left France in
possession of a considerable part of Flanders, and of much land which
had been Imperial. ♦The Barrier Towns.♦ The Netherlands, formerly
Spanish and now Austrian, kept a frontier protected by the barrier
towns of _Furnes_, _Ypres_, _Menin_, _Tournai_, _Mons_, _Charleroi_,
_Namur_. The French frontier on the other side had its series of
barrier towns stretching from _St. Omer_ to _Charlemont_ on the Maes.
The arrangements now made have, with very slight changes, lasted
ever since, except during the French annexation of the whole of the
Netherlands during the revolutionary wars.
The reign of Lewis the Fourteenth was also a time of at least equal
advance on the part of France on her more strictly German frontier.
The time was now come for serious attempts to consolidate the
scattered possessions of France between Champagne and the Rhine.
♦Franche Comté conquered. 1668. | Conquered again. 1674.♦ _Franche
Comté_, as the county of Burgundy was now more commonly called, with
the city of _Besançon_, was twice seized by Lewis, and the second
seizure was confirmed by the peace of Nimwegen. ♦Freiburg.♦ By that
peace also France kept _Freiburg-im-Breisgau_ on the right bank of
the Rhine. A number of small places in Elsass were annexed after the
peace of Nimwegen by the process known as _Reunion_. ♦Seizure of
Strassburg 1681.♦ At last in 1681 _Strassburg_ itself was seized in
time of peace, and its possession was finally secured to France by
the peace of Ryswick. ♦Restoration of Freiburg and Breisach.♦ But
Freiburg and Breisach were restored, and Lorraine, held by France,
though not formally ceded, was given back to its own Duke. ♦Peace
of Rastadt. 1714.♦ The arrangements of Ryswick were again confirmed
by the peace of Rastadt. ♦Annexation of Orange. 1714.♦ In the same
year the principality of _Orange_ was annexed to France, leaving
the Papal possessions of Avignon and Venaissin surrounded by French
territory, the last relic of the Burgundian realm between the Rhone
and the Alps. ♦Effects of the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth.♦ France
had thus obtained a good physical boundary towards Spain and Italy,
and a boundary clearly marked on the map towards the now Austrian
Netherlands. Her eastern frontier was still broken in upon by the duchy
of Lorraine, by the districts in Elsass which had still escaped, by
the county of _Montbeliard_, and by the detached territories of the
commonwealth of _Geneva_. But France could now in a certain part of her
territory call the Rhine her frontier. It was an easy inference that
the Rhine ought to be her frontier through the whole of its course.
* * * * *
The next reign, that of Lewis the Fifteenth, in a manner completed
the work of Henry the Second and Lewis the Fourteenth. The gap which
had so long yawned between Champagne and Elsass was now filled up.
♦Arrangements as to Lorraine. 1735. | Its incorporation. 1766.♦ France
obtained a reversionary right to the duchy of Lorraine, which was
incorporated thirty-one years later. The lands of Metz, Toul, and
Verdun were no longer isolated. Elsass, which, by the acquisition
of Franche Comté, had ceased to be insular, now ceased to be even
peninsular. Leaving out of sight a few spots of Imperial soil which
were now wholly surrounded by France, the French territory now
stretched as a solid and unbroken mass from the Ocean to the Rhine.
♦Thorough incorporation of French Conquests.♦ And it must be remembered
that all the lands which the monarchy of Paris had gradually brought
under its power were in the strictest sense incorporated with the
kingdom. There were no dependencies, no separate kingdoms or duchies.
♦Effect of geographical continuity. | Contrast with Spain and Austria.♦
The geographical continuity of the French territory enabled France
really to incorporate her conquests in a way in which Spain and Austria
never could. And the process was further helped by the fact that each
annexation by itself was small compared with the general bulk of the
French monarchy. Except in the case of the fragment of Navarre which
was held by its Bourbon king, France never annexed a kingdom or made
any permanent addition to the royal style of her kings.
♦Purchase of Corsica. 1768.♦
The same reign saw another acquisition altogether unlike the rest
in the form of the Italian island of _Corsica_. In itself the
incorporation of this island with the French kingdom seems as unnatural
as the Spanish or Austrian dominion in Sicily or Sardinia. ♦Its
effects.♦ But the result has been different. Corsica has been far more
thoroughly incorporated with France than such outlying possessions
commonly are. The truth is that the strong continuity of the
continental dominions of France made the incorporation of the island
easier. There were no traditions or precedents which could suggest
the holding of it as a dependency or as a separate state in any form.
♦Birth of Buonaparte. 1769.♦ Corsica again was more easily attached to
France, because the man who did most to extend the dominion of France
was a Frenchman only so far as Corsicans had become Frenchmen. Corsica
has thus become French in a sense in which Sardinia and Sicily never
became Spanish, partly because France had no other possession of the
kind, partly because Napoleon Buonaparte was born at Ajaccio.
§ 3. _The Colonial Dominion of France._
♦Early French colonization.♦
France, like all the European powers which have an oceanic coast,
entered early on the field of colonization and distant dominion. At one
time indeed it seemed as if France was destined to become the chief
European power both in India and in North America. ♦French colonies in
North America. 1506.♦ French attempts at colonization in the latter
country began early in the sixteenth century. ♦1540. | 1603.♦ Thus
_Cape Breton_ at the mouth of the Saint Lawrence was reached early in
the sixteenth century, the colonization of _Canada_ began a generation
later, and French dominion in America was confirmed by the foundation
of _Quebec_. ♦Acadia ceded to England. 1713.♦ The peninsula of _Acadie_
or _Nova Scotia_ was from this time a subject of dispute between France
and Great Britain, till it was finally surrendered by France at the
Peace of Utrecht. ♦Canada and Louisiana.♦ France now, under the names
of _Canada_ and _Louisiana_, or of _New France_, held or claimed a vast
inland region stretching from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence to the
mouth of the Mississippi, while the eastern coast was colonized by
other powers. ♦Colonization at the mouth of the Mississippi. 1699.
| Foundation of New Orleans. 1717.♦ At the end of the seventeenth
century the first colonization began at the mouth of the Mississippi;
and the city of New Orleans was founded eighteen years later. ♦Rivalry
of English and French settlements.♦ France and England thus became
distinctly rival powers in America as well as in Europe. The English
settlers were pressing westward from the coast to the Ocean. The French
strove to fix the Alleghany range as the eastern boundary of English
advance. ♦Share of the Colonies in European Wars.♦ In every European
war between the two powers the American colonies played an important
part. ♦English conquest of Canada. 1759. | 1763.♦ Canada was wrested
from France; and by the Treaty of Paris all the French possessions
north of the present United States were finally surrendered to England,
except a few small islands kept for fishing purposes. ♦The Mississippi
boundary.♦ The Mississippi was now made the boundary of Louisiana,
leaving nothing to France on its left bank except the city of New
Orleans. These cessions ruled for ever that men of English blood,
whether remaining subjects of the mother-country or forming independent
states, should be the dominant power in the North American continent.
♦The West India islands.♦
Among the West India islands, France in the seventeenth century
colonized several of the _Antilles_, some of which were afterwards lost
to England. ♦St. Domingo. 1697.♦ Later in the century she acquired part
of the great island called variously _Hispaniola_, _Saint Domingo_, and
_Hayti_. ♦French Guiana. 1624. | Cayenne. 1635.♦ On the coast of South
America lay the French settlements in _Guiana_, with _Cayenne_ as their
capital. This colony grew into more importance after the war of Canada.
♦The French in India.♦
Nearly the same course of things took place in the eastern world as
in the western. In India neither English nor French colonized in any
strict sense. But commercial settlements grew into dominion, or what
seemed likely to become dominion: and in India, as in America, the
temporary greatness of France came before the more lasting greatness
of England. ♦1664.♦ The French East India Company began later than
the English; but its steps towards dominion were for a long time
faster. ♦Bourbon. 1657.♦ Before this the French had occupied the
_Isle of Bourbon_, an important point on the road to India. ♦Factory
at Surat. 1668.♦ The first French factory on the mainland was at
Surat. ♦Pondicherry. 1672.♦ During the later years of the century
various attempts at settlement were made; but no important or lasting
acquisition was made, except that of _Pondicherry_. This has ever since
remained a French possession, often lost in the course of warfare, but
always restored at the next peace. ♦Chandernagore. 1676.♦ A little
later France obtained _Chandernagore_ in Bengal. ♦Isle of France.
1720.♦ In the next century the island of _Mauritius_, abandoned by
the Dutch, became a French colony under the name of the _Isle of
France_. Under Labourdonnais and Dupleix France gained for a moment a
real Indian dominion. ♦Taking of Madras. 1746.♦ Madras was taken, and
a large dominion was obtained on the eastern coast of India in the
Carnatic and the Circars. ♦Restored. 1748.♦ But all hope of French
supremacy in India came to an end in the later years of the Seven
Years’ War. ♦Effects of the Peace of Paris. 1763.♦ France was confined
to a few points which have not seriously threatened the eastern
dominion of England.
§ 4. _Acquisitions of France during the Revolutionary Wars._
Thus the French monarchy grew from the original Parisian duchy into
a kingdom which spread north, south, east, and west, taking in all
the fiefs of the West-Frankish kings, together with much which had
belonged to the other kingdoms of the Empire. ♦Acquisitions in the
Revolutionary Wars.♦ With the great French revolution began a series of
acquisitions of territory on the part of France which are altogether
unparalleled. ♦Different classes of annexations.♦ First of all, there
were those small annexations of territory surrounded or nearly so by
French territory, whose annexation was necessary if French territory
was to be continuous. ♦Avignon. | Mülhausen.♦ Such were Avignon,
Venaissin, the county of _Montbeliard_, the few points in Elsass which
had escaped the reunions, with the Confederate city of _Mülhausen_.
Avignon and Venaissin, and the surviving Alsatian fragments, were
annexed to France before the time of warfare and conquest had begun.
Mülhausen, as Confederate ground, was respected as long as Confederate
ground was respected. ♦1796.♦ Montbeliard had been annexed already.
♦Geneva and _Bischofbasel_. 1801.♦ And with these we might be inclined
to place the annexations of Geneva and of the _Bishopric of Basel_,
lands which lay hardly less temptingly when the work of annexation
had once begun. ♦Second zone;♦ And beyond these roundings off of the
home estate lay a zone of territory which might easily be looked
upon as being French soil wrongfully lost. ♦traditions of Gaul and
the Rhine frontier.♦ When the Western _Francia_ had made such great
strides towards the dimensions of the Gaul of Cæsar, the inference
was easily made that it ought to take in all that Gaul had once taken
in. The conquest and incorporation of the Austrian Netherlands, of
all Germany on the left bank of the Rhine, of Savoy and Nizza, thus
became a matter of course. ♦Buonaparte’s feeling towards Switzerland.♦
That the Gaul of Cæsar was not fully completed by the complete
incorporation of Switzerland, seems to have been owing to a personal
tenderness for the Confederation on the part of Napoleon Buonaparte,
who never incorporated with his dominions any part of the territory
of the Thirteen Cantons. Otherwise, France under the Consulate might
pass for a revival of the Transalpine Gaul of Roman geography. And
there were other lands beyond the borders of Transalpine Gaul, which
had formed part of Gaul in the earlier sense of the name, and whose
annexation, when annexation had once begun, was hardly less wonderful
than that of the lands within the Rhine and the Alps. ♦Piedmont,
&c.♦ The incorporation of Piedmont and Genoa was not wonderful after
the incorporation of Savoy. ♦Distinction between conquests under
the Republic and under the ‘Empire.’♦ In short, the annexations of
republican France are at least intelligible. They have a meaning; we
can follow their purpose and object. They stand distinct from the wild
schemes of universal conquest which mark the period of the ‘Empire.’
♦Example of Corsica.♦
Still the example of such schemes was given during the days of the old
monarchy. There was nothing to suggest a French annexation of Corsica,
any more than a French annexation of Cerigo. ♦Character of Buonaparte’s
conquests.♦ Both were works of exactly the kind, works quite different
from incorporating isolated scraps of Elsass or of the old Burgundy,
from rounding off the frontier by Montbeliard, or even from advancing
to the left bank of the Rhine. The shiftings of the map which took
place during the ten years of the first French Empire, the divisions
and the unions, the different relations of the conquered states,
seem like several centuries of the onward march of the old Roman
commonwealth crowded into a single day. ♦Dependent and incorporated
lands.♦ In both cases we mark the distinction between lands which
are merely dependent and lands which are fully incorporated. And in
both cases the dependent relation is commonly a step towards full
incorporation. All past history and tradition, all national feelings,
all distinctions of race and language, were despised in building
up the vast fabric of French dominion. Such a power was sure to
break in pieces, even without any foreign attack, before its parts
could possibly have been fused together. As it was, Buonaparte never
professed to incorporate either Spain or the whole of Italy and Germany
with his Empire. He was satisfied with leaving large parts either in
the formally dependent relation, in the hands of puppet princes, or
even in the hands of powers which he deemed too much weakened for
further resistance. ♦Buonaparte’s treatment of Germany;♦ A large part
of Germany was incorporated with France, another large part was under
French protection or dependence, but a large part still remained in the
hands of the native princes of Austria and Prussia. ♦of Italy.♦ Much of
Italy was incorporated, and the rest was held, partly by the conqueror
himself under another title, partly by a prince of his own house. This
last was the case with Spain. ♦Division of Europe between France and
Russia.♦ Till the final breach with Russia, the idea of Buonaparte’s
dominion seems to have been that of a twofold division of Europe
between Russia and himself, a kind of revival on a vaster scale of the
Eastern and Western Empires. The western potentate was careful to keep
everywhere a dominant influence within his own world; but whether the
territory should be incorporated, made dependent, or granted out to his
kinsfolk and favourites, depended in each case on the conqueror’s will.
♦Europe in 1811.♦
A glance at the map of Europe, as it stood at the beginning of 1811,
will show how nearly this scheme was carried out. The kernel of
the French Empire was France as it stood at the beginning of the
Revolution, together with those conquests of the Republic which gave
it the Rhine frontier from Basel to Nimwegen. Beyond these limits the
former United Provinces, with the whole oceanic coast of Germany as
far as the Elbe, and the cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck, were
incorporated with France. France now stretched to the Baltic, and, as
Holstein was now incorporated with Denmark, France and Denmark had
a common frontier. The Confederation of the Rhine was a protected
state, and the Kingdom of Prussia and the self-styled ‘Empire’ of
Austria could practically hardly claim a higher place. Of the former
Austrian possessions, those parts which had passed to Bavaria and to
the kingdom of Italy formally stood in the dependent relation, and the
so-called Illyrian provinces were actually incorporated with France.
So were the Ionian islands yet further on. In Italy, the whole western
side of the ancient kingdom, with Rome itself, was incorporated with
France. North-eastern Italy formed a separate kingdom held by the ruler
of France. Naples, like Spain, was a dependent kingdom. In northern
Europe, Denmark and Sweden, like Prussia and Austria, could practically
claim no higher place. And the new duchy of Warsaw and the new republic
of Danzig carried French influence beyond the ancient borders of
Germany.
♦Arrangements of 1814-1815.♦
Such was the extent of the French dominion when the power of Buonaparte
was at its highest. At his fall all the great and distant conquests
were given up. ♦The first class of annexations retained by France,
the rest restored.♦ But those annexations which were necessary for
the completion of France as she then stood were respected. The new
Germanic body took back Köln, Trier, and Mainz, Worms and Speyer, but
not Montbeliard or any part of Elsass. The new Swiss body received
the Bishopric of Basel, Neufchâtel, Geneva, and Wallis. ♦Boundary
of Savoy.♦ Savoy and Nizza went back to their own prince. But here a
different frontier was drawn after the first and the second fall of
Buonaparte. The earlier arrangement left Chambéry to France. The Pope
again received Rome and his Italian dominions, but not his outlying
Burgundian city of Avignon and county of Venaissin. The frontier of the
new kingdom of the Netherlands, though traced at slightly different
points by the two arrangements, differed in either case but little from
the frontier of the Barrier Treaty. In short the France of the restored
Bourbons was the France of the old Bourbons, enlarged by those small
isolated scraps of foreign soil which were needed to make it continuous.
The geographical results of the rule of the second Buonaparte consist
of the completion of the work which began under Philip the Fair,
balanced by the utter undoing of the work of Richelieu, the partial
undoing of the work of Henry the Second and Lewis the Fourteenth.
♦Annexation of Savoy and Nizza. 1860. | Loss of Elsass and Lorraine.
1871.♦ _Savoy_, _Nizza_, and _Mentone_ were added; but Germany
recovered nearly all _Elsass_ and a part of _Lorraine_. The Rhine now
neither crosses nor waters a single rood of French ground. As it was
in the first beginnings of Northern European history, so it is now;
Germany lies on both sides of the German river.
* * * * *
The time of the greatest power of France in Europe was by no means
equally favourable to her advance in other parts of the world.
♦Independence of Hayti, 1801.♦ The greatest West India colony of
France, Saint Domingo, now known as _Hayti_, became an independent
negro state whose chiefs imitated home example by taking the title
of Emperor. About the same time the last remnant of French dominion
on the North American continent was voluntarily given up. ♦Louisiana
ceded to Spain, 1763; recovered, 1800; sold to United States, 1803.♦
Louisiana, ceded to Spain by the Peace of Paris and recovered under the
Consulate, was sold to the United States. All the smaller French West
India islands were conquered by England; but all were restored at the
peace, except _Tobago_ and _Saint Lucia_. ♦Mauritius kept by England.♦
The isles of _Bourbon_ and _Mauritius_ were also taken by England,
and _Bourbon_ alone was restored at the Peace. ♦Pondicherry lost and
restored.♦ In India _Pondicherry_ was twice taken and twice restored.
But since France was thus wholly beaten back from her great schemes of
dominion in distant parts of the world, she has led the way in a kind
of conquest and colonization which has no exact parallel in modern
times. ♦French conquest of Algeria, 1830;♦ In the French occupation of
_Algeria_ we see something different alike from political conquests in
Europe and from isolated conquests in distant parts of the world. ♦of
Constantine, 1837.♦ It is conquest, not actually in Europe, but in a
land on the shores of the great European sea, in a land which formed
part of the Empire of Constantine, Justinian, and Heraclius. ♦Character
of African conquests.♦ It is the winning back from Islam of a land
which once was part of Latin-speaking Christendom, a conquest which,
except in the necessary points of difference between continental and
insular conquests, may be best paralleled with the Norman Conquest of
Sicily. Sicily could be wholly recovered for Europe and Christendom;
but the French settlement in Algeria can never be more than a mere
fringe of Europe and its civilization on the edge of barbaric Africa.
It is strictly the first colony of the kind. Portugal, Spain, England,
had occupied this or that point on the northern coast of Africa; France
was the first European power to spread her dominion over a long range
of the southern Mediterranean shore, a land which in some sort answers
alike to India and to Australia, but lying within two days’ sail of her
own coast.
* * * * *
We have thus finished our survey of the states which were formed out
of the break-up of the later Western Empire. The rest of Western
Europe must be postponed, as neither the Spanish, the British, nor the
Scandinavian kingdoms rose out of the break-up of the Empire of Charles
the Great. In our next Chapter we must trace the historical geography
of the states which arose out of the gradual dismemberment of the
dominion of the Eastern Rome, a survey which will lead us to the most
stirring events and to the latest geographical changes of our own day.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Namely in the Illyrian Provinces and in the Ionian Islands. See
above, p. 322.
[19] See above, p. 139.
[20] See above, p. 135.
[21] See above, p. 292.
[22] See above, p. 264.
[23] See above, pp. 284, 285.