Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/392

 380 FRANCE the power of the nobles had been rapidly in- creasing ; the dukes and counts, who had been at first mere officers of the kings, had succeed- ed in making their dignities hereditary; and Charles the Bald, just before his death in 877, not only sanctioned their pretensions, but ex- tended the principle of inheritance to all the fiefs. Such was the foundation of the feudal system, the origin of which may be said to co- incide with the beginning of France proper. The name France first appears in history about the 9th century, and applies to the country W. of the Scheldt, the Meuse, the Sa6ne, and the C6vennes ; and henceforth we distinctly see a French nation forming by the fusion of the Frankish with the Gallo- Roman element, and a new language, a mixture of the German and the Latin, sprang up at the same time. The Carlovingian family were soon opposed by national princes who had courage and talent ; and after a struggle which went on during the latter part of the 9th and nearly the whole of the 10th century, they were finally de- prived of their hereditary throne. Previous to this a new race, the Normans, had estab- lished themselves in N. W. France. They had carried on a system of piracy along the coast as early as the reign of Charlemagne, and since then they had several times pushed their incursions into the very heart of the country. The weak Charles the Simple at last had re- course to concessions to check their continued attacks, and in 912 the lands situated W. of the lower Seine were ceded to Rollo, the chief of a large horde of these Northmen, and Normandy soon became one of the most flourishing and best regulated provinces in France. Its dukes held the first rank among the feudal princes, when Hugues or Hugh Capet, the duke of France, on the death of Louis V., collected an army, seized the throne, and assumed the title of king (987), founding the Capetian dynasty, which ruled continuously more than 800 years through several collateral branches, and is still represented by the Bourbon family. This ruler and his immediate successors pursued a quiet and conservative course, and though taking lit- tle part in the great events which occupied the rest of Europe in their time (the earliest cru- sade, &c.), they fortified their own power and upheld their royal supremacy, which during the 12th and 13th centuries was established on a solid foundation by kings of considera- ble ability. Louis VI. (1108-1137), a king of great activity and bravery, forced many of the nobles into submission, and greatly strength- ened the royal power. Philip Augustus (1180- 1223), the most sagacious prince of his time, nearly doubled the royal domains. Besides Normandy, Touraine, Anjou, Maine, and a large part of Poitou, which he seized by force, after confiscation had been adjudged by parlia- ment against King John of England, who held them by inheritance, he acquired by various means the counties of Artois, Vermandois, Valois, Auvergne, and other territories. The count of Flanders vainly allied himself with the English king and Oth o IV. of Germany. Philip gained over his combined enemies a brilliant victory at Bovines in 1214; and thenceforth the royal power was paramount. France, though long distracted in the south by the Al- bigensian struggles, was thus enabled to play a conspicuous part in European affairs ; and the rank to which Philip's policy raised her was fully maintained by the wisdom of his grandson, Louis IX. (1226-'70). The traditional policy was followed under his reign; treaties and marriages were concluded which secured the ul- timate possession of Languedoc and Provence, while the commons, or the third estate, as it was then called, was placed under the more immediate control of the king. The introduc- tion of the Roman law and the regular consti- tution of the parliament, forming a high court of justice which was to supersede gradually all feudal jurisdictions, were important additions to the efficiency of the royal power ; the limi- tation and definition of the powers of the church, through Louis's pragmatic sanction in 1269, was another step in this direction ; while the king's personal good qualities conciliated the respect and affection of the nation. The influence thus secured for the royal title was sustained by Louis's successors, Philip III. and Philip IV. (the Fair), who, though greatly infe- rior to their ancestor in ability, completed the monarchical system that was to prevail for several centuries. They leaned more than ever upon the third estate in order to counterbal- ance the ascendancy of the two privileged or- ders. Men of low birth had already been in- troduced into the parliament; under Philip IV. (1285-1314) their influence increased, and representatives of the third estate were admit- ted to the general assemblies of the nation, which before had consisted only of deputies from the clergy and the nobility. The chief events of Philip's reign were his quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII., by whom he had been excom- municated, but whom he finally overcame and took prisoner ; the removal of the papal see to Avignon ; and the suppression of the order of knights templars, whose immense posses- sions in France were confiscated to the crown, while the knights were banished, imprisoned, and many even executed under circumstances of the greatest cruelty. Philip was succeed- ed in turn by Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV. The Capetian kings, whatever may have been their faults and personal shortcomings, succeeded in giving so powerful an organiza- tion to the kingdom as to enable it to stand the brunt of the foreign and civil wars which were to threaten its existence under the younger branch of Valois (1328-1589). The rivalry between France and England, conse- quent upon the accession of Duke William of Normandy to the throne of the latter, had already been the cause of occasional hostilities between the two nations ; it came to a decisive crisis during the first half of the 14th century.