Page:The Normans in European History.djvu/138

124 But this is not the whole of the story. The very strength and efficiency of Henry's government were sure to produce a reaction in favor of feudal liberties in which his sons serve simply as convenient centres of crystallization. Only time could unify each of these dominions internally, while far more time was required to consolidate them into a permanent kingdom, and these processes were interrupted when they had barely begun. Such a solution of the ultimate problem of consolidation was, we have seen, entirely possible and even natural; but another was possible and also natural, namely the union of these territories under the king of France. Geography, as well as history, favored the second alternative.

The geographical unity of France is one of the most obvious facts on the map of Europe. The Alps and the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, are its natural frontiers; only on the northeast are the lines blurred by nature and left to history to determine. Within these limits there are of course many clearly marked subdivisions—the valleys of the Rhone, Garonne, Loire, and Seine, Gascony, Brittany, Normandy, Flanders, and the rest—which formed the great fiefs of the Middle Ages and the great provinces of later times. Sooner or later, however, as population increased, as trade and commerce developed, and as the means of communication were strengthened, these divisions were