ere completely
enveloped by the domain of the French king. The first was the sovereign
principality of Orange, which, after having been for over a century in
the possession of the noble House of Chalons, was shortly to pass into
that of Nassau, and to furnish the title of William the Silent, the
future deliverer of Holland. The other and larger one was the Comtat
Venaissin, a fief directly dependent upon the Pope. Of irregular shape,
and touching the Rhone both above and below Orange, the Comtat Venaissin
nearly enclosed the diminutive principality in its folds. Its capital,
Avignon, having forfeited the distinction enjoyed in the fourteenth
century as the residence of the Roman Pontiffs, still boasted the
presence of a Legate of the Papal See, a poor compensation for the loss
of its past splendor. On the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, the
Spanish dominions still extended north of the principal chain of the
Pyrenees, and included the former County of Roussillon.

[Sidenote: Territorial development.]

But, although its area was somewhat smaller than that of the modern
republic, France in the sixteenth century had nearly attained the
general dimensions marked out for it by great natural boundaries. Four
hundred years had been engrossed in the pursuit of territorial
enlargement. At the close of the tenth century the Carlovingian dynasty,
essentially foreign in tastes and language, was supplanted by a dynasty
of native character and capable of gathering to its support all those
elements of strength which had been misunderstood or neglected by the
feeble descendants of Charlemagne. But it found the royal authority
reduced to insignificance and treated with open contempt. By permitting
those dignities which had once been conferred as a reward for
pre-eminent personal merit to become hereditary in certain families, the
crown had laid the foundation of the feudal system; while, by neglecting
to enforce its sovereign claims, it had enabled the great feudatories to
make themselves princes independent in reality, if not in name. So low
had the consideration of the throne fallen, that when Hugh Capet, Count
of Paris, in 987 assumed the title of king of France, basing his act
partly on an election by nobles, partly on force of arms, the
transaction elicited little opposition from the rival lords who might
have been expected to resent his usurpation.

[Sidenote: Excessive subdivision in the tenth century.]

France contained at