ilip in possession of those fair
provinces. He at first possessed the count-ship of Toulouse merely with
the title of count, and as a private domain which was not definitively
incorporated with the crown of France until a century later. Certain
disputes arose between England and France in respect of this great
inheritance; and Philip ended them by ceding Agenois to Edward I., King
of England, and keeping Quercy. He also ceded to Pope Urban IV. the
county of Venaissin, with its capital Avignon, which the court of Rome
claimed by virtue of a gift from Raymond VII., Count of Toulouse, and
which, through a course of many disputations and vicissitudes, remained
in possession of the Holy See until it was reunited to France on the 19th
of February, 1797, by the treaty of Tolentino. But, notwithstanding
these concessions, when Philip the Bold died, at Perpignan, the 5th of
October, 1285, on his return from his expedition in Aragon, the
sovereignty in Southern France, as far as the frontiers of Spain, had
been won for the kingship of France.

A Flemish chronicler, a monk at Egmont, describes the character of Philip
the Bold's successor in the following words: "A certain King of France,
also named Philip, eaten up by the fever of avarice and cupidity." And
that was not the only fever inherent in Philip IV., called The Handsome;
he was a prey also to that of ambition, and, above all, to that of power.
When he mounted the throne, at seventeen years of age, he was handsome,
as his nickname tells us, cold, taciturn, harsh, brave at need, but
without fire or dash, able in the formation of his designs, and obstinate
in prosecuting them by craft or violence, by means of bribery or cruelty,
with wit to choose and support his servants, passionately vindictive
against his enemies, and faithless and unsympathetic towards his
subjects, but from time to time taking care to conciliate them, either by
calling them to his aid in his difficulties or his dangers, or by giving
them protection against other oppressors. Never, perhaps, was king
better served by circumstances or more successful in his enterprises;
but he is the first of the Capetians who had a scandalous contempt for
rights, abused success, and thrust the king-ship, in France, upon the
high road of that arrogant and reckless egotism which is sometimes
compatible with ability and glory, but which carries with it in the germ,
and sooner or later brings out in full bloom, the native