DATES. Charlemagne A.D. 768-813 Rollo, first Duke of Normandy 911 Hugh Capet 987 William II. of Normandy, or the Conqueror 1055-1086 Henry I. of France 1031 Philip I., or l’Amoureux 1060 Louis VI., or le Gros 1108 Louis VII., or le Jeune 1137 St. Bernard of Clairvaux 1091-1153 Philip II., or l’Auguste 1180 Louis VIII., or the Lion 1223 Louis IX., or the Saint 1226 Philip III., the Hardy 1270 Philip IV., or the Fair 1285 Philip VI. of Valois 1328 Battle of Crecy 1346 John II., the Good 1350 Charles V., the Wise 1364 Charles VI., the Beloved 1380 Charles VII., the Victorious 1422 Joan of Arc 1412-1431 Louis XI. 1461 Charles VIII. 1483 Louis XII. 1498 Francis I. 1515 --------------------- TO those who do not look beyond the present, France appears to be one of the most homogeneous of all the countries of Europe—inhabited by a people speaking one language, professing one religion, governed by the same laws, and actuated by the same feelings and aspirations; yet it certainly is not so in reality, and in the Middle Ages the distinctions between the various races and peoples were strongly marked and capable of easy definition. Wars, persecutions, and revolutions, have done much to obliterate these, and the long habit of living under a centralised despotism has produced a superficial uniformity which hides a great deal of actual diversity. The process of fusion commenced apparently about the reign of Louis the Saint (A.D. 1226), and has gone on steadily ever since. Before his time France was divided into six or eight great ethnographic provinces which might now be easily mapped out, though their boundaries frequently differed widely from the political division of the land.