The first count, Ingelgar, received his dominion from Charles the Bald, in about 870. After him comes Fulk the Red, who enlarged his father’s borders beyond the river; Fulk the Good, the scholar who defended his learning with the well-known proverb, “An unlettered king is but a crownéd ass,” a saying which spread beyond his own realm and found favour at the court of England; and the warlike Geoffrey of the Grey Tunic, who repelled the Breton and Aquitanian incursions and fought in Frankish and German wars besides. Geoffrey it was who gave to the line the famous Fulk the Black, the first count who appears to any great extent in French history--the history, that is, of France proper, at that time apart from the great duchies on her boundaries. His wars with Odo filled a great part of his reign, and brought him down as far as the Loire, where, through the alliance of a count of Périgueux, Tours became his for a short time; also Saumur, after the victory of Pontlevois. On two occasions he turned pilgrim; and he is also found at Rome, applying to the Pope for consecration of his new monastery near Loches, which Hugh of Tours, whose see Fulk had robbed, refused to consecrate unless the stolen lands were restored. Naturally the Gallican Church resented this destruction of their privileges; the full wrath of the episcopate was pronounced against the recreant count, and a legend adds that in further punishment a wind came from heaven and blew down his newly-built church. How this uncanonical behaviour must have vexed the shades of Fulk the pious! Fulk Nerra was followed by Geoffrey, self-christened the Hammer. He rebelled against his father during his lifetime, but after his death continued the war with Chartres, and actually got possession of Tours, the one city for which every Angevin strove. Count Thibaut was formally deprived of the city by royal command, and it was handed over to Geoffrey, under the favour, the superstitious chroniclers make haste to add, of Saint Martin. Notwithstanding this royal grant, Henry, the Frank king, seems to have been perpetually at war with Geoffrey, and even to have called in feudal service of the Norman duke to aid him against the Angevin count. William himself was no friend to Anjou. The mastery over Maine was a bone of contention to the two great powers on its north and south borders; and when Geoffrey obtained the guardianship of little Count Hugh, and came into immediate contact with Normandy, a definite struggle arose. Geoffrey aimed at the two outposts of William’s territory, Alençon and Domfront. Alençon, through the treachery of its lord, surrendered to him; Domfront was also disaffected, and for a moment it seemed as though the land of the great Norman were to be invaded by his southern neighbour. But William was prepared for any emergency. He marched straight to Domfront, where Geoffrey had already stationed his troops, and laid siege to it. He