The accession of Fulk V., no less than that of Louis VI., began a new era for his country. The two princes were in some respects not unlike each other: each stands out in marked contrast to his predecessor, and in Fulk’s case the contrast is even more striking than in that of Louis, for if little good was to be expected of the son of Philip I., there might well be even less hope of the child of Fulk Rechin and Bertrada. As a ruler and as a man, however, young Fulk turned utterly aside from the evil ways of both his parents.[563] Yet he was an Angevin of the Angevins; physically, he had the ruddy complexion inherited from the first of his race and name;[564] while in his restless, adventurous temper, at once impetuous and wary, daring and discreet, he shows a strong likeness to his great-grandfather Fulk the Black. But the old fiery spirit breaks out in Fulk V. only as if to remind us that it is still there, to shew that the demon-blood of Anjou still flows in his veins, hot as ever indeed, but kept under subjection to higher influences; the sense of right that only woke now and then to torture the conscience of the Black Count seems to be the guiding principle of his great-grandson’s life. The evil influences which must have surrounded his boyhood, whether it had been passed in his father’s house, or, as seems more probable, in the court of Philip and Bertrada, seem, instead of developing the worse tendencies of his nature, only to have brought out the better ones into more active working by sheer force of opposition. Politically, however, there can be no doubt that the peculiar circumstances of his early life led to important results, by reviving and strengthening the old ties between Anjou and the Crown which had somewhat slackened in Fulk Rechin’s days. The most trusted counsellor of the new king, the devoted supporter and not unfrequently the instigator of his schemes of reform or of aggression, was Almeric of Montfort, the brother of Bertrada. She herself, after persecuting Louis by every means in her power so long as his father lived, changed her policy as soon as he mounted the throne and became as useful an ally as she had been a dangerous enemy. Almeric’s influence, won by his own talents, seems to have been almost all-powerful with the king; over the count of Anjou, far younger and utterly inexperienced, natural ties had given a yet more complete ascendency to him and his sister, Fulk’s own mother. Their policy was to pledge Anjou irrevocably to the side of the French crown by forcing it into a quarrel with Henry I. [563] _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_), p. 143. [564] “Vir rufus, sed instar David.” Will. Tyr. l. xiv. c. 1.