If we might assume also, with M. Mabille, that the “Alberic” whose signature appears beside that of Fulk the Red in 886 (Mabille, introd. _Comtes_, p. lix, note 1) was the father of the first Geoffrey of Orléans, then the two names would stand alternate till we come to Hermengard’s husband. Is it just possible that (on a principle somewhat like that which made all the dukes of Aquitaine assume the name of William) this alternation of names grew into a family tradition, so that the son of Geoffrey II. and Beatrice having by some accident been christened by his father’s instead of his grandfather’s name, assumed the latter officially on succeeding to the title, and thus became known to outsiders as “Alberic,” while his own son (Fulk Rechin) spoke of him by his original and real name? However this may be, he was most probably descended from the family who became viscounts of Orléans at about the same time that the house of Anjou was being founded. They make no figure in history, and the Angevin writers do their best to efface them altogether. Ralf de Diceto just names the father of the two young counts, and that is all; in the _Gesta Cons._ his very name is dropped, and the reader is left in utter darkness as to who and what Martel’s nephews were. They were Martel’s nephews, and that was all that anybody was intended to know about them. Fulk Rechin himself, or his representative, merges the Châteaulandon connexion almost completely in the Angevin, and regards himself simply as the grandson of Fulk Nerra. After all, they are right; it was Fulk Nerra’s blood that made his grandsons what they were; their father might have been anybody, or, as he almost appears, nobody, for all the influence he had on their characters or their destinies. NOTE B. THE HEIR OF GEOFFREY MARTEL. Of the disposal of his territories made by Geoffrey Martel there are three versions. 1. The _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131), R. Diceto (_ib._ p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) and Chron. Tur. Magn. (Salmon, _Chron. Touraine_, pp. 122, 123) say that Anjou and Saintonge were left to Fulk, Touraine and Gâtinais to Geoffrey. 2. A MS. representing the earliest form of the _Gesta Cons._ (ending in 1106) says just the opposite: Anjou and Saintonge to Geoffrey, Touraine and Gâtinais to Fulk (Marchegay, _Comtes_, p. 131, note 1. See Mabille, introd. _Comtes_, _ib._ pp. iv–viii). 3. Orderic (Duchesne, _Hist. Norm. Scriptt._, p. 532) and Will. Poitiers (_ib._ pp. 188, 189) ignore Fulk and make Geoffrey sole heir.