Though, at the opening of the sixteenth century, the French may have attained to no greater degree of national self-consciousness than had the Germans, they had gone much farther in the construction of a national state. The significance of this evolution, one of the strongest tendencies of modern history, is that it squares the outward political condition of the people with their inward desires. When once a nation has come to feel itself such, it cannot be happy until its polity is united in a homogeneous state, though the reverse is also true,--that national feeling is sometimes the result as well as the cause of political union. With the growth of a common language and of common ideals, and with the improvement of the methods of communication, the desire of the people for unity became stronger and stronger, until it finally overcame the centrifugal forces of feudalism and of particularism. These were so strong in Germany that only a very imperfect federation could be formed by way of national government, but in France, though they were still far from moribund, external pressure and the growth of the royal power had forged the various provinces into a nation such as it exists today. The most independent of the old provinces, Brittany, was now united to the crown by the marriage of its duchess Anne to Louis XII. [Sidenote: Louis XII, 1498-1515] {183} Anne ==_Louis XII_ Charles, Count==Louise Duchess of | _1498-1515_ of Angouleme | of Savoy Brittany | | | | | | | | +---------+-------------+ | |2 1| | Renee==Hercules II, Claude==(1)_Francis I_ Margaret==(1)Charles, Duke of | _1515-47_ Duke of Ferrara | (2)==Eleanor, Alencon | sister of ==(2)Henry II, | Emperor | King of | Charles V | Navarre | | _Henry II_==Catharine de' | _1547-59_ | Medici d. 1589 Joan ==Anthony | d'Albret| of | | Bourbon | | Duke of | | Vendome +--------+------+------+----+-+----------------+ | | | | | | | | _Francis II_, | _Henry III_ | Elizabeth (1)Margaret==_Henry IV_,