The western section of the Franco-German linguistic boundary extends over Belgian territory through a country in which the formation of nationality has been exceedingly laborious. Flemish and Walloon, two languages within a single political boundary, represent the obstacles which stood in the way of national growth. Physically Belgium also consists of diversified regions. Its history is the long drawn-out struggle between two powerful neighbors. Over and over again its inhabitants have found themselves drawn into foreign quarrels against their will. The country is a marshland in which the mountains and plains of Europe meet. The main divisions which correspond to this background have inherited the names of Flanders and Wallonia. The clashing-ground of men of the Alpine and Nordic races, Belgium received wave after wave of northerners who came to colonize its broad flatlands. At the time of the conquest, the Romans came upon long-established colonies, but found to their cost that Teuton invasions were not ended. In the fifth century of our era the northern lowland was cleared of Romans by the Franks; but to this day the dualism of its people has not been obliterated. To whatever extent inbreeding has destroyed racial purity, the Fleming of our day represents the Nordic race, while the Walloon is mainly Alpine. Of the two, the fair-complexioned product of the north speaks a Teutonic language, whereas the swarthy highlander is both the user and disseminator of French. At the partition of the Carolingian Empire in 843,[7] the Schelde became the dividing line between Lotharingia and France. Flemings and Walloons, who had been thrown together for centuries, were separated into an eastern and a western group. Nevertheless their struggle for unity and independence continued to fill Belgium’s history. In the ensuing period of national trials, the political disruption of the country is manifested by the growth of civic communities. Belgium became in turn a Burgundian, an Austrian and a Spanish province. The golden age of the Burgundian period brought prosperity to the land, but economic decadence accompanied the prolonged strife between Hapsburgs and Bourbons. It was Belgium’s misfortune to be the scene on which the rivalry was fought out. With a population reduced by the horrors of war, Belgium emerged from under the heel of Spanish oppression only to fall successively under Austrian, French and Dutch domination. But the seed of nationality, planted upon its uncertain soil when the valley of the Schelde became part of Burgundy, sheltered a smouldering vitality which, finally, in the nineteenth century was fanned to independence.