The Burgundian Kingdom, lying between the Alps, the Saône and the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, might be thought to have a fair natural boundary. ♦Boundaries of the kingdom.♦ And, while it kept any shadow of separate being, its boundaries did not greatly change. ♦Fluctuation of its frontier.♦ They were however somewhat fluctuating on the side of the Western kingdom, being sometimes bounded by the Rhone and sometimes reaching to the line of hills to the west of it. They were also, as we have seen, somewhat fluctuating on the side of Germany. ♦Chiefly Romance speaking.♦ At this end the kingdom took in some German-speaking districts; otherwise the language was Romance, including several dialects of the tongue of _Oc_. ♦County Palatine. | Lesser Burgundy.♦ The northern part of the kingdom, answering to the former Transjurane kingdom—the _Regnum Jurense_—formed two chief states, the _County Palatine of Burgundy_—the modern _Franche Comté_—and the _Lesser Burgundy_, roughly taking in western Switzerland and northern Savoy. ♦Provence.♦ On the Mediterranean lay the great county of _Provence_, with a number of smaller counties lying between it and the two northern principalities. ♦The Free Cities.♦ But the great characteristic of the land was that, next to Italy, no part of Europe contained so many considerable cities lying near together. Many of these at different times strove more or less successfully after a republican independence, and a few have kept it to our own day. ♦Little real unity in the kingdom.♦