The process by which a great power grew up to the west of the Western Empire has something in common with the process by which the powers spoken of in the later sections of the last Chapter split off from the Western Empire. As in the case of Switzerland and the United Provinces, so in the case of France, a land which had formed part of the dominions of Charles the Great became independent of his successors. ♦Comparison with Austria.♦ As in the case of Austria to the east, so in the case of France to the west, a duchy of the old Empire grew into a power distinct from the Empire, and tried to attach to itself the old Imperial titles and traditions. ♦Different nature of the Austrian and the French territories.♦ But there is more than one point of difference between the two cases. As a matter of geography, the power of the Austrian house has for some centuries largely rested on the possession of dominions beyond the boundaries of the Carolingian Empire, while it has been only for a moment, and that chiefly by the annexation of territory from Austria itself, that France has ever held any European possessions beyond the Carolingian frontier.[18] ♦Difference in the process of separation.♦ But the true difference lies in the date and circumstances of the separation. ♦The other powers split off after the Empire has become German.♦ The Swabian, Lotharingian, Frisian, and Austrian lands which gradually split off from the Empire to form distinct states split off after the Empire had been finally annexed to the crown of Germany, indeed after Germany and the Empire had come to mean nearly the same thing. But France can hardly be said to have split off from the German kingdom or from the Empire itself. The first prince of the Western _Francia_ who bore the kingly title was indeed the man of the King of the East-Franks.[19] But no lasting relation, such as afterwards bound the princes of the Empire to its head, sprang out of his homage. Again from 887 to 963 the Imperial dignity was not finally attached to any one kingdom. It fluctuated between Germany and Italy; it might have passed to Burgundy; it might have passed to Karolingia, as it had once already done in the person of Charles the Bald. ♦The Empire divided into four kingdoms, of which three are again united, while one remains distinct.♦ The truer way of putting the matter is to say that in 887 the Empire split up into four kingdoms, of which three came together again, and formed the Empire in a new shape. The fourth kingdom remained separate; it can hardly be said to have split off from the Empire, but its separation hindered the full reconstruction of the Empire. It has had a distinct history, a history which made it the special rival of the Empire. ♦Karolingia receives the name of _France_.♦ This was _Karolingia_, the kingdom of the West-Franks, to which, through the results of the change of dynasty in 987, the name of _France_ gradually came to be applied. ♦France a nation as well as a power.♦