For a moment it seemed as if, instead of the northern and southern powers being united in opposition to the crown, one of them was to be itself incorporated with the crown. ♦Momentary union of France and Aquitaine. 1137.♦ The marriage of Lewis the Seventh with Eleanor of Aquitaine united his kingdom and her duchy. A king of Paris for the first time reigned on the Garonne and at the foot of the Pyrenees. ♦Their separation. 1152. | Union of Aquitaine, Normandy, and Anjou. 1152-1154.♦ But the divorce of Lewis and Eleanor and her immediate re-marriage with the Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou again severed the southern duchy from the kingdom, and united the great powers of northern and southern Gaul. Then their common lord won a crown beyond the sea and became the first Angevin king of England. ♦Britanny. 1169.♦ Another marriage brought Britanny, long the nominal fief of Normandy, under the practical dominion of its Duke. The House of Anjou thus suddenly rose to a dominion on Gaulish soil equal to that of the French king and his other vassals put together, a dominion which held the mouths of the three great rivers, and which was further strengthened by the possession of the English kingdom. But a favourable moment soon came which enabled the King to add to his own dominions the greater part of the estates of his dangerous vassal. ♦Claims of Arthur of Britanny.♦ On the death of Richard, first of England and fourth of Normandy, Normandy and England passed to his brother John, while in the other continental dominions of the Angevin princes the claims of his nephew Arthur, the heir of Britanny, were asserted. ♦Possible effects of his success.♦ The success of Arthur would have given the geography of Gaul altogether a new shape. The Angevin possessions on the continent, instead of being held by a king of England, would have been held by a Duke of Britanny, the prince of a state which, though not geographically cut off like England, was even more foreign to France. ♦Annexation of Normandy, Anjou, &c. 1202-1205.♦ On the fall of Arthur, Philip, by the help of a jurisprudence devised for the purpose, was able to declare all the fiefs which John held of the French crown to be forfeited to that crown, a sentence which did not apply to the fiefs of his mother Eleanor. In the space of two years Philip was able to carry that sentence into effect everywhere on the mainland. ♦1258.♦ Continental Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, were joined to the dominions of the French crown, and by a later treaty they were formally surrendered by John’s son Henry. Poitou went with them, and all these lands may from this time be looked on as forming part of France. ♦Character and effects of the annexation.♦ Thus far the process of annexation was little more than the restoration of an earlier state of things. For all these lands, except Poitou, had formed part of the old French duchy. ♦Territories kept by the English kings.♦ The Kings