Practically it was the incorporation with the French crown of its greatest fief, balanced by the loss of a small territory the value of which was certainly out of all proportion to its geographical extent. In its historical aspect the annexation of Aquitaine was something yet more. The first foreshadowing of the modern French kingdom was made by the addition of Aquitaine to Neustria, of southern to northern Gaul.[20] Now, after so many strivings, the two were united for ever. Aquitaine was merged in France. The grant to Charles the Bald took effect after six hundred years. ♦Beginning of the modern Kingdom of France.♦ France, in the sense which the word bears in modern use, may date its complete existence from the addition of Bourdeaux to the dominions of Charles the Seventh. * * * * * ♦Growth of the Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Thus, in the course of somewhat less than four hundred years, the conquest of England by a vassal of France, followed by the union of a crowd of other French fiefs in the hands of a common sovereign of England and Normandy, had led to the union with France of all the continental possessions of the prince who thus reigned on both sides of the sea. Meanwhile, on the eastern side of the kingdom, the holder of a great French fief swelled into an European power, the special rival of his French overlord. ♦Escheat of the duchy of Burgundy. 1361. | Grant to Philip the Hardy. 1364.♦ The duchy of Burgundy, granted to a branch of the royal house in the earliest days of the Parisian kingdom, escheated to the crown in the fourteenth century, and was again granted out to a son of the reigning king. ♦Advance of the Valois Dukes.♦ A series of marriages, purchases, conquests, transactions of every kind, gathered together, in the hands of the Burgundian dukes, a crowd of fiefs both of France and of the Empire.[21] The duchy of _Burgundy_ with the county of _Charolois_, and the counties of _Flanders_ and _Artois_, were joined under a common ruler with endless Imperial fiefs in the Low Countries and with the Imperial _County of Burgundy_. ♦Advance to the Somme.♦ More than this, under Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, the Burgundian frontier was more than once advanced to the Somme, and Amiens was separated from the crown. ♦Annexations at the death of Charles the Bold. 1479.♦ The fall of Charles the Bold laid his dominions open to French annexation both on the Burgundian and on the Flemish frontier. ♦Momentary annexation of Artois and the County of Burgundy.♦ In the first moments of his success, Lewis the Eleventh possessed himself of a large part of the Imperial as well as the French fiefs of the fallen Duke. ♦Treaty of Arras. 1435.♦ But in the end Flanders and Artois remained French fiefs held by the House of Burgundy, which also kept the county of Burgundy and the isolated county of Charolois. ♦Incorporation of the duchy of Burgundy. 1479.♦ But France not only finally recovered the towns on