♦They become French.♦ The events of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ruled that this intermediate region should become French. And none of the acquisitions of France ever helped more towards the real growth of her power. It was while the later stages of this process were going on that the French kings added to their dominions the Aquitanian lands on one side and the Burgundian duchy on the other. The acquisition of Aquitaine has, besides its other characters, a third aspect which closely connects it with the annexations between the Rhone and the Alps. ♦Effect of French annexations on the _Langue d’oc_.♦ The strife between Northern and Southern Gaul, between the tongue of _oil_ and the tongue of _oc_, now came to an end. Had the chief power in Gaul settled somewhere in Burgundy or Aquitaine, the tongue of _oil_ might now pass for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oc_. Had French dominion in Italy begun as soon and lasted as permanently as French dominion in Burgundy and Aquitaine, the tongue of _si_, as well as the tongue of _oc_, might now pass for a _patois_ of the tongue of _oil_. But now it was settled that French, not Provençal, was to be the ruling speech of Gaul. The lands of the Southern speech which escaped were almost wholly portions of the dominions of other powers. There was no longer any separate state wholly of that speech, except the little principality of Orange. ♦Extinction of the Provençal speech and nation.♦ The work which the French kings had now ended amounted to little short of the extinction of an European nation. A tongue, once of at least equal dignity with the tongue of Paris and Tours, has sunk from the rank of a national language to the rank of a provincial dialect. * * * * * ♦Italian conquests of France.♦