Chapter VIII: The Imperial Kingdoms (4)

It is a fact to be specially noticed in the history of the Confederation, that, for nearly a hundred and thirty years, though the territory and the power of the Confederation were constantly increasing, no new states were admitted to the rank of confederate cantons. Before the next group of cantons was admitted, the general state of the Confederation and its European position had greatly changed. It had ceased to be a purely German power. ♦Beginning of Italian dominions.♦ The first extension beyond the original German lands and those Burgundian lands which were practically German began in the direction of Italy. ♦Uri obtains Val Levantina, 1441.♦ Uri had, by the annexation of Urseren, become the neighbour of the Duchy of Milan, and in the middle of the fifteenth century, this canton acquired some rights in the _Val Levantina_ on the Italian side of the Alps. This was the beginning of the extension of the Confederation on Italian ground. But far more important than this was the advance of the Confederates over the Burgundian lands to the west. ♦First Savoyard conquest of Bern. | 1475.♦ The war with Charles of Burgundy enabled Bern to win several detached possessions in the Savoyard lands north and east of the lake, and even on the lower course of the Rhone. ♦Savoyard conquests of Freiburg and Wallis.♦ And, while Bern advanced, some points in the same direction were gained by her allies who are not yet members of the Confederation, by the city of _Freiburg_ and the League of _Wallis_. ♦Growth of Wallis.♦ This last confederation had grown up on the upper course of the Rhone, where the small free lands had gradually displaced the territorial lords. ♦Freiburg and Solothurn become Cantons, 1481.♦ Soon after this came the next admission of new cantons, those of the cities of _Freiburg_ and _Solothurn_, each of them bringing with it its small following of allied and subject territory. ♦Basel and Schaffhausen, 1501.♦ Twenty years later, _Basel_ and _Schaffhausen_, the latter being the only canton north of the Rhine, were admitted with their following of the like kind. ♦Appenzell, 1513.♦ Twelve years later, _Appenzell_, a little land which had set itself free from the rule of the abbots of _Saint Gallen_, after having long been in alliance with the Confederates, was admitted to the rank of a canton. ♦The Thirteen Cantons, 1513-1798.♦ Thus was made up the full number of Thirteen Cantons, which remained unchanged down to the wars of the French Revolution.

But the time when the Confederation was finally settled as regards the number of cantons was also a time of great extension of territory on the part both of the Confederation and of several of its members. ♦Graubünden.♦ At the south-east corner of the Confederate territory, on the borders of the duchy of Milan and the county of Tyrol, the League of _Graubünden_ or the _Grey Leagues_ had gradually arisen. A number of communities, as in Wallis, had got rid of the neighbouring lords, and had formed themselves into three leagues, the _Grey League_ proper, the _Gotteshausbund_, and the League of _Ten Jurisdictions_, which three were again united by a further federal tie. ♦Their alliance with the Confederates.♦ At the end of the fifteenth century, the Leagues so formed entered into an alliance with the Confederates. ♦1495-1567.♦ Then began a great accession of territory towards the south on the part both of the Confederates and of their new allies. ♦Italian dominion of the Confederation, 1512;♦ The Confederates received a considerable territory within the duchy of Milan, including _Bellinzona_, _Locarno_, and _Lugano_, as the reward of services done to the House of Sforza. ♦of the Grey Leagues, 1513.♦ The next year their new allies of the Grey Leagues also won some Italian territory, the _Valtellina_ and the districts of _Chiavenna_ and _Bormio_. ♦Early Savoyard conquests of Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis, 1536.♦ Next came the conquest of a large part of the Savoyard lands, of all north of the Lake and a good deal to the south, by the arms of Bern, Freiburg, and Wallis. ♦Vaud.♦ Bern and Freiburg divided _Vaud_ in very unequal proportions. ♦Lausanne.♦ Bern and Wallis divided _Chablais_ on the south side of the lake, and Bern annexed the bishopric of _Lausanne_ on the north. ♦Geneva in alliance with Bern and Freiburg.♦ _Geneva_, the ally of Bern and Freiburg, with her little territory of detached scraps, was now surrounded by the dominion of her most powerful allies at Bern. ♦Territory restored to Savoy, 1567.♦ But by a later treaty Bern and Wallis gave back to Savoy all that they had won south of the Lake, with the territory of _Gex_ to the west of it. Geneva thus again had Savoy for a neighbour, a neighbour at whose expense she even made some conquests—Gex among them—conquests which the French ally of the free city would not allow her to keep. Later changes gave her a neighbour yet more dangerous than Savoy in the shape of France itself. ♦Gruyères divided between Bern and Freiburg, 1554.♦ Before these changes, Bern and Freiburg divided the county of _Gruyères_ between them, the last important instance of that kind of process.

♦The Allies.♦

The Confederation was thus fully formed, with its Thirteen Cantons and their allied states. ♦Saint Gallen. | Bienne.♦ Of these the _Abbot of Saint Gallen_, the _town of Saint Gallen_, and the town of _Biel_ or _Bienne_, were so closely allied with the Confederates as to have a place in their Diets. Besides relations of less close alliance which the Confederates had with various Alsatian cities, several other states had a connexion so close and lasting with the Confederation or with some of its members, as to form part of the same political system. ♦_Bischofbasel._ | Mühlhausen and Rottweil. | Neufchâtel passes to Prussia, 1707.♦ Such were the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden, the Bishop of _Basel_, the outlying town of _Mühlhausen_ in Elsass, and for a while that of _Rottweil_. Bern too, and sometimes other cantons, had relations both with the town and with the princes of _Neufchâtel_, which, after passing through several dynasties, was at last inherited by the Kings of Prussia. ♦Constanz.♦ _Constanz_, at the other end of the Confederate land, was refused admission as a canton, but for a while it was in alliance with some of the cantons. ♦Passes to Austria, 1548.♦ But this connexion was severed when Constanz, instead of a free Imperial city, became a possession of Austria. ♦The Confederation released from the allegiance to the Empire, 1658.♦ The power thus formed, a power in which a body of German Confederates was surrounded by a body of allies and subjects, German, Italian, and Burgundian, all of them originally members of the Empire, was by the Peace of Westfalia formally released from all allegiance to the Empire and its chief. ♦Date of the practical separation, 1495.♦ Their practical separation may be dated much earlier, from the time when the Confederates refused to accept the legislation of Maximilian.

♦Geographical position of the League.♦

The growth of the League into an independent power was doubtless greatly promoted by its geographical position, as occupying the natural citadel of Europe. ♦Its anomalous frontier.♦ But the piecemeal way in which it grew up was marked by the anomalous nature of its frontier on several points. On the north the Rhine would seem to be a natural boundary, but Schaffhausen beyond the Rhine formed part of the Confederation, while Constanz and other points within it did not. To the south the possession of territory on the Italian side of the Alps seems an anomaly, an anomaly which is brought out more strongly by a singularly irregular and arbitrary frontier. ♦The Confederation as a middle state.♦ But looking on the Confederation as the middle state, arising at the point of junction of the three Imperial kingdoms, it was in a manner fitting that it should spread itself into all three.

* * * * *

♦Wars of the French Revolution.♦

The form which the Confederation thus took in the sixteenth century remained untouched till the wars of the French Revolution. ♦Dismemberment of the Grey Leagues, 1797.♦ The beginning of change was when the Italian districts subject to the Grey Leagues were transferred to the newly formed _Cisalpine Republic_. In the next year the whole existing system was destroyed. ♦Abolition of the Federal system, 1798. | The Helvetic Republic.♦ The Federal system was abolished; instead of the Old League of High Germany, there arose, after the new fashion of nomenclature, a _Helvetic Republic_, in which the word _canton_ meant no more than _department_. Yet even by such a revolution as this some good was done. ♦Freedom of the subject districts.♦ The subject districts were freed from the yoke of their masters, whether those masters were the whole Confederation or one or more of its several cantons. ♦Freedom of Vaud.♦ Thus, above all, the Romance land of _Vaud_ was freed from subjection to its German masters at Bern. ♦Annexation of _Bischofbasel_ and Geneva to France.♦ Some of the allied districts, as the bishopric of Basel and the city of Geneva, were annexed to France. But the Leagues of Wallis and Graubünden were incorporated with the Helvetic Republic. ♦Act of Mediation, 1803.♦ In 1803 the Federal system was restored by Buonaparte’s _Act of Mediation_, which formed a Federal republic of nineteen cantons. ♦The nineteen cantons.♦ These were the original thirteen, with the addition of _Aargau_, _Graubünden_, _St. Gallen_, _Ticino_, _Thurgau_, and _Vaud_, which were formed out of the formerly allied and subject lands. ♦Wallis incorporated with France.♦ _Wallis_ was separated from the Confederation, and became, first a nominally distinct republic, and afterwards a French department. ♦Neufchâtel. | 1806.♦ _Neufchâtel_ was, in the course of Buonaparte’s wars with Prussia, detached from that power, to form a principality under his General Berthier. ♦The Swiss Confederation of twenty-two cantons. 1815.♦ At last, in 1815, the present _Swiss Confederation_ was established, consisting of twenty-two cantons, the number being made up by the addition of _Neufchâtel_, _Wallis_, and _Geneva_. ♦_Bischofbasel_ added to Bern.♦ The bishopric of Basel was also again detached from France, and added to the canton of Bern, a canton differing in language and religion, and cut off by a mountain range. ♦Neufchâtel separated from Prussia, 1848.♦ The great constitutional changes which have been made since that time have not affected geography, unless we count the division of the city and district of Basel, _Baselstadt_ and _Baselland_, into distinct half-cantons, and the surrender of all rights over Neufchâtel by the King of Prussia. But this last was not strictly a geographical change; it was rather a change from a _quasi_ monarchic to a purely republican government in that particular canton.

§ 7. _The State of Savoy._

♦Position and growth of Savoy.♦

The growth of the power of Savoy, the border state of Burgundy and Italy, has necessarily been spoken of more than once in earlier sections; but it seems needful to give a short connected account of its progress, and to mark the way in which a power originally Burgundian gradually lost on the side of Burgundy and grew on the side of Italy, till it has in the end itself grown into a new Italy. ♦Geographical position of the Savoyard lands.♦ The lands which have at different times passed under the rule of the House of Savoy lie continuously, though with an irregular frontier, and though divided by the great barrier of the Alps. ♦Their three divisions.♦ They fall however into three main geographical divisions, which at one time became also political divisions, being held by different branches of the Savoyard House. ♦Italian.♦ There are the Italian possessions of that House, which have grown into the modern Italian kingdom. ♦Burgundian south of the lake.♦ There are the more strictly Savoyard lands south of the Lake of Geneva, and the other lands south of the Rhone after it issues from that lake, all of which have passed away under the power of France. ♦Burgundian north of the lake.♦ And there are the lands north of the Lake and of the Rhone, part of which have also become French, while others have become part of the Swiss Confederation. Both these last lay within the kingdom of Burgundy, and stretched into both its divisions, Transjurane and Cisjurane. In no part of our story is it more necessary to avoid language which forestalls the arrangements of later times. ♦Popular confusions.♦ A wholly false impression is given by the use of language such as commonly is used. We often hear of the princes of Savoy holding lands ‘in France’ and ‘in Switzerland. They held lands which by virtue of later changes have severally become French and Swiss; but those lands became French and Swiss only by ceasing to be Savoyard. On the other hand, to speak of them from the beginning as holding lands in Italy is perfectly accurate. The Savoyard states were a large and fluctuating assemblage of lands on both sides of the Alps, lying partly within the Italian and partly within the Burgundian kingdom. These last have shared the fate of the other fiefs of that crown.

♦The Savoyard state originally Burgundian.♦

The cradle of the Savoyard power lay in the Burgundian lands immediately bordering upon Italy and stretching on both sides of the Alps. It was to their geographical position, as holding several great mountain passes, that the Savoyard princes owed their first importance, succeeding therein in some measure to the Burgundian kings themselves.[15] The early stages of the growth of the house are very obscure; and its power does not seem to have formed itself till after the union of Burgundy with the Empire. ♦Possessions of the Counts of Maurienne.♦ But it seems plain that, at the end of the eleventh century, the Counts of _Maurienne_, which was their earliest title, held rights of sovereignty in the Burgundian districts of _Maurienne_, _Savoy_ strictly so called, _Tarantaise_, and _Aosta_. ♦Aosta; its special position.♦ This last valley and city, though on the Italian side of the Alps, had hitherto been rather Burgundian than Italian.[16] Its allegiance had fluctuated several times between the two kingdoms; but, from the time that Savoy held lands in both, the question became of no practical importance. And, without entering into minute questions of tenure, it may be said that the early Savoyard possessions reached to the Lake of Geneva, and spread on both sides of the inland mouth of the Rhone. The power of the Savoyard princes in this region was largely due to their ecclesiastical position as advocates of the abbey of Saint Maurice. ♦Geographical character of the Burgundian territories.♦ Thus their possessions had a most irregular outline, nearly surrounding the lands of _Genevois_ and _Faucigny_. A state of this shape, like Prussia in a later age and on a greater scale, was, as it were, predestined to make further advances. But for some centuries those advances were made much more largely in Burgundy than in Italy. ♦Their early Italian possessions.♦ The original Italian possessions of the House bordered on their Burgundian counties of Maurienne and Aosta, taking in _Susa_ and _Turin_. ♦Marquesses in Italy.♦ This small marchland gave its princes the sounding title of _Marquesses in Italy_. The endless shiftings of territory in this quarter could be dealt with only at extreme length, and they are matters of purely local concern. ♦Fluctuations of dominion.♦ In truth, they are not always fluctuations of territory in any strict sense at all, but rather fluctuations of rights between the feudal princes, the cities, and their bishops. ♦Their position in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.♦ In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the princes of Savoy were still hemmed in in their own corner of Italy by princes of equal or greater power, at _Montferrat_, at _Saluzzo_, at _Iverea_, and at _Biandrate_. And it must be remembered that their position as princes at once Burgundian and Italian was not peculiar to them. ♦Other princes at once Italian and Burgundian.♦ The Dauphins of the Viennois and the Counts of Provence both held at different times territories on the Italian side of the Alps. The Italian dominions of the family remained for a long while quite secondary to its Burgundian possessions, and the latter may therefore be traced out first.

♦Advance of Savoy in Burgundy. | Faucigny and the Genevois.♦

The main object of Savoyard policy in this region was necessarily the acquisition of the lands of _Faucigny_ and the _Genevois_. ♦First advance north of the lake.♦ But the final incorporation of those lands did not take place till they were still more completely hemmed in by the Savoyard dominions through the extension of the Savoyard power to the north of the Lake. ♦Grant of Moudon. 1207.♦ This began early in the thirteenth century by a royal grant of _Moudon_ to Count Thomas of Savoy. ♦Romont the northern capital.♦ _Romont_ was next won, and became the centre of the Savoyard power north of the Lake. ♦Peter, Count of Savoy. 1263-1268.♦ Soon after, through the conquests of Peter of Savoy, who was known as the Little Charlemagne and who plays a part in English as well as in Burgundian history, these possessions grew into a large dominion, stretching along a great part of the shores of the Lake of Neufchâtel and reaching as far north as _Murten_ or _Morat_. ♦1239-1268.♦ But it was a straggling, and in some parts fragmentary, dominion, the continuity of which was broken by the scattered possessions of the Bishops of Lausanne and other ecclesiastical and temporal lords. This extension of dominion brought Peter into close connexion with the lands and cities which were afterwards to form the Old League of High Germany. ♦His relations with Bern.♦ Bern especially, the power to which his conquests were afterwards to be transferred, looked on him as a protector. ♦Barons of Vaud. | Union of Vaud with the elder branch. 1349.♦ This new dominion north of the Lake was, after Peter’s reign, held for a short time by a separate branch of the Savoyard princes as _Barons of Vaud_; but in the middle of the fourteenth century, their barony came into the direct possession of the elder branch of the house. The lands of Faucigny and the Genevois were thus altogether surrounded by the Savoyard territory. ♦Faucigny held by the Dauphins of the Viennois.♦ Faucigny had passed to the Dauphins of the Viennois, who were the constant rivals of the Savoyard counts, down to the time of the practical transfer of their dauphiny to France. ♦Savoy acquires Faucigny and Gex. 1355.♦ Soon after that annexation, Savoy obtained _Faucigny_, with _Gex_ and some other districts beyond the Rhone, in exchange for some small Savoyard possessions within the Dauphiny. ♦The Genevois. 1401.♦ The long struggle for the Genevois, the _county_ of Geneva, was ended by its purchase in the beginning of the fifteenth century. This left the _city_ of Geneva altogether surrounded by Savoyard territory, a position which before long altogether changed the relations between the Savoyard counts and the city. ♦Changed relations to city of Geneva.♦ Hitherto, in the endless struggles between the Genevese counts, bishops, and citizens, the Savoyard counts, the enemies of the immediate enemy, had often been looked on by the citizens as friends and protectors. Now that they had become immediate neighbours of the city, they began before long to be its most dangerous enemies. ♦Amadeus the Eighth, Count 1391; | Duke 1417; | Antipope 1440; | died 1451.♦ The acquisition of the Genevois took place in the reign of the famous Amadeus the Eighth, the first Duke of Savoy, who received that rank by grant of King Siegmund, and who was afterwards the Antipope Felix. ♦Greatest extent of the dominions of Savoy in Burgundy.♦ In his reign the dominions of Savoy, as a power ruling on both sides of the Alps, reached their greatest extent. But the Savoyard power was still pre-eminently Burgundian, and Chambery was its capital. The continuous Burgundian dominion of the house now reached from the Alps to the Saône, surrounding the lake of Geneva and spreading on both sides of the lake of Neufchâtel. ♦Annexation of Nizza. 1388.♦ Besides this continuous Burgundian dominion, the House of Savoy had already become possessed of _Nizza_, by which their dominions reached to the sea. This last territory had however, though technically Burgundian, geographically more to do with the Italian possessions of the house. ♦Savoy brought into the neighbourhood of France.♦ But this great extension of territory brought Savoy on its western side into closer connexion with the most dangerous of neighbours. Her frontier for a certain distance joined the actual kingdom of France. The rest joined the Dauphiny, which was now practically French, and the county of Provence, which was ruled by French princes and which before the end of the century became an actual French possession. ♦New relations towards Bern and the Confederates.♦ To the North again the change in the relations between the House of Savoy and the city of Geneva led in course of time to equally changed relations towards Bern and her Confederates. ♦Loss of the Burgundian dominion of Savoy.♦ Through the working of these two causes, all that the House of Savoy now keeps of this great Burgundian territory is the single city and valley of Aosta. After the fifteenth century, the Burgundian history of that house consists of the steps spread over more than three hundred years by which this great dominion was lost.

* * * * *

♦Growth of Savoy in Italy.♦

The real importance of the house of Savoy in Italy dates from much the same time as the great extension of its power in Burgundy. ♦The largest dominions cut short in the twelfth century.♦ During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, partly through the growth of the cities, partly through the enmity of the Emperor Henry the Sixth, the dominions of the Savoyard princes as marquesses of Susa had been cut short, so as hardly to reach beyond their immediate Alpine valleys. ♦Grants to Count Thomas. 1207.♦ In the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Count Thomas obtained his first royal grant north of the lake, he also obtained grants of _Chieri_ and other places in the neighbourhood of Turin. These grants were merely nominal; but they were none the less the beginning of the Italian advance of the house. ♦First homage of Saluzzo. 1216.♦ In the same reign _Saluzzo_ for the first time paid a precarious homage to Savoy. ♦Italian dominion of Charles of Anjou. 1259.♦ Later in the thirteenth century, Charles of Anjou, now Count of Provence and King of Sicily, made his way into Northern Italy also, and thus brought the house of Savoy into a dangerous neighbourhood with French princes on its Italian as well as on its Burgundian side. Through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Savoyard border went on extending itself. But the Italian possessions of the house, like its possessions north of the lake, were separated from the main body of Savoyard territory to form a fief for one of the younger branches. ♦Counts of Achaia in Piedmont. 1301-1418.♦ This branch bore by marriage the empty title of Counts of _Achaia_ and _Morea_—memories of Frank dominion within the Eastern Empire—while, as if to keep matters straight, a branch of the house of Palaiologos reigned at Montferrat. ♦Advance in the fourteenth century.♦ During the fourteenth century, among many struggles with the marquesses of Montferrat and Saluzzo, the Angevin counts of Provence, and the lords of Milan, the Savoyard power in Italy generally increased. ♦Reunion of Piedmont. 1418.♦ Under Amadeus the Eighth, the lands held by the princes of Achaia were united to the possessions of the head of the house. ♦Acquisition of Biella, &c. 1435.♦ Before the end of the reign of Amadeus, the dominions of Savoy stretched as far as the Sesia, taking in _Biella_, _Santhia_ and _Vercelli_. Counting Nizza and Aosta as Italian, which they now practically were, the Italian dominions of the House reached from the Alps of Wallis to the sea. ♦Relations with Montferrat.♦ But they were nearly cut in two by the dominions of the Marquesses of _Montferrat_, from whom however the Dukes of Savoy now claimed homage. ♦Claims on Saluzzo; its doubtful homage.♦ _Saluzzo_, lying between the old inheritance of Susa and the new possession of Nizza, also passed under Savoyard supremacy. But it lay open to a very dangerous French claim on the ground of a former homage done to the Viennese Dauphins. Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy, took the title of _Count of Piedmont_, and afterwards that of _Prince_. ♦Establishment of Savoy as a middle state.♦ His possessions were now fairly established as a middle state, Italian and Burgundian, in nearly equal proportions.

♦Effects of the Italian wars.♦

In the course of the next century and a half the Savoyard state altogether changed its character in many ways. The changes which affected all Europe, especially the great Italian wars, could not fail greatly to affect the border state of Italy and Gaul. And there is no part of our story which gives us more instructive lessons with regard to the proper limits of our subject. During this time the Savoyard power was brought under a number of influences, all of which deeply affected its history, but which did not all alike affect its geography. ♦French influence and occupation.♦ We have a period of French influence, a period of French occupation, and more than one actual fresh settlement of the frontier. Mere influence does not concern us at all. Occupation concerns us only when it takes the form of permanent conquest. An occupation of nearly forty years comes very near to permanent conquest; still when, as in this case, it comes to an end without having effected any formal annexation, it is hardly to be looked on as actually working a change on the map. ♦Occupation by France.♦ France occupied Piedmont for nearly as long a time as Bern occupied the lands south of the lake. Yet we look on the one occupation as simply part of the military history, while in the other we see a real, though only temporary, geographical change. ♦Increased Italian character of Savoy.♦ But the result alike of influence, of occupation, and of actual change of boundaries, all tended the same way. They all tended to strengthen the Italian character of the House of Savoy, to cut short its Burgundian possessions, and, if not greatly to increase its Italian possessions, at least to put it in the way of greatly increasing them.

♦Decline of Savoy.♦

During the second half of the fifteenth century, the power of the House of Savoy greatly declined, partly through the growing influence of France, partly through the division, in the form of appanages, of the lands which had been so lately formed together into a compact state. ♦The Italian wars.♦ Then came the Italian wars, in which the Savoyard dominions became the highway for the kings of France in their invasions of Italy. The strictly territorial changes of this period chiefly concern the marquisate of Saluzzo on the Italian side and the northern frontier on the Burgundian side. In the end these two points of controversy were merged in a single settlement. ♦First loss of lands north of the lake. 1475.♦ The first loss of territory on the northern frontier, the first sign that the Savoyard power in Burgundy was gradually to fall back, was the loss of part of the lands north of the lake in the war between Charles of Burgundy and the Confederates. _Granson_ on the lake of Neufchâtel, _Murten_ or _Morat_ on its own lake, _Aigle_ at the south-east end of the great lake, _Échallens_ lying detached in the heart of Vaud, all passed away from Savoy and became for ever Confederate ground. Sixty years later, the affairs of Geneva led to the great intervention of Bern, Freiburg and Wallis, by which Savoy was for ever shorn of her possessions north of the lake. ♦Loss of the lands on both sides of the lake. 1536.♦ For a while indeed she was cut off from the lake altogether; Chablais passed away as well as Vaud. Geneva, with her detached scraps of territory, was now wholly surrounded by her own allies. ♦Reunion of the lands south of the lake. 1567.♦ Thirty years later, Bern restored all her conquests south of the lake, together with Gex to the west, leaving Geneva again surrounded by the dominions of Savoy. Wallis too gave up part of her share, keeping only the narrow strip on the left bank of the Rhone. ♦Charles the Good. 1504-1553. | Emanuel Filibert. 1553-1580.♦ The loss and the recovery mark the difference between the reigns of Duke Charles the Third, called the Good, and Duke Emmanuel Filibert with the Iron Head. The difference of the two reigns is equally marked with regard to France. ♦Beginning of French occupation 1536. | Its end. 1574.♦ Almost at the same moment as the conquests made by Bern, began that occupation, whole or partial, of Savoyard territory by the French arms which did not come wholly to an end for thirty-eight years. Savoy then appeared again as a power whose main strength lay in Italy, whose capital, instead of Burgundian Chambery, was Italian Turin. And all later changes of frontier and the changes of frontier in her more southern dominions also tended the same way to increase the Italian character of the Savoyard power, and to lessen its extent in the lands which we may distinguish as Transalpine, for the Burgundian name has now altogether passed away from them.

The first formal exchange of Burgundian for Italian ground happened under Emmanuel Filibert, shortly after the emancipation of his dominions. ♦Acquisition of Tenda.♦ The small county of _Tenda_ was acquired in exchange for the marquisate of _Villars_ in Bresse. This extended the Italian frontier, without formally narrowing the Burgundian frontier; still it was a step in the direction of more important changes. ♦Disputes about the homage of Saluzzo.♦ The first of these was caused by the endless disputes which arose out of the disputed homage of Saluzzo. ♦Annexation of Saluzzo by France. 1548.♦ The Marquesses of Saluzzo preferred the French claimant of their homage to the Savoyard, a preference which led in the end to definite annexation by France. This was the first acquisition of Italian soil by France as such, as distinguished from the claims of French princes over Milan, Naples, and Asti. France thus threw a continuous piece of French territory into the heart of the states of Savoy. When the French occupation ceased, Saluzzo still remained to France. ♦Conquest of Saluzzo. 1588.♦ Presently it was conquered by Duke Charles Emmanuel. ♦Reign of Charles Emanuel. 1580-1630.♦ The reign of this prince marks the final change in the destiny of the house of Savoy. He himself had dreamed of wider conquests on the Gaulish side of the Alps than had ever presented himself to any prince of his house. He was to be Count of Provence, King of Burgundy, perhaps King of France. The real results of his reign told in exactly the opposite way. ♦Bresse, &c. exchanged for Saluzzo. 1601.♦ By the treaty which ended his war with France, Saluzzo was ceded to Savoy in exchange for _Bresse_, _Bugey_, _Valromey_, and _Gex_. ♦Loss of position beyond the Alps.♦ A powerful neighbour was thus shut out from a possession which cut the Savoyard states in twain; but the price at which this advantage was gained amounted to a final surrender of the old position of the Savoyard House beyond the Alps. The Rhone and not the Saône became the boundary, while the surrender of Gex brought France to the shores of the Lake. Geneva, her city and her scattered scraps of territory, had now, besides Bern, two other neighbours in France and Savoy. ♦Attempts on Geneva. 1602-1609.♦ The two attempts of Charles Emmanuel to seize upon the city were fruitless. Savoy now became distinctly an Italian power, keeping indeed the lands between the Alps and the Lake, the proper Duchy of Savoy, but having her main possessions and her main interests in Italy. ♦Later history of Savoy.♦ We may here therefore finish the history of the Transalpine possessions of the Savoyard House. ♦Annexed to France. 1792-1796.♦ The Duchy of Savoy remained in the hands of its own Dukes till their continental dominion was swept away in the storm of the French Revolution. ♦Restored. 1814-1815.♦ It was restored after the first fall of Buonaparte, but with a narrowed frontier, which left its capital _Chambery_ to France. This was set right by the treaties of the next year. ♦Savoy and Nizza annexed to France. 1860.♦ Lastly, as all the world knows, Savoy itself, including the guaranteed neutral lands on the Lake, passed, along with Nizza, to France. Savoy itself was so far favoured as to be allowed to keep its ancient name, and to form the departments of _High_ and _Low Savoy_, instead of being condemned, as in the former temporary annexation, to bear the names of _Leman_ and _Mont Blanc_. The Burgundian Counts who have grown into Italian Kings have thus lost the land under whose name their House grew famous. ♦Aosta spared.♦ Aosta alone remains as the last relic of the times when the Savoyard Dukes, the greatest lords of the Middle Kingdom, still kept their place as the truest representatives of the Middle Kingdom itself.

* * * * *

♦Italian history of the House of Savoy.♦

The purely Italian history of the house now begins, a history which has been already sketched in dealing with the geography of Italy. ♦Its character.♦ Savoy now takes part in every European struggle, and, though its position led to constant foreign occupation, some addition of territory was commonly gained at every peace. ♦French occupation. 1629.♦ Thus, before the reign of Charles Emmanuel was over, Piedmont was again overrun by French troops. ♦Annexation of part of Montferrat. 1631. | French occupation of Pinerolo. 1630-1696.♦ Though the Savoyard possessions in Italy were presently increased by a part of the Duchy of _Montferrat_, this was a poor compensation for the French occupation of _Pinerolo_ and other points in the heart of Piedmont, which lasted till nearly the end of the century. ♦Later Italian advance.♦ The gradual acquisition of territory at the expense of the Milanese duchy, the acquisition and exchange of the two island kingdoms, the last annexation by France, the acquisition of the Genoese seaboard, the growth of the Kingdom of Sardinia into the Kingdom of Italy, have been already told. Our present business has been with Savoy as a middle power, a character which practically passed from it with the loss of Vaud and Bresse, and all traces of which are now sunk in the higher but less interesting character of one of the great powers of Europe. From Savoy in its character of a middle power, as one of the representatives of ancient Burgundy, we naturally pass to another middle power which prolonged the existence of the Burgundian name, and on part of which, though not on a part lying within its Burgundian possessions, some trace of the ancient functions of the middle kingdom is still laid by the needs of modern European policy.

§ 8. _The Duchy of Burgundy and the Low Countries._

♦Position of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy.♦

Among all the powers which we have marked as having for their special characteristic that of being middle states, the one which came most nearly to an actual revival of the middle states of earlier days was the Duchy of Burgundy under the Valois Dukes. A great power was formed whose princes held no part of their dominions in wholly independent sovereignty. ♦Their twofold vassalage.♦ In practical power they were the peers of their Imperial and royal neighbours; but their formal character throughout every rood of their possessions was that of vassals of one or other of those neighbours. ♦Its effects.♦ Such a twofold vassalage naturally suggested, even more strongly than vassalage to a single lord could have done, the thought of emancipation from all vassalage, and of the gathering together of endless separate fiefs into a single kingdom. ♦Schemes for a Burgundian kingdom.♦ The gradual acquisitions of earlier princes, especially those of Philip the Good, naturally led up to the design, avowed by his son Charles the Bold, of exchanging the title of Duke for that of King. The memories of the older Burgundian and Lotharingian kingdoms had no doubt a share in shaping the schemes of a prince who possessed so large a share of the provinces which had formed those kingdoms. The schemes of Charles, one can hardly doubt, reached to the formation of a realm like that of the first Lothar, a realm stretching from the Ocean to the Mediterranean. His actual possessions, at their greatest extent, formed a power to which Burgundy gave its name, but which was historically at least as much Lotharingian as Burgundian. ♦Historical importance of the Burgundian power.♦ And though this actual dominion was only momentary, no power ever arose which fills a wider and more œcumenical place in history than the line of the Valois Dukes. Their power connects the earliest settlement of the European states with the latest. ♦1870.♦ It spans a thousand years, and connects the division of Verdun with the last treaty that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. The growth of their power was directly influenced by memories of the early Carolingian partitions; and, even in its fall, it has itself influenced the geography and politics of Europe ever since. As a Burgundian power, it was as ephemeral as all other Burgundian powers have ever been. As a Lotharingian power, it abides still in its effects. ♦History of the Low Countries.♦ The union of the greater part of the Low Countries under a single prince, and that a prince who was on the whole foreign to the Empire, strengthened that tendency to split off from the Empire which was already at work in some of those lands. Later events caused them to split off in two bodies instead of one. This last tendency became so strong that a modern attempt to unite them broke down, and their place in the modern polity of Europe is that of two distinct kingdoms. ♦Final result of the Burgundian dominion.♦ The existence of those two kingdoms is the final result of the growth of the Burgundian power in the fifteenth century. ♦Its effect on language.♦ And by leading to the separation of the northern Netherlands from the Empire, it has led to one result which could never have been reckoned on, the preservation of one branch of the Low-Dutch tongue as the acknowledged and literary speech of an independent nation. ♦The Netherlands and Belgium.♦ Its political results were the creation, in the shape of the northern Netherlands, of a power which once held a great place in the affairs of Europe and of the world, and the slower growth, in the shape of the southern Netherlands, of a state in which modern European policy still acknowledges the character of a middle kingdom. As the neutral confederation of Switzerland represents the middle kingdom of Burgundy, so the neutral kingdom of Belgium represents the middle kingdom of Lotharingia.

♦Ducal Burgundy a fief of the Western Kingdom.♦

The Duchy of Burgundy which gave its name to the Burgundian power of the fifteenth century was that one among the many lands bearing the Burgundian name which lay wholly outside the Burgundian kingdom of the Emperors. This Burgundy, the only one which has kept the name to our own time, the duchy of which Dijon is the capital, never was a fief of the Eastern Kingdom or of the Empire, after the final separation. It always acknowledged the supremacy of the kings of Laon and Paris. ♦Two lines of Dukes. 1032.♦ By these last the duchy was twice granted in fief to princes of their own house, once in the eleventh century and once in the fourteenth. ♦The Valois. 1363.♦ This last grant was the beginning of the Dukes of the House of Valois, with the growth of whose power we have now to deal. ♦Union of Flanders and Burgundy. 1369. | The county of Burgundy.♦ Philip the Hardy, the first Duke of this line, obtained, by his marriage with Margaret of Flanders, the counties of _Flanders_, _Artois_, _Rhetel_, and _Nevers_, all fiefs of the crown of France, together with the _County Palatine of Burgundy_ as a fief of the Empire. The peculiar position of the Dukes of Burgundy of this line was at once established by this marriage. ♦Two masses of territory.♦ Duke Philip held of two lords, and his dominions lay in two distinct masses. The two Burgundies, duchy and county, and the county of Nevers, lay geographically together; Flanders and Artois lay together at a great distance; the small possession of Rhetel lay again detached between the two. Any princes who held such a territory as this could hardly fail to devote their main policy to the work of bringing about the geographical union of their scattered possessions. Nor was this all. The possession of the two Burgundies made their common sovereign a vassal at once of France and of the Empire. ♦Position of the Netherlands.♦ The possession of Flanders, Artois, and Rhetel further brought him into connexion with those border lands of the Empire and of the French kingdom where the authority of either over-lord was weakest, and which had long been tending to form themselves into a separate political system distinct from both. The results of this complicated position, as worked out, whether by the prudence of Philip the Good or by the daring of Charles the Bold, form the history of the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois.

♦Imperial and French fiefs in the Netherlands.♦

The lands which we are accustomed to group together under the name of the _Netherlands_ or _Low Countries_ lay chiefly within the bounds of the Empire; but the county of Flanders had always been a fief of France. ♦Fief of the Counts of Flanders within the Empire.♦ Part however of the dominions of its counts, the north-eastern corner of their dominions, the lands of _Alost_ and _Waas_, were held of the Empire. ♦Zealand.♦ These lands, together with the neighbouring islands of _Zealand_, formed a ground of endless disputes between the Counts of Flanders and their northern neighbours the Counts of _Holland_. ♦County of Holland.♦ This last county gradually disentangles itself from the general mass of the Frisian lands which lie along the whole coast from the mouth of the Scheld to the mouth of the Weser. ♦Inroads of the sea. 1219, 1282.♦ And those great inroads of the sea in the thirteenth century which gave the Zuyder-Zee its present extent helped to give the country a natural boundary, and to part it off from the Frisian lands to the north-east. ♦Disputes with the free Frisians.♦ Towards the end of the thirteenth century Friesland west of the Zuyder-Zee had become part of the dominions of the Counts. ♦Independence of West Friesland. 1417-1447. | County of East Friesland. 1454.♦ The land immediately east of the gulf established its freedom, while _East Friesland_ passed to a line of counts, under whom its fortunes parted off from those of the Netherlands. Part of its later history has been already given in the character of a more purely German state. ♦The Bishops of Utrecht.♦ Both the counts and the free Frisians had also dangerous neighbours in the Bishops of _Utrecht_, the great ecclesiastical princes of this region, who held a large temporal sovereignty lying apart from their city on the eastern side of the gulf. These disputes went on, as also disputes with the Dukes of Geldern, without any final settlement, almost to the time when all these lands began to be united under the Burgundian power. But before this time, the Counts of Holland had become closely connected with lands much further to the south. ♦Duchy of Brabant.♦ Among a number of states in this region, the most powerful was the Duchy of _Brabant_, which represented the Duchy of the Lower Lotharingia, and whose princes held the mark of _Antwerp_ and the cities of _Brussels_, _Löwen_ or _Louvain_, and _Mechlin_. ♦County of Hennegau or Hainault united with Holland. 1299.♦ To the South of them lay the county of _Hennegau_ or _Hainault_. At the end of the thirteenth century, this county was joined by marriage with that of Holland. Holland and Hainault were thus detached possessions of a common prince, with Brabant lying between them. ♦Mark of Namur.♦ South of Brabant lay the small mark or county of _Namur_, which, without being united to Flanders, was held by a branch of the princes of that house.

♦Common character of these states.♦

All these states, though their princes held of two separate over-lords, had much in common, and were well fitted to be worked together into a single political system. They had much in common in the physical character of the country, and in the unusual number of great and flourishing cities which these countries contained. ♦Importance of the cities.♦ None of these cities indeed actually reached the position of free cities of the Empire; but their wealth, and the degree of practical independence which they possessed, forms a main feature in the history of the Low Countries. In point of language, the northern part of these states spoke various dialects of Low-Dutch, from Flemish to Frisian; in the southern lands of Hainault, Artois, and Namur, the language, though not French, was not Teutonic, but an independent Romance speech, the Walloon. ♦South-western group of states.♦ To the west of these states lay another group of small principalities connected with the former greater group in many ways, but not so closely as those which we have just gone through. ♦Bishopric of Lüttich. | Duchies of Luxemburg and Limburg.♦ The great ecclesiastical principality of _Lüttich_ or _Liège_, lying in two detached parts, divided the lands of which we have been speaking from the counties, afterwards duchies, of _Lüzelburg_ or _Luxemburg_ and of _Limburg_. Of these the more distant Limburg passed in the fourteenth century to the Dukes of Brabant. ♦Luxemburg a Duchy. 1353.♦ Luxemburg is famous as having given a series of princes to the kingdom of Bohemia and to the Empire, and in their hands it rose to the rank of a duchy. ♦Geldern.♦ Lastly, to the north of Lüttich, forming a connecting link between this group of states and the more purely Frisian powers, lay the duchy of _Geldern_, of whose quarters the most northern portion stretched to the Zuyder Zee. These eastern states, though not so closely connected with one another as those to the west, were easily led into the same political system. ♦Middle position of all these states.♦ Without drawing any hard and fast line, we may say that all the states of this region formed, if not yet a middle state, yet a middle system, apart alike from France and the Empire, though in various ways connected with both. Mainly Imperial, mainly Teutonic, they were not wholly so. ♦French influence.♦ Besides the homage lawfully due to France from Flanders and Artois, French influence in various ways, in politics, in manners, and in language, had made great inroads in the southern Netherlands. Brabant and Hainault had practically quite as much to do with France as with the Empire. ♦Walloon language.♦ And this French influence was of course helped by the fact that a considerable region in the south was, though not of French, yet not of Teutonic speech. Altogether, with much to unite them to the great powers on either side, with much to keep them apart from either of them, with much more to unite them to one another, the states of the Netherlands might almost seem to be designed by nature to be united under a single political head. ♦Union of the Netherlands under the Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Such a head was supplied by the Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Flanders, by whom, in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, nearly the whole of the Netherlands was united into a single power which was to be presently broken into two by the results of religious divisions.

* * * * *

Leaving then for the present the growth and fall of the Burgundian power in the lands more to the south, we will go on to trace the steps by which the provinces of the Low Countries were united under the Valois Dukes and their Austrian descendants. ♦Reign of Philip the Good. 1419-1467.♦ The great increase of territory in this region was made during the long reign of Philip the Good. ♦Namur. 1421-1429.♦ His first acquisition was the county of _Namur_, a small and outlying district, but one which, as small and outlying, would still more strongly suggest the rounding off of the scattered territory. ♦1429-1433.♦ A series of marriages and disputes next enabled Philip to make a much more important extension of his dominions. ♦1405.♦ Brabant and Limburg had passed to a younger branch of the Burgundian House. ♦1418.♦ John, Duke of Brabant, the cousin of Philip by a marriage with Jacqueline, Countess of Holland and Hainault, united those states for a moment. The disputes and confusions which followed on her marriages and divorces led to the annexation of her territories by the Duke of Burgundy, a process which was finally concluded by the formal cession of her dominions by Jacqueline. ♦Brabant and Limburg. 1430. | Holland and Hainault. 1433.♦ Meanwhile Philip had succeeded to Brabant and Limburg, and the union of Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, Zealand, and Holland, together made a dominion which took in all the greatest Netherland states, and formed a compact mass of territory. On this presently followed a great acquisition of territory which was more strictly French than the fiefs which Philip already held of the French crown in Flanders and Artois. The Treaty of Arras, by which Philip, hitherto the ally of England against France, made peace with his western overlord, gave him, under the form of mortgage, the lands on the Somme. ♦The towns on the Somme. 1435-1483.♦ The acquisition of these lands, _Ponthieu_, _Vermandois_, _Amiens_, and _Boulogne_, advanced the Burgundian frontier to a dangerous neighbourhood to Paris on this side as well as on the other. It had the further effect of keeping the small continental possessions which England still kept at Calais and Guisnes apart from the French territory. During the reigns of Philip and Charles the Bold, the continental neighbour of England was not France but Burgundy. But this great southern dominion was not lasting. The towns on the Somme, redeemed and again recovered, passed on the fall of Charles the Bold once more into French hands. ♦Recovered by France.♦ So did Artois itself, and, though Artois was won back, Amiens and the rest were not. Yet, if the towns on the Somme had stayed under the rule of the successive masters of the Low Countries, it might by this time have seemed as natural for Amiens to be Belgian as it now seems natural for Cambray and Valenciennes to be French. The Treaty of Madrid drew a definite boundary. ♦France resigns the homage of Flanders and Artois. 1526.♦ France gave up all claim to homage from Flanders and Artois, and Charles the Fifth, in his Burgundian, or rather in his Flemish, character, finally gave up all claim to the lands on the Somme.