Volume 1 — CHAPTER VIII. (continued 2)

We must now trace out the growth of the chief states which were formed by these several processes. Beginning again in the north, it must be remembered that all this while the power of Savoy was advancing in those north-western lands in which the influences which mainly ruled this period had less force than elsewhere. Montferrat too kept its old character of a feudal principality, a state whose rulers had in various ways a singular connexion with the East. ♦Palaiologoi at Montferrat, 1306.♦ As Marquesses of Montferrat had claimed the crown of Jerusalem and had worn the crown of Thessalonica, so, as if to keep even the balance between East and West, in return a branch of the Imperial house of Palaiologos came to reign at Montferrat. To the east of these more ancient principalities, two great powers of quite different kinds grew up in the old Neustria and Austria. ♦Duchy of Milan. Venice.♦ These were the Duchy of Milan and the land power of Venice. Milan, like most other Italian cities, came under the influence of party leaders, who grew first into tyrants and then into acknowledged sovereigns. ♦The Visconti at Milan, 1310-1447.♦ These at Milan, after the shorter domination of the Della Torre, were the more abiding house of the Visconti. Their dominion, after various fluctuations and revolutions, was finally established when the coming of the Emperor Henry the Seventh generally strengthened the rule of the Lords of the cities throughout Italy.

♦Grant of the Duchy by King Wenceslaus, 1395.♦

At the end of the fourteenth century their informal lordship passed by a royal grant into an acknowledged duchy of the Empire. The dominion which they had gradually gained, and which was thus in a manner legalized, took in all the great cities of Lombardy, those especially which had formed the Lombard League against the Swabian Emperors. ♦County of Pavia.♦ Pavia indeed, the ancient rival of Milan, kept a kind of separate being, and was formed into a distinct county. ♦Extent of the duchy.♦ But the duchy granted by Wenceslaus to Gian-Galeazzo stretched far on both sides of the lake of Garda. Belluno at one end and Vercelli at the other formed part of it. It took in the mountain lands which afterwards passed to the two Alpine Confederations; it took in Parma, Piacenza, and Reggio south of the Po, and Verona and Vicenza in the old Austrian or Venetian land. Besides all this, Padua, Bologna, even Genoa and Pisa, passed at various times under the lordship of the Visconti. But this great power was not lasting. The Duchy of Milan, under various lords, native and foreign, lasted till the wars of the French Revolution; but, long before that time, it had been cut short on every side. ♦Decrease on the death of Gian Galeazzo, 1402.♦ The death of the first Duke was followed by a separation of the duchy of Milan and the county of Pavia between his sons, and the restored duchy never rose again to its former power. ♦The eastern cities won by Venice, 1406-1447.♦ The eastern parts, Padua, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, were gradually added to the dominion of Venice. By the middle of the fifteenth century, that republic had become the greatest power in northern Italy. ♦House of Sforza, 1450-1535. Claims of the Kings of France, 1499-1525.♦ In the duchy of Milan the house of Sforza succeeded that of Visconti; but the opposing claims of the Kings of France were one chief cause of the long wars which laid Italy waste in the latter years of the fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth. The duchy was tossed to and fro between the Emperor, the French King, and its own dukes. Meanwhile the dominion which was thus struggled for was cut short at the two ends. ♦Cession to the Alpine Leagues, 1512-1513.♦ It was dismembered to the north in favour of the two Alpine Leagues, as will be hereafter shown more in detail. ♦The Popes obtain Parma and Piacenza, 1515. Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, 1545.♦ South of the Po, the Popes obtained Parma and Piacenza, which were afterwards granted as papal fiefs to form a duchy for the house of Farnese. Thus the Duchy of Milan which became in the end a possession of Charles the Fifth, and afterwards of his Spanish and Austrian successors, was but a remnant of the great dominion of the first Duke. The duchy underwent still further dismemberments in later times.

♦Land power of Venice only.♦

With Venice we have here to deal in her somewhat unnatural position as an Italian land power. ♦War of the League of Cambray, 1508-1517.♦ This position she took on herself in the fifteenth century; in the sixteenth it led to the momentary overthrow and wonderful recovery of her dominion in the war of the League of Cambray. This land power of Venice stands quite distinct from the Venetian possessions east of the Hadriatic. ♦Istria.♦ With this last her possession of the coast of the Istrian peninsula must be reckoned, rather than with her Italian dominions. Between these lay Aquileia, Trieste, and the other lands in this quarter which gradually came under the power of Austria. ♦Extent of Venetian dominion. Ravenna, 1441-1530.♦ The continuous Italian dominion of Venice took in Udine at one end and Bergamo at the other, besides Crema, and for a while Ravenna, as outlying possessions. Thus the Byzantine city which lay anchored off the shore of the Western Empire could for a season call the ancient seat of the Exarchate its own. ♦Two parts of the Venetian territory.♦ But even the continuous land territory of Venice lay in two portions. Brescia and Bergamo were almost cut off from Verona and the other possessions to the east by the Lake of Garda, the bishopric of Trent to the north, and the principality of Mantua to the south.

The mention of this last state leads us back again to the commonwealths which, like Milan, changed, first into tyrannies, and then into acknowledged principalities. It is impossible to mention all of them, and some of those which played for a while the most brilliant part in Italian history had no lasting effect on Italian geography. ♦Rule of the Scala at Verona, 1260-1387; of the Carrara at Padua, 1318-1405;♦ The rule of the house of Scala at Verona, the rule of the house of Carrara at Padua, left no lasting trace on the map. It was otherwise with the two states which bordered on the Venetian possessions to the south. ♦of the Gonzaga at Mantua, 1328-1708. Marquesses, 1433; Dukes, 1530.♦ The house of Gonzaga held sovereign power at Mantua, first as captains, then as marquesses, then as dukes, for nearly four hundred years. ♦House of Este.♦ Of greater fame was the power that grew up in the house of Este, the Italian branch of the house of Welf. Their position is one specially instructive, as illustrating the various tenures by which dominion was held. ♦The lords of Ferrara and Modena, 1264-1288.♦ The marquesses of Este, feudal lords of that small principality, became, after some of the usual fluctuations, permanent lords of the cities of Ferrara and Modena. About the same time they lost their original holding of Este, which passed to Padua, and with Padua to Venice. Thus the nominal marquess of Este and real lord of Ferrara was not uncommonly spoken of as Marquess of Ferrara. In the fifteenth century these princes rose to ducal rank; but by that time the new doctrine of the temporal dominion of the Popes had made great advances. Modena, no man doubted, was a city of the Empire; but Ferrara was now held to be under the supremacy of the Pope. The Marquess Borso had thus to seek his elevation to ducal rank from two separate lords. ♦Duchy of Modena, 1453. Duchy of Ferrara, 1471.♦ He was created Duke of Modena and Reggio by the Emperor, and afterwards Duke of Ferrara by the Pope. This difference of holding, as we shall presently see, led to the destruction of the power of the house of Este. In the times in which we are now concerned, their dominions lay in two masses. To the west lay the duchy of Modena and Reggio; apart from it to the east lay the duchy of Ferrara. ♦Loss of Rovigo, 1484.♦ Not long after its creation, this last duchy was cut short by the surrender of the border-district of Rovigo to Venice.

♦Cities of Romagna.♦

Between the two great duchies of the house of Este lay Bologna, gradually changed from Romania in one sense into Romagna in another. Like most other Italian cities, the commonwealths of the Exarchate and the Pentapolis changed into tyrannies, and their petty princes were one by one overthrown by the advancing power of the Popes. ♦Bologna, Perugia, Rimini.♦ Every city had its dynasty; but it was only a few, like the houses of Bentevoglio at Bologna, of Baglioni at Perugia, and Malatesta at Rimini, that rose to any historical importance. One only combined historical importance with acknowledged princely rank. ♦The Duchy of Urbino, 1478-1631.♦ The house of Montefeltro, lords of Urbino, became acknowledged dukes by papal grants. From them the duchy passed to the house of La Rovere, and it flourished under five princes of the two dynasties. ♦Expansion of the papal dominions.♦ Gradually, by successive annexations, the papal dominions, before the middle of the sixteenth century, stretched from the Po to Tarracina. Ferrara and Urbino still remained distinct states, but states which were confessedly held as fiefs of the Holy See.

♦Creation of the Tuscan cities.♦

To the west, in Tuscany, the phænomena are somewhat different. The characteristic of this part of Italy was the grouping together of the smaller cities under the power of the larger. Nearly all the land came in the end under princely rule; but both acknowledged princely rule and the tyrannies out of which it sprang came into importance in Tuscany later than anywhere else. ♦Lucca under Castruccio Castracani, 1320-1338.♦ Lucca had in the fourteenth century a short time of greatness under her illustrious tyrant Castruccio; but, before and after his day, she plays, as a commonwealth, only a secondary part in Italy. Still she remained a commonwealth, though latterly an oligarchic one, through all changes down to the general crash of the French Revolution. ♦Pisa.♦ Pisa kept for a while her maritime greatness, and her rivalry with the Ligurian commonwealth of Genoa. ♦Genoa.♦ Genoa, less famous in the earliest times, proved a far more lasting power. ♦Her rule in Corsica.♦ She established her dominion over the coast on both sides of her, and kept her island of Corsica down to modern times. ♦Sardinia ceded to Aragon, 1428. Pisa subject to Florence, 1416.♦ Physical causes caused the fall of the maritime power of Pisa; Sardinia passed from her to become a kingdom of the House of Aragon, and she herself passed under the dominion of Florence. ♦Greatness of Florence.♦ This last illustrious city, the greatest of Tuscan and even of Italian commonwealths, begins to stand forth as the foremost of republican states about the time when her forerunner Milan came under the rule of tyrants. She extended her dominion over Volterra, Arezzo, and many smaller places, till she became mistress of all northern Tuscany. ♦Siena.♦ To the south the commonwealth of Siena also formed a large dominion. ♦Rule of the Medici. 1434-1494. 1512-1527.♦ In Florence the rule of the Medici grew step by step into a hereditary tyranny; but it was an intermittent tyranny, one which was supported only by foreign force, and which was overturned whenever Florence had strength to act for herself. ♦Alexander, Duke of Florence, 1530.♦ It was only after her last overthrow by the combined powers of Pope and Cæsar that she became, under Alexander, the first duke of the house of Medici, an acknowledged principality. ♦Cosmo annexes Siena, 1557. Elba, &c.♦ Cosmo the First, the second duke, annexed Siena, and all the territory of that commonwealth, except the lands known as Stati degli Presidi, that is the isle of Elba and some points on the coast. These became parts of the kingdom of Naples; that is, at that time, parts of the dominion of Spain. The state thus formed by Cosmo was one of the most considerable in Italy, taking in the whole of Tuscany except the territory of Lucca and the lands which became Spanish. ♦Cosmo Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1567.♦ Its ruler presently exchanged by papal authority the title of Duke of Florence for that of Grand Duke of Tuscany.

§ 4. The Later Geography of Italy.

♦Abeyance of the kingdom of Italy, 1530-1805.♦

Under Charles the Fifth it might have seemed that both the Roman Empire and the kingdom of Italy had come to life again. A prince who wore both crowns was practically master of Italy. But though the power of the Emperor was restored, the power of the Empire was not. In truth we may look on all notion of a kingdom of Italy in the elder sense as having passed away with the coronation of Charles himself. The thing had passed away long before; after the pageant at Bologna the name was not heard for more than two centuries and a half. ♦Italy a geographical expression.♦ Italy became truly a ‘geographical expression;’ the land consisted of a number of principalities and a few commonwealths, all nominally independent, some more or less practically so, but the more part of which were under foreign influence, and some of them were actually ruled by foreign princes. ♦Changes among the Italian states.♦ The states of Italy were united, divided, handed over from one ruler to another, according to the fluctuations of war and diplomacy, without any regard either to the will of the inhabitants or to the authority of any central power. A practically dominant power there was during the greater part of this period; but it was not the power of even a nominal King of Italy. For a long time that dominant power was held by the House of Austria in its two branches. The supremacy of Charles in Italy passed, not to his Imperial brother, but to his Spanish son. ♦Dominion of Spain, 1555-1701;♦ Then followed the long dominion of the Spanish branch of the Austrian house; then came the less thorough dominion of the German branch. ♦of Austria, 1713-1793.♦ This last was a dominion strictly of the House of Austria as such, not of the Empire or of either of the Imperial kingdoms. And now that the name of Italy means merely a certain surface on the map, we must take some notice, so far as they regard Italian history, at once of Savoy at one end and of the Sicilian kingdoms at the other. From this time both of them have a more direct bearing on Italian history.

♦Massing of Italy into larger states.♦

By the time of the coronation of Charles the Fifth, or at least within the generation which could remember his coronation, the greater part of Italy had been massed into a few states, which, as compared with the earlier state of things, were of considerable size. ♦Monaco♦ A few smaller principalities and lordships still kept their place, of which one of the smallest, that of Monaco in the extreme south-west, has lived on to our own time. ♦San Marino♦ So has the small commonwealth of San Marino, surrounded, first by the dominions of the Popes and now by the modern kingdom. But such states as these were mere survivals. ♦Dominion of Venice on the mainland, 1406-1797.♦ In the north-east, Venice kept her power on the mainland untouched, from the recovery of her dominions after the league of Cambray down to her final fall. ♦She loses her outlying Italian possessions, 1530.♦ By the treaty of Bologna she lost Ravenna; she lost too the towns of Brindisi and Monopoli which she had gained during the wars of Naples; but her continuous dominion, both properly Venetian and Lombard, remained. ♦Duchy of Milan: Spanish, 1540-1706; Austrian, 1706-1796.♦ The duchy of Milan to the west of her was held in succession by the two branches of the House of Austria, first the Spanish and then the German. ♦Advance of Savoy towards Milan.♦ But the duchy, as an Austrian possession, was being constantly cut short towards the west by the growing power of Savoy. For a while the Milanese and Savoyard states were conterminous only during a small part of their frontier. ♦Montferrat.♦ The marquisate of Montferrat, as long as it remained a separate principality, lay between the southern parts of the two states. On the failure of the old line of marquesses, Montferrat was disputed between the Dukes of Savoy and Mantua. ♦United to Mantua 1536, but claimed by Savoy, 1613-1631.♦ Adjudged to Mantua, and raised into a duchy by Imperial authority, it was still claimed, and partly conquered by, Savoy. ♦Mantua forfeited to the Empire, and Montferrat joined to Savoy, 1708-1713.♦ At last, by one of the last exercises of Imperial authority in Italy, the duchy of Mantua itself was held to be forfeited to the Empire; that is, it became an Austrian possession. At the same time the Imperial authority confirmed Montferrat to Savoy. The Austrian dominions in Italy were thus extended to the south-east by the accession of the Mantuan territory; but the whole western frontier of the Milanese now lay open to Savoyard advance. ♦First dismemberment of Milan in favour of Savoy, 1713.♦ The same treaties which confirmed Montferrat to Savoy and Milan to Austria also dismembered Milan in favour of Savoy. A corner of the duchy to the south-west, Alessandria and the neighbouring districts, were now given to Savoy; the Peace of Vienna further cut off Novara to the north and Tortona to the south. ♦Further cessions, 1738.♦ The next peace, that of Aix-la-Chapelle, gave up all west of the Ticino, which river became a permanent frontier.

♦Parma and Piacenza given to the Spanish Bourbons, 1731-1749.♦

Among the other states, the duchy of Parma and Piacenza was, on the extinction of the house of Farnese, handed over to princes of the Spanish branch of the Bourbons. ♦Ferrara confiscated to the Popes, 1598.♦ Modena and Ferrara remained united, till Ferrara was annexed as an escheated fief to the dominions of its spiritual overlord. ♦1718.♦ But the house of Este still reigned over Modena with Reggio and Mirandola, while its dominions were extended to the sea by the addition of Massa and other small possessions between Lucca and Genoa. ♦1771-1803.♦ The duchy in the end passed by female succession to the House of Austria. ♦Corsica ceded to France, 1768.♦ Genoa and Lucca remained aristocratic commonwealths; but Genoa lost its island possession of Corsica, which passed to France. ♦Extinction of the Medici, 1737. Francis of Lorraine Grand Duke of Tuscany.♦ The Grand Duchy of Tuscany remained in the house of Medici, till it was assigned to Duke Francis of Lorraine, afterwards the Emperor Francis the First, and after that it remained in the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. ♦Urbino annexed by the Popes, 1631.♦ The States of the Church, after the annexation of Ferrara, were in the next century further enlarged by the annexation of the duchy of Urbino.

♦1530-1797. Comparatively little geographical change.♦

Thus, except on the frontier of Piedmont and Milan, the whole time from Charles the Fifth to the French Revolution was, within the old kingdom of Italy, much less remarkable for changes in the geographical frontiers of the several states than for the way in which they are passed to and fro from one master to another. ♦Kingdom of the Two Sicilies♦ This is yet more remarkable, if we look to the southern part of the peninsula, and to the two great islands which in modern geography we have learned to look on as attached to Italy. ♦The Norman kingdom of Sicily.♦ The Norman kingdom which, by steps which will be told elsewhere, grew up to the south of the Imperial Kingdom of Italy, has hardly ever changed its boundaries, except by the various separations and unions of the insular and the continental kingdom. ♦Benevento.♦ Even the outlying papal possession of Benevento after each war went back to its ecclesiastical master. But the shiftings, divisions, and reunions of the Two Sicilies and of the island of Sardinia have been endless. ♦Charles of Anjou, 1265.♦ The Sicilian kingdom of the Norman and Swabian kings, containing both the island and the provinces on the mainland, passed unchanged to Charles of Anjou. ♦Revolt of the island of Sicily, 1282. The two kingdoms.♦ The revolt of the island split the kingdom into two, one insular, one continental, each of which called itself the Kingdom of Sicily, though the continental realm was more commonly known as the Kingdom of Naples. The wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries caused endless changes of dynasty in the continental kingdom, but no changes of frontier. ♦Union of Aragon, Sardinia, and continental Sicily under Alfonso, 1442.♦ Under the famous Alfonso in the fifteenth century, Aragon, Sardinia, and the continental Sicily were three kingdoms under one sovereign, while the insular Sicily was ruled by another branch of the same house. ♦Aragonese kings of the island, 1296-1442. 1458-1701.♦ Then continental Sicily passed to an illegitimate branch of the House of Aragon, while Sardinia and insular Sicily were held by the legitimate branch. ♦Wars beginning with Charles the Eighth, 1494-1528. Spanish, 1556-1701.♦ The French invasion under Charles the Eighth and the long wars that followed, the conquests, the restorations, the schemes of division, all ended in the union of both the Sicilian kingdoms, now known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, along with Sardinia, as part of the great Spanish monarchy. ♦1554-1555.♦ A momentary separation of the insular kingdom, in order to give the husband of Mary of England royal rank while his father yet reigned, is important only as the first formal use of the title of King of Naples. ♦Sardinia and Naples Austrian. Duke of Savoy king of Sicily, 1713.♦ In the division of the Spanish monarchy, Sardinia and Naples fell to the lot of the Austrian House, while Sicily was given to the Duke of Savoy, who thus gained substantial kingly rank. ♦Exchange of Sicily and Sardinia, 1718.♦ Presently the kings of the two island kingdoms made an exchange; Sardinia passed to Savoy, and the Emperor Charles the Sixth ruled, like Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, over both Sicilies. ♦The Spanish Bourbons, 1735-1806. 1817-1860.♦ Lastly, the kingdom was handed over from an Austrian to a new Spanish master, the first of the line of Neapolitan Bourbons. Thus, at the end of the last century, the Two Sicilies formed a distinct and united kingdom, while Sardinia formed the outlying realm of the Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont. His kingdom was of far less value than his principality or his duchy. ♦Use of the name Sardinia.♦ But, as Sardinia gave their common sovereign his highest title, the Sardinian name often came in common speech to be extended to the continental dominions of its king.

♦Time of the Revolution, 1797-1814.♦

This period, a period of change, but of comparatively slight geographical change, was followed by a time when, in Italy as in Germany, boundaries were changed, new names were invented or forgotten names revived, when old land-marks were rooted up, and thrones were set up and cast down, with a speed which baffles the chronicler. The first strictly geographical change which was wrought in Italy by the revolutionary wars was a characteristic one. ♦Cispadane Republic, 1796.♦ A Cispadane Republic, the first of a number of momentary commonwealths bearing names dug up from the recesses of bygone times, took in the duchy of Modena and the Papal Legations of Romagna. Without exactly following the same boundaries, it answered roughly to the old Exarchate. ♦Transpadane Republic, 1797.♦ Then the French victories over Austria caused the Austrian duchies of Milan and Mantua to become a Transpadane Republic. ♦Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797. Cisalpine Republic.♦ Then Venice was wiped out at Campo Formio, and her Lombard possessions were joined together with the two newly made commonwealths, to form a Cisalpine Republic. But the same treaty wrought another change which was more distinctly geographical. ♦Venice surrendered to Austria.♦ Venice and the eastern part of her possessions on the mainland, the old Venetia, the Lombard Austria, was now handed over to the modern state which bore the latter name. This change may be looked on as distinctly cutting short the boundaries of Italy. The duchy of Milan in Austrian hands had been an outlying part of the Austrian dominions; but Venetia marches on the older territory of the Austrian house, and was thus more completely severed from Italy. The whole north of the Hadriatic coast thus became Austrian in the modern sense. One Italian commonwealth—for Venice had long counted as Italian—was thus wiped out, and handed over to a foreign king. But elsewhere, at this stage of revolutionary progress, the fashion ran in favour of the creation of local commonwealths. ♦Ligurian Republic, 1797. Parthenopæan Republic. Tiberine Republic, 1798-1801.♦ The dominions of Genoa became a Ligurian Republic; Naples became a Parthenopæan Republic; Rome herself exchanged for a moment the memories of kings, consuls, emperors, and pontiffs to become the head of a Tiberine Republic. ♦Piedmont joined to France, 1798-1800.♦ Piedmont was overwhelmed; the greater part was incorporated with France. Some small parts were added to the neighbouring republics, and the king of Sardinia withdrew to his island kingdom. Amid this crowd of new-fangled states and new-fangled names, ancient San Marino still lived on.

Thus far revolutionary Italy followed the example of revolutionary France, and the new states were all at least nominal commonwealths. In the next stage, when France came under the rule of a single man, above all when that single ruler took on him the Imperial title, the tide turned in favour of monarchy. In Rome and Naples it had already turned so in another way. ♦Restoration of the Pope and the King of the Two Sicilies, 1801.♦ By help of the Czar and the Sultan, the new republics vanished, and the old rulers, Pope and King, came back again. And now France herself began to create kingdoms instead of commonwealths. ♦Kingdom of Etruria, 1801-1808.♦ Parma was annexed to France, and its Duke was sent to rule in Tuscany by the title of King of Etruria. Presently Italy herself gave her name to a kingdom. ♦Kingdom of Italy, 1805-1814.♦ The Cisalpine republic, further enlarged by Venice and the other territory ceded to Austria at Campo Formio, enlarged also by the Valtellina and the former bishopric of Trent at one end and by the march of Ancona at the other, became the Kingdom of Italy. ♦Buonaparte king of Italy.♦ Its King, the first since Charles the Fifth who had worn the Italian crown, was no other than the new ruler of France, the self-styled ‘Emperor.’ But, in Buonaparte’s later distributions of Italian territory, it was not his Italian kingdom, but his French ‘empire’ whose frontiers were extended. ♦Annexation of Liguria, 1805; of Etruria, 1808. Grand duchy of Lucca.♦ The Ligurian Republic was annexed; so before long was the new kingdom of Etruria; Lucca meanwhile was made into a grand duchy for the conqueror’s sister. ♦Incorporation of Rome and France, 1809.♦ Lastly, Rome itself, with what was left of the papal dominions, was also incorporated with the French dominion. The work alike of Cæsar and of Charles was wiped out from the Eternal City. The Empire of the Gauls, which Civilis had dreamed of more than seventeen centuries before, had come at last.

The fate of the remainder of the peninsula had been already sealed before Rome became French. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies fell asunder. The Bourbon king kept his island, as the Savoyard king kept his. ♦Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, 1806. 1809. Stati degli Presidi.♦ The continental kingdom passed, as a Kingdom of Naples, first to Joseph Buonaparte, and then to Joachim Murat. ♦Benevento.♦ But the outlying Tuscan possessions of the Sicilian crown had already passed to France, and Benevento, the outlying papal possession in the heart of the kingdom, became a separate principality.

♦Italy under French dominion.♦

Thus all Italy—unless we count the island kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily as parts of Italy—was brought under French dominion in one form or another. But of that dominion there were three varieties. ♦Part incorporated with France.♦ The whole western part of the land, from Aosta to Tarracina—unless it is worth while to except the new Lucchese duchy—was formally incorporated with France. ♦Extent of the kingdom of Italy.♦ The north-eastern side, from Bözen to Ascoli, formed a Kingdom of Italy, distinct from France, but held by the same sovereign. And this Kingdom of Italy was further increased to the north by part of those Italian lands which had become Swiss and German. ♦Kingdom of Naples.♦ Southern Italy, the Kingdom of Naples, remained in form an independent kingdom; but it was held by princes who could not be looked on as anything but the humble vassals of their mighty kinsman. Never had Italy been brought more completely under foreign dominion. ♦Revival of the Italian name.♦ Still, in a part at least of the land, the name of Italy, and the shadow of a Kingdom of Italy, had been revived. ♦Its effects.♦ And, as names and shadows are not without influence in human affairs, the mere existence of an Italian state, called by the Italian name, did something. The creation of a sham Italy was no unimportant step towards the creation of a real one.

♦Settlement of, 1814-1815.♦

The settlement of Italy after the fall of Buonaparte was far more strictly a return to the old state of things than the contemporary settlement of Germany. Italy remained a geographical expression. Its states were, as before, independent of one another. ♦No tie between the Italian states.♦ They were practically dependent on a foreign power: but they were in no way bound together, even by the laxest federal tie. ♦The princes restored, but not the commonwealths.♦ The main principle of settlement was that the princes who had lost their dominions should be restored, but that the commonwealths which had been overthrown should not be restored. Only harmless San Marino was allowed to live on. Venice, Lucca, and Genoa remained possessions of princes. ♦Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice.♦ The sovereign of Hungary and Austria, now calling himself ‘Emperor’ of his archduchy, carved out for himself an Italian kingdom which bore the name of the Kingdom of Lombardy and Venice. On the strength of this, the Austrian, like his French predecessor, took upon him to wear the Italian crown. ♦Its extent.♦ The new kingdom consisted of the former Italian possessions of Austria, the duchies of Milan and Mantua, enlarged by the former possessions of Venice, which had become Austrian at Campoformio. The old boundary between Germany and Italy was restored. Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, were again severed from Italy. They remained possessions of the same prince as Milan and Venice, but they formed no part of his Lombardo-Venetian kingdom. On another frontier, where restoration would have had to be made to a commonwealth, the arrangements were less conservative, and the Valtellina remained part of the new kingdom. The Ticino formed, as before, the boundary towards Piedmont. ♦Genoa annexed to Piedmont.♦ The King of Sardinia came again into possession of this last country, enlarged by the former dominions of Genoa. ♦Monaco.♦ This gave him the whole Ligurian seaboard, except where the little principality of Monaco still went on. ♦Tuscany, Parma, Modena, Lucca.♦ Parma, Modena, and Tuscany again became separate duchies. Lucca remained a duchy alongside of them. ♦Lucca annexed to Tuscany.♦ The family arrangements by which these states were handed about to this and that widow do not concern geography; all that need be marked is that, by virtue of one of these compacts, Lucca was in the end added to Tuscany. That grand-duchy was further increased by the addition of the former outlying possessions of the Sicilian crown, including Elba, the island which for a moment was an Empire. ♦The Papal states.♦ The Pope came back to all his old Italian possessions, outlying Benevento included. ♦The Two Sicilies.♦ The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was formed again by the restoration of the Kingdom of Naples to the Bourbon king. Thus was formed the Italy of 1815, an Italy which, save in the sweeping away of its commonwealths, and the consequent extension of Sardinian and Austrian territory, differed geographically but little from the Italy of 1748. But in 1815 there were hopes which had had no being in 1748. Italy was divided on the map; but she had made up her mind to be one.

♦The union of Italy comes from Piedmont.♦

The union of Italy was at last to come from one of those corners which in earlier history we have looked on as being hardly Italian at all. It was not Milan or Florence or Rome which was to grow into the new Italy. That function was reserved for a princely house whose beginnings had been Burgundian rather than Italian, whose chief territories had long lain on the Burgundian side of the Alps, but which had gradually put on an Italian character, and which had now become the one national Italian dynasty. The Italian possessions of the Savoyard house, Piedmont, Genoa, and the island of Sardinia, now formed one of the chief Italian states, and the only one whose rule, if still despotic, was not foreign. Savoy, by ceasing to be Savoy, was to become Italy. ♦Movements of 1848.♦ The movements of 1848 in Italy, like those in Germany, led to no lasting changes on the map: but they do so far affect geography that new states were actually founded, if only for a moment. ♦Momentary commonwealths.♦ Rome, Venice, Milan, were actually for a while republics, and the Two Sicilies were for a while separated. In the next year all came back as before. The next lasting change on the map was that which at last restored a real Kingdom of Italy. ♦Campaign of 1859.♦ The joint campaign of France and Sardinia won Lombardy for the Sardinian kingdom. Lombardy was now defined as that part of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom which lay west of the Mincio, except that Mantua was left out. She was left to Austria. A French scheme for an Italian confederation came to nothing. ♦Union of the smaller states, 1860.♦ Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna voted their own annexation to Piedmont. The Two Sicilies were won by Garibaldi, and the kingly title of Sardinia was merged in that of the restored Kingdom of Italy. ♦Addition of the Sicilies.♦ This new Italian kingdom was, by the addition of the Sicilies, extended over lands which had never been part of the elder Italian kingdom. But Venetia was still cut off; the Pope kept the lands on each side of Rome, the so-called Patrimony and the Campagna. ♦Cession of Savoy and Nizza to France.♦ But France annexed the lands, strictly Burgundian rather than Italian, of Savoy and Nizza. The Italian kingdom was thus again called into being; but it had not yet come to perfection. Italy had ceased to be a geographical expression; but the Italian frontier still presented some geographical anomalies.

♦Recovery of Venetia, 1866; of Rome, 1870.♦

The war between Prussia and Austria gave Venetia to Italy; the war between Germany and France allowed Italy to recover Rome. ♦Part of the old kingdom not yet recovered.♦ The two great gaps in her frontier were thus made good; but, to say nothing of the annexations made by France, a large Italian-speaking population, lying within the bounds of the old Italian kingdom, still remains outside its modern revival. Trent, Aquileia, Trieste, Istria, are still parts, not of an Italian kingdom, not of a German kingdom, confederation, or empire, but of an Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Otherwise the Italian kingdom has formed itself, and it has taken its place among the great powers of Europe. Yet the whole peninsula does not form part of the Italian kingdom. ♦San Marino remains free.♦ Surrounded on every side by that kingdom, the commonwealth of San Marino, like Rhodes or Byzantium under the early Cæsars, still keeps its ancient freedom.

§ 5. The Kingdom of Burgundy.

♦Union of Burgundy with Germany and Italy, 1032.♦

The Burgundian Kingdom, which was united with those of Germany and Italy after the death of its last separate king Rudolf the Third, has had a fate unlike that of any other part of Europe. ♦Dying out of the kingdom.♦ Its memory, as a separate state, has gradually died out. ♦Chiefly annexed by France;♦ The greater part of its territory has been swallowed up bit by bit by a neighbouring power, and the small part which has escaped that fate has long lost all trace of its original name or its original political relations. By a long series of annexations, spreading over more than five hundred years, the greater part of the kingdom has gradually been incorporated with France. ♦part Italian; part Swiss.♦ Of what remains, a small corner forms part of the modern kingdom of Italy, while the rest still keeps its independence in the form of the commonwealths which make up the western cantons of Switzerland. ♦Burgundy represented by Switzerland.♦ These cantons, in fact, are the truest modern representatives of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦Neutrality of Switzerland and Belgium.♦ And it is on the Confederation of which they form a part, interposed as it is between France, Italy, the new German Empire, and the modern Austrian monarchy, as a central state with a guaranteed neutrality, that some trace of the old function of Burgundy, as the middle kingdom, is thrown. This function it shares with the Lotharingian lands at the other end of the Empire, which now form part of the equally neutral kingdom of Belgium, lands which, oddly enough, themselves became Burgundian in another sense.

The Burgundian Kingdom, lying between the Alps, the Saône and the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, might be thought to have a fair natural boundary. ♦Boundaries of the kingdom.♦ And, while it kept any shadow of separate being, its boundaries did not greatly change. ♦Fluctuation of its frontier.♦ They were however somewhat fluctuating on the side of the Western kingdom, being sometimes bounded by the Rhone and sometimes reaching to the line of hills to the west of it. They were also, as we have seen, somewhat fluctuating on the side of Germany. ♦Chiefly Romance speaking.♦ At this end the kingdom took in some German-speaking districts; otherwise the language was Romance, including several dialects of the tongue of Oc.

♦County Palatine. Lesser Burgundy.♦

The northern part of the kingdom, answering to the former Transjurane kingdom—the Regnum Jurense—formed two chief states, the County Palatine of Burgundy—the modern Franche Comté—and the Lesser Burgundy, roughly taking in western Switzerland and northern Savoy. ♦Provence.♦ On the Mediterranean lay the great county of Provence, with a number of smaller counties lying between it and the two northern principalities. ♦The Free Cities.♦ But the great characteristic of the land was that, next to Italy, no part of Europe contained so many considerable cities lying near together. Many of these at different times strove more or less successfully after a republican independence, and a few have kept it to our own day.

♦Little real unity in the kingdom.♦

But, though the Burgundian kingdom might be thought to have, on three sides at least, a good natural frontier, it had but little real unity. The northern part naturally clave to its connexion with the Empire much longer than the southern. ♦The Burgundian Palatinate.♦ The County Palatine of Burgundy often passed from one dynasty to another, and it is remarkable for the number of times that it was held as a separate state by several of the great princes of Europe. ♦Held by the Emperor Frederick, 1156-1189; by Philip of France, 1315-1330.♦ It was held by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in right of his wife; the marriage of one of his female descendants carried it to Philip the Fifth of France. ♦United with the French Duchy.♦ Then it became united with the French duchy of Burgundy under the dukes of the House of Valois. ♦1477. Held by the House of Austria, Charles the Fifth Count of Burgundy.♦ Saving a momentary French occupation after the death of Charles the Bold, it remained with them and their Austrian and Spanish representatives. Among these it had a second Imperial Count in the person of Charles the Fifth. ♦Annexed to France, 1674.♦ But, through all these changes of dynasty, it remained an acknowledged fief of the Empire, till its annexation to France under Lewis the Fourteenth. ♦Dole the capital of the county.♦ The capital of this county, it must be remembered, was Dole. ♦Besançon a Free Imperial city. 1189-1651.♦ The ecclesiastical metropolis of Besançon, though surrounded by the county, remained a free city of the Empire from the days of Frederick Barbarossa to those of Ferdinand the Third. ♦United to France.♦ It was then merged in the county, and along with the county it passed to France. ♦Montbeilliard.♦ And it should be noticed that a small Burgundian land in this quarter, the county of Montbeilliard or Mümpelgard, first as a separate state, then in union with the duchy of Württemberg, kept its allegiance to the Empire till the wars of the French Revolution, when it was annexed to France and was never restored.

♦The Lesser Burgundy.♦

While the Burgundian Palatinate thus kept its history as an unit in European geography, the Lesser Burgundy to the south-west of it had a different history. The geography here gets somewhat confused through the fact that this Lesser Burgundy, which in the twelfth century passed under the power of the Dukes of Zähringen in Swabia as Rectors, took in some districts which were not parts of the Burgundian kingdom. ♦The eastern part German.♦ The eastern part of the kingdom itself was of German speech, and its frontier towards the German duchy of Alemannia or Swabia was somewhat fluctuating. The Aar may be taken as the boundary of the kingdom, while the Lesser Burgundy, as an administrative division, stretched somewhat further to the East. ♦Cities of the Lesser Burgundy.♦ Thus Basel, as well the foundations of the House of Zähringen at Bern and Freiburg, stood on strictly Burgundian ground, while the city of Luzern and the land of Unterwalden come under the head of the Lesser Burgundy, without forming part of the Burgundian kingdom. These lands long kept up their connexion with the Empire, though the Lesser Burgundy did not long remain as a separate unit. ♦Dukes of Zähringen. End of their house, 1218.♦ When the House of Zähringen came to an end, the country began to split up into small principalities and free cities which gradually grew into independent commonwealths. ♦Break-up of the duchy. Savoyard territory.♦ The counts of Savoy, of whom more presently, acquired a large territory on both sides of the Lake of Geneva. ♦Bishops, Counts, and Free Cities.♦ Other considerable princes were the bishops of Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, and Sitten, the counts of Geneva, Kyburg, Gruyères, and Neufchâtel. ♦The Free Lands.♦ Basel, Solothurn, and Bern were Imperial cities. The complicated relations between the Bishops and the city of Geneva hindered that city from having a strict right to that title. In Unterwalden and in Wallis, notwithstanding the possessions and claims of various spiritual and temporal lords, the most marked feature was the retention of the old rural independence. ♦The Old League of High Germany.♦ Of the cities in this region, Luzern, Bern, Freiburg, Solothurn, and Basel, all gradually became members of the Old League of High Germany, the ground-work of the modern Swiss Confederation. ♦Conquests of Bern and Freiburg from Savoy, 1536.♦ The Savoyard lands north of the lake were conquered by Bern and Freiburg in the sixteenth century, a conquest which also secured the independence of Geneva. ♦The Burgundian cantons of Switzerland.♦ All these lands, after going through the intermediate stage of allies or subjects of some or other of the confederate cantons, have in modern times become independent cantons themselves. This process of annexation and liberation will be traced more fully when we come to the history of the Swiss Confederation.

To the south of this group of states, and partly intermingled with them, lay another group, lying partly within the Cisjurane and partly within the Transjurane kingdom, which gradually grew into a great power. ♦Growth of Savoy.♦ These were the states which were united step by step under the Counts of Maurienne, afterwards Counts of Savoy. ♦Burgundian possession of its county.♦ When their dominions were at their greatest extent, they held south of the Lake of Geneva, besides Maurienne and Savoy strictly so called, the districts of Aosta, Tarantaise, the Genevois, Chablais, and Faucigny, together with Vaud and Gex north of the lake. Thus grew up the power of Savoy, which has already been noticed in its purely Italian aspect, but which must receive fuller separate treatment in a section of its own.

♦States between the Palatinate and the Mediterranean.♦

The remainder of the Burgundian Kingdom consisted of a number of small states stretching from the southern boundary of the Burgundian county to the Mediterranean. ♦Bresse and Bugey become Savoyard. Bugey, 1137-1344; Bresse, 1272-1402.♦ North of the Rhone lay the districts of Bresse and Bugey, which passed at various times to the House of Savoy. ♦Lyons, Vienne, Orange, &c. Provence.♦ Southwards on the Rhone lay a number of small states, among which the most important in history are the archbishopric, the county, and the free city of Lyons, the county or Dauphiny of Vienne and the city of Vienne, the county or principality of Orange, the city of Avignon, the county of Venaissin, the free city of Arles, the capital of the kingdom, the free city of Massalia or Marseilles, the county of Nizza or Nice, and the great county or marquisate of Provence. In this last power lay the first element of danger, especially to the republican independence of the free cities. ♦Changes of dynasty. The Angevins, 1246.♦ After being held by separate princes of its own, as well as by the Aragonese kings, it passed by marriage into the hands of a French prince, Charles of Anjou, the conqueror of Sicily, and also the destroyer of the second freedom of Massalia. ♦Growing French connexion.♦ The possession of the greatest member of the kingdom by a French ruler, though it made no immediate change in the formal state of things, gave fresh strength to every tendency which tended to withdraw the Burgundian lands from their allegiance to the Empire and to bring them, first into connexion with France, and then into actual incorporation with the French kingdom.

♦Process of French annexation.♦

Step by step, though by a process which was spread over many centuries, all the principalities and commonwealths of the Burgundian kingdom, save the lands which have been Swiss and the single valley which is now Italian, have come into the hands of France. The tendency shows itself early. ♦Avignon first seized, 1226. Annexation of Lyons, 1310.♦ Avignon was seized for a moment during the Albigensian wars; but the permanent process of French annexation began when Philip the Fair took advantage of the disputes between the archbishops and the citizens of Lyons, to join that Imperial city to his dominions. The head of all the Gauls, the seat of the Primate of all the Gauls, thus passed into the hands of the new monarchy of Paris, the first-fruits of French aggrandizement at the cost of the Middle Kingdom. ♦Purchase of the Dauphiny of Vienne, 1343.♦ Later in the same century, the Dauphiny of Vienne was acquired by a bargain with its last independent prince. This land also passed, through the intermediate stage of an Imperial fief held by the heir-apparent of the French crown, into a mere province of France. ♦The city of Vienne annexed, 1448.♦ But the acquisition of the Dauphiny did not carry with it that of the city of Vienne, which escaped for more than a century. ♦Valence, 1446.♦ Between the acquisition of the Dauphiny and the acquisition of the city, the county of Valence was annexed to the Dauphiny. ♦Provence, 1481.♦ Later in the same century followed the great annexation of Provence itself. The rule of French princes in that county for two centuries had doubtless paved the way for this annexation. And the acquisition of Provence carried with it the acquisition of the cities of Arles and Marseilles, which the counts of Provence had deprived of their freedom. By this time the whole of the land between the Rhone and the sea had been swallowed up, save one state at the extreme south-east corner of the kingdom, and a group of small states which were now quite hemmed in by French territory. ♦Nizza passes to Savoy, 1388.♦ The first was the county of Nizza or Nice, which had passed away from Provence to Savoy before the French annexation of Provence. But by this time Savoy had become an Italian power, and Nizza was from henceforth looked on as Italian rather than Burgundian. Between Provence and the Dauphiny lay the city of Avignon, the county of Venaissin, and the principality of Orange. ♦Avignon and Venaissin become Papal, 1348. Annexed to France, 1791.♦ Avignon and Venaissin became papal possessions by purchase from the sovereign of Provence; and, though they were at last quite surrounded by French territory, they remained papal possessions till they were annexed in the course of the great Revolution. These outlying possessions of the Popes perhaps did somewhat towards preserving the independence of a more interesting fragment of the ancient kingdom. ♦Orange.♦ This was the Principality of Orange, which the neighbourhood of the Pope hindered from being altogether surrounded by French territory. This little state, whose name has become so much more famous than itself, passed through several dynasties, and for a long time it was regularly seized by France in the course of every war. ♦Its annexation to France, 1714-1771.♦ But it was as regularly restored to independence at every peace, and its final annexation did not happen till the eighteenth century. The acquisition of Orange, Avignon, and Venaissin, completed the process of French aggrandizement in the lands between the Rhone and the Var. The stages of the same process as applied to the Savoyard lands will be best told in another section.

♦Modern states which have split off from the three kingdoms.♦

We have thus traced the geographical history of the three Imperial kingdoms themselves. It now follows to trace in the like sort the origin and growth of certain of the modern powers of Europe which have grown out of one or more of those kingdoms. Certain parts of the German, Italian, and Burgundian kingdoms have split off from these kingdoms, so as to form new political units, distinct from any of them. Five states of no small importance in later European history have thus been formed. ♦Their character as middle states.♦ Most of them partake more or less of the character of middle states, interposed between France and one or more of the Imperial kingdoms. ♦Switzerland.♦ First, there is the Confederation of Switzerland, which arose by certain German districts and cities forming so close an union among themselves that their common allegiance to the Empire gradually died out. The Confederation grew into its present form by the addition to these German districts of certain Italian and Burgundian districts. ♦Savoy.♦ Secondly, there are, or rather were, the dominions of the Dukes of Savoy, formed by the union of various Italian and Burgundian districts. This however, as a middle power, has ceased to exist; nearly all its Burgundian possessions have been joined to France, while its Italian possessions have grown into a new Italy. ♦The Dukes of Burgundy.♦ Thirdly, there were the dominions of the Dukes of Burgundy, forming a middle power between France and Germany, and made up by the union of French and Imperial fiefs. ♦Represented by the kingdoms of the Low Countries.♦ These are represented on the modern maps by the kingdoms of the Netherlands and Belgium, the greater part of both of which belonged to the Burgundian dukes. Of these kingdoms much the greater part had split off from the old kingdom of Germany. Certain parts were once French fiefs, but had ceased to be so. ♦Recognized neutrality of Belgium, Switzerland, and once of part of Savoy.♦ The position of three out of these four states as middle powers, and their importance in that character, has been acknowledged even by modern diplomacy in the neutrality which is still guaranteed to Belgium and Switzerland, and which was formerly extended to certain districts of Savoy.

Of these four states, Switzerland, Savoy, and the duchy of Burgundy as represented by the two kingdoms of the Low Countries, some have been merged in other powers, and those which still remain count only among the secondary states of Europe. But a fifth power has also broken off from Germany which still ranks among the greatest in Europe. ♦The Austrian dominions.♦ This is the power which, starting from a small German mark on the Danube, has, by the gradual union of various lands, German and non-German, grown into something distinct from Germany, first under the name of the Austrian ‘Empire’ and more latterly under that of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. This power differs from the other states of which we have been just speaking, not only in its vastly greater extent, but also in its position. ♦Position of the Austrian dominion as a marchland.♦ It is a marchland, a middle kingdom, but in a different sense from Burgundy, Switzerland, Savoy, or Belgium. ♦Comparison with the western marchlands.♦ All these were marchlands between Christian states, between states all of which had formed part of the Carolingian Empire. All lie on the western side of the German and Italian kingdoms. Austria, on the other hand, as its name implies, arose on the eastern side of the German kingdom, as a mark against Turanian and heathen invaders. ♦Austria as the march against the Magyar.♦ The first mission of Austria was to guard Germany against the Magyar. When the Magyar was admitted into the fellowship of Europe and Christendom—when, after a while, his realm was united under a single sovereign with Austria—the same duty was continued in another form. ♦Austria and Hungary the mark of Christendom against the Turk.♦ The power formed by the union of Hungary and Austria was one of the chief among those which had to guard Christendom against the Turk. Its history therefore forms one of the connecting links between Eastern and Western Europe. In this chapter it will be dealt with chiefly on its Western side, with regard to its relations towards Germany and Italy. The Eastern aspect of the Austro-Hungarian power has more to do with the states which arose out of the break up of the Eastern Empire.

These states then, Switzerland, Savoy, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Netherlands, and Austria, form a proper addition to the sections given to the three Imperial kingdoms. I will now go on to deal with them in order.

§ 6. The Swiss Confederation.

♦The original Confederation practically German,♦

I have just spoken of the Swiss Confederation as being in its origin purely German. This statement is practically correct, as all the original cantons were German in speech and feeling, and the formal style of their union was the Old League of High Germany. But in strict geographical accuracy there was, as we have seen in the last section, a small Burgundian element in the Confederation, if not from the beginning, at least from its aggrandizement in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. ♦though part of it geographically Burgundian.♦ That is to say, part of the territory of the states which formed the old Confederation lay geographically within the kingdom of Burgundy, and a further part lay within the Lesser Burgundy of the Dukes of Zähringen. But, by the time when the history of the Confederation begins, the kingdom of Burgundy was pretty well forgotten, and the small German-speaking territory which it took in at its extreme north-east corner may be looked on as practically German ground. ♦All the old Cantons German in speech.♦ A more practical division than the old boundaries of the kingdoms is the boundary of the Teutonic and Romance speech; in this sense all the cantons of the old Confederation, except part of Freiburg, are German. ♦The later Romance Cantons.♦ The Romance cantons are those which were formed in modern times out of the allied and subject states. ♦Many popular errors.♦ It is specially needful to bear in mind, first, that, till the last years of the thirteenth century, not even the germ of modern Switzerland had appeared on the map of Europe; secondly, that the Confederation did not formally become an independent power till the seventeenth century; lastly, that, though the Swiss name had been in common use for ages, it did not become the formal style of the Confederation till the nineteenth century. Nothing in the whole study of historical geography is more necessary than to root out the notion that there has always been a country of Switzerland, as there has always been a country of Germany, Gaul, or Italy. ♦The Swiss do not represent the Helvetii.♦ And it is no less needful to root out the notion that the Swiss of the original cantons in any way represent the Helvetii of Cæsar. ♦Summary of Swiss history. A German League having become more united and independent than others, annexes Romance allies and subjects.♦ The points to be borne in mind are that the Swiss Confederation is simply one of many German Leagues, which was more lasting and became more closely united than other German Leagues—that it gradually split off from the German Kingdom—that in the course of this process, the League and its members obtained a large body of Italian and Burgundian allies and subjects—lastly, that these allies and subjects have in modern times been joined into one Federal body with the original German Confederates.

♦The Three Lands on the boundary of the three kingdoms.♦

The three Swabian lands which formed the kernel of the Old League lay at the point of union of the three Imperial kingdoms, parts of all of which were to become members of the Confederation in its later form. ♦First known document of union, 1291.♦ The first known document of confederation between the three lands dates from the last years of the thirteenth century. But that document is likely to have been rather the confirmation than the actual beginning of their union. They had for their neighbours several ecclesiastical and temporal lords, some other Imperial lands and towns, and far greater than all, the Counts of the house of Kyburg and Habsburg, who had lately grown into the more dangerous character of Dukes of Austria. ♦Growth of the League.♦ The Confederation grew for a while by the admission of neighbouring lands and cities as members of a free German Confederation, owning no superior but the Emperor. ♦Luzern, 1332.♦ First of all, the city of Luzern joined the League. ♦Zürich, 1351.♦ Then came the Imperial city of Zürich, which had already begun to form a little dominion in the adjoining lands. ♦Glarus and Zug, 1352.♦ Then came the land of Glarus and the town of Zug with its small territory. ♦Bern, 1353.♦ And lastly came the great city of Bern, which had already won a dominion over a considerable body of detached and outlying allies and subjects. ♦The Eight Ancient Cantons.♦ These confederate lands and towns formed the Eight Ancient Cantons. Their close alliance with each other helped the growth of each canton separately, as well as that of the League as a whole. ♦Their growth.♦ Those cantons whose geographical position allowed them to do so, were thus able to extend their power, in the form of various shades of dominion and alliance, over the smaller lands and towns in their neighbourhood. These lesser changes and annexations cannot all be recorded here; but it must be carefully borne in mind that the process was constantly going on. ♦Dominion of Zürich and Bern.♦ Zürich, and yet more Bern, each formed, after the manner of an ancient Greek city, what in ancient Greece would have passed for an empire. ♦Conquests from Austria, 1415-1460.♦ In the fifteenth century, large conquests were made at the expense of the House of Austria, of which the earlier ones were made by direct Imperial sanction. The Confederation, or some or other of its members, had now extended its territory to the Rhine and the Lake of Constanz. ♦Aargau, Thurgau, &c.♦ The lands thus won, Aargau, Thurgau, and some other districts, were held as subject territories in the hands of some or other of the Confederate states.

♦No new canton formed for a long time.♦

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.