ABSTRACT
Two opposed areal forces have been constantly at work in shaping the French state, and their concurrence is the key to its political geography. As Roman territory Gaul continued to be administered in three units, with varying boundaries but with unchanging cores. Charlemagne, a Frankish ruler, welded the units together, along with much German and Italian territory. In the territorial and national expansion there was no sharp break in principle from the simple procedure in the darkest ages, of joining three or four manors into a single unit. To bring under the aegis of the Ile de France the far spread territories of Aquitaine was a task more slowly accomplished. The separate and often hostile feudal units in the Middle Loire Basin had first to be linked permanently to France. Incorporation of the Midi within the French state means much more than conquest of territory and the elimination of dangerous rival overlords.
