[A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot]@TWC D-Link book
A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times

CHAPTER XVIII
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The victory of Bouvines marked the commencement of the time at which men might speak, and indeed did speak, by one single name, of the French.

The nation in France and the kingship in France on that day rose out of and above the feudal system.
Philip Augustus was about the same time apprised of his son Louis's success on the banks of the Loire.

The incapacity and swaggering insolence of King John had made all his Poitevine allies disgusted with him; he had been obliged to abandon his attack upon the King of France in the provinces, and the insurrection, growing daily more serious, of the English barons and clergy for the purpose of obtaining Magna Charta was preparing for him other reverses.

He had ceased to be a dangerous rival to Philip.
No period has had better reason than our own to know how successes and conquests can intoxicate warlike kings; but Philip, whose valor, on occasion, was second to none, had no actual inclination towards war or towards conquest for the sole pleasure of extending his dominion.
"Liking better, according to his custom," says William the Breton, "to conquer by peace than by war," he hasted to put an end by treaties, truces, or contracts to his quarrels with King John, the Count of Flanders, and the principal lords made prisoners at Bouvines; discretion, in his case, was proof against the temptations of circumstances, or the promptings of passion, and he took care not to overtly compromise his power, his responsibility, and the honor of his name by enterprises which did not naturally come in his way, or which he considered without chances of success.

Whilst still a youth, he had given, in 1191, a sure proof of that self-command which is so rare amongst ambitious princes by withdrawing from the crusade in which he had been engaged with Richard Coeur de Lion; and it was still more apparent in two great events at the latter end of his reign--the crusade against the Albigensians and his son Louis's expedition in England, the crown of which had, in 1215, been offered to him by the barons at war with King John in defence of Magna Charta.
The organization of the kingdom, the nation, and the kingship in France was not the only great event and the only great achievement of that epoch.


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