
Under Louis VII, son of Louis VI (1137-1180), the royalty still makes some progress, especially thanks to Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis, which controls during the absences of the king.
Louis VII fact initially a short war with the count de Champagne, to force it with obedience.
Carried by anger, it sets fire to the town of Vitry (1142), out of Champagne, then tormented by the remorses and which exhorted by Bernard saint, it undertakes the voyage of Ground-Holy for expier his fault (1147); but the second crusade, to which it takes share with the Emperor of Germany Conrad, has few results: the German army and a part of the French Army is successively destroyed in Asia Mineure, and Louis VII can only visit Jerusalem.
On its return of Palestine (1149), he divorces his wife Éléonore de Guyenne; but this one remarie soon with Henri II Plantagenêt, count d' Anjou, duke of Normandy and soon king d' Angleterre; fields of Éléonore, i.e.
Guyenne, Gascogne, the Angoumois, Saintonge and Poitou pass thus to England instead of returning to France.
Henri II, who has all the Western part of the kingdom, turns himself against the king of France, his suzerain; but Louis VII defends himself thanks to the force of the feudal bond and with alliance with the Church.
Henri II, on the contrary, sees his efforts paralysed by his fight with the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, and by the continual revolts of his four sons.
