Dr. Fleming on the centralization of power in Europe

Dr. Fleming is leading a discussion of Alexis de Toqueville's L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution:
L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution
L’Ancien Régime Book I
L’Ancien Régime Book II

He writes this in response to a question:

I think we can distinguish three phases or aspects of centralization: 1) an inevitable and probably necessary process of expansion and state-building in response to internal and external threats. If Philip Augustus had not expanded his realm and begun to centralize control, he could never have fought off English aggression, and his successors would have lost France permanently to predators like Edward III and Henry V. The second phase was a non-ideological campaign to turn France into the Great Nation, able to beat back challenges both from England and the Empire. If phase I organized and centralized feudal France, phase II subordinated and destroyed feudal France. Phase III was the egalitarian ideological nationalism of the Jacobins, transmitted by Napoleon, who disciplined it, to subsequent generations. While it is true that we can see how each phase leads to the next, I think it a mistake to attribute motives across the ages or even assign guilt. If Philip Augustus, his grandfather Louis the Fat, and his grandson Saint Louis. had not strengthened France, it would never have survived.