EXTENSION OF FRENCH FRONTIERS
Louis XIV was not a soldier himself. He never appeared in military
uniform or rode at the head of his troops. What he lacked, however, in
personal genius as a great military commander, he compensated for in a
genuine fondness for war and in remarkable personal gifts of diplomacy.
He was one of the greatest diplomats of his age, and, as we have seen,
he possessed large loyal armies and able generals that he could employ
in prosecuting the traditional foreign policy of France.
[Sidenote: Traditional Foreign Policy of France]
This foreign policy, which had been pursued by Francis I, Henry II,
Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin, had for its goal the humiliation of
the powerful Habsburgs, whether of Austria or of Spain. Although France
had gained materially at their expense in the treaties of Westphalia
and of the Pyrenees, much remained to be done by Louis XIV. When the
Grand Monarch assumed direct control of affairs in 1661, the Spanish
Habsburgs still ruled not only the peninsular kingdom south of France,
but the Belgian Netherlands to the north, Franche Comte to the east,
and Milan in northern Italy, while their kinsmen of Austria maintained
shadowy imperial government over the rich Rhenish provinces on the
northeastern boundary of France.
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