Alpha Book

Thus,
the French king lost no territory,--in fact, he obtained full
recognition of his ownership of the whole province of Alsace,--but his
reputation and vanity had been uncomfortably wounded.

THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION
One of the main reasons that prompted Louis XIV to sue for peace and to
abandon his claims on Lorraine and the Palatinate was the rapid
physical decline of the inglorious Spanish monarch, Charles II, of
whose enormous possessions the French king hoped by diplomacy and
intrigue to secure valuable portions.
[Sidenote: The Spanish Inheritance]
Spain was still a great power. Under its crown were gathered not only
the ancient kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre in the Spanish
peninsula, but the greater part of the Belgian Netherlands, and in
Italy the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the duchy of Milan, and the
control of Tuscany, as well as the huge colonial empire in America and
the Philippines. At the time when kings were absolute rulers and
reckoned their territories as personal possessions, much depended upon
the royal succession.


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