She had gained the important place of Strasburg, but she lost nearly all she had won by the treaty of Nimeguen in the Low Countries and in Germany; she kept Franche-Comte, but she gave up Lothringen.

Louis XIV.

had wanted to aggrandize himself at any price and at any risk; he was now obliged to precipitately break up the grand alliance, for King Charles II.

was slowly dying at Madrid, and the Spanish Succession was about to open.

Ignorant of the supreme evils and sorrows which awaited him on this fatal path, the King of France began to forget, in this distant prospect of fresh aggrandizement and war, the checks that his glory and his policy had just met with..