She owed her safety at first, and the final successful issue, to her sea power.

That delivered her in the hour of extreme danger, and enabled her afterward to keep alive the general war.

It may be said to have been one of the chief factors, and inferior to no other one singly, in determining the event of the great war which was formally closed at Nimeguen.
The effort none the less sapped her strength, and being followed by many years of similar strain broke her down.

But what was the effect upon the vastly greater state, the extreme ambition of whose king was the principal cause of the exhausting wars of this time?
Among the many activities which illustrated the brilliant opening of the reign of the then youthful king of France, none was so important, none so intelligently directed, as those of Colbert, who aimed first at restoring the finances from the confusion into which they had fallen, and then at establishing them upon a firm foundation of national wealth.

This wealth, at that time utterly beneath the possibilities of France, was to be developed on the lines of production encouraged, trade stimulated to healthful activity, a large merchant shipping, a great navy, and colonial extension.