However that may be, there is seen, on the opposite side of the Channel, a nation which started ahead of England in the race,--a nation peculiarly well fitted, by situation and resources, for the control of the sea both by war and commerce.

The position of France is in this peculiar, that of all the great powers she alone had a free choice; the others were more or less constrained to the land chiefly, or to the sea chiefly, for any movement outside their own borders; but she to her long continental frontier added a seaboard on three seas.

In 1672 she definitely chose expansion by land.

At that time Colbert had administered her finances for twelve years, and from a state of terrible confusion had so restored them that the revenue of the King of France was more than double that of the King of England.
In those days France paid the subsidies of Europe; but Colbert's plans and hopes for France rested upon making her powerful on the sea.

The war with Holland arrested these plans, the onward movement of prosperity ceased, the nation was thrown back upon itself, shut off from the outside world.