600
THE ASCENDENCY OF FRANCE.
for her by the wars and the diplomacy of Louis XIV., and even made some fresh acquisitions of territory along the Rhenish frontier.
But taken all together, the period was one of great national humiliation: the French fleet was almost driv«n from the sea; the martial spirit of the nation visibly declined; and France, from the foremost place among the states of Europe, fell to the position of a third or fourth rate power.
