ion, and by the folly of her colonial system, the kingdom which
under Philip the Second had aimed at the empire of the world lay
helpless and exhausted under Philip the Fourth.

[Sidenote: France and Spain.]

The aim of Lewis was to carry on the policy of his predecessors, and
above all to complete the ruin of Spain. The conquest of the Spanish
provinces in the Netherlands would carry his border to the Scheldt. A
more distant hope lay in the probable extinction of the Austrian line
which now sat on the throne of Spain. By securing the succession to that
throne for a French prince not only Castille and Aragon with the Spanish
dependencies in Italy and the Netherlands but the Spanish empire in the
New World would be added to the dominions of France. Nothing could save
Spain but a union of the European powers, and to prevent this union was
the work to which the French negotiators were now bending their energies
with singular success. The intervention of the Emperor was guarded
against by a renewal of the old alliances between France and the lesser
German princes. A league with the Turks gave the court of Vienna enough
to do on its eastern border. The old league with Sweden, the old
friendship with Holland, were skilfully maintained. England alone
remained as a possible foe, and at this moment the policy of Charles
bound England to the side of Lewis.

[Sidenote: England and France.]

France was the wealthiest of European powers, and her subsidies could
free Charles from his dependence on the Parliament. The French army was
the finest in the world, and French soldiers could put down, it was
thought, any resistance from English patriots. The aid of Lewis could
alone realize the aims of Charles, and Charles was willing to pay the
price, that of a silent concurrence in his Spanish projects, which
Lewis demanded for his aid. It was to France therefore, in spite of the
resentment he felt at his treatment by her in his time of exile, that
Charles turned in the earliest days of his reign. There was no trace as
yet of any formal alliance, but two marriages showed the close connexion
which was to be established between the kings. Henrietta, the sister of
Charles, was wedded to the Duke of Orleans, the brother of Lewis: and
this match served as the prelude to that of Charles himself with
Catharine of Braganza, a daughter of the king of Portugal. The English
ministers were dazzled by the dowry which the new queen brought with
her: