A detailed analysis of the limitations of the system which relied on intermediaries and private suppliers to finance, build and maintain the French navy. Althou

The Peace of Westphalia (1648), ending the Thirty Years' War, resulted in the rise of the modern European states system. However, dynasticism, power politics, c

Much of the period 1661-1815 appeared to be the age of France. France was the greatest power in Western Europe in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

The personal rule of Louis XIV, following on from a long period of royal minority and apprenticeship, lasted 54 years from 1661 to 1715. But the second half of