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 France under Louis XIV 369 in a series of inexcusable attacks on his neighbors and before he died he had reduced France to the edge of financial ruin. 634. The Invasion of the Netherlands (lee?). Louis XIV first turned his attention to the conquest of the Spanish Nether- lands, to which he laid claim through his wife, the elder sister of the Spanish king, Charles II (1665-1700). He easily took a number of towns on the border of the Netherlands and then turned south and completely conquered Franche-Comte, an out- lying province of Spain. These conquests alarmed Europe, and especially Holland, which could not afford to have a barrier between it and France re- moved, for Louis XIV would be an uncomfortable neighbor. A Triple Alliance, composed of Holland, England, and Sweden, was accordingly organized to induce France to make peace with Spain and return Franche-Comte. Louis, however, broke up the Triple Alliance later by inducing Charles II of England to pledge England's assistance in a new war with the Dutch. 635. Louis XIV's Invasion of Holland (1572). Louis felt irri- tated that little Holland should dare to oppose him. At the head of a hundred thousand men he crossed the Rhine (1672) and easily conquered southern Holland. For the moment the Dutch cause appeared to be lost. But William of Orange showed the spirit of his great ancestor William the Silent ; the sluices in the dikes were opened and the country flooded, so the French army was checked before it could take Amsterdam and advance into the north. The emperor, Leopold I, sent an army against Louis, and England deserted him and made peace with Holland. When a general peace was concluded at the end of six years, the chief provisions were that Holland should be left intact and that France should this time retain Franche-Comte. For the ten years following there was no open war, but Louis seized the important free city of Strassburg and made many other less con- spicuous but equally unwarranted additions to his territory. 636. Situation of the Huguenots at the Beginning of Louis XIV's Reign. Louis XIV exhibited as woeful a want of statesmanship in the treatment of his Protestant subjects as in