
Louis XIV, who starts to control by itself as of the death of Mazarin, shows by his first acts his desire of size.
He repurchases and strengthens Dunkirk (1662); he forces the king of Spain and the pope to be humiliated in front of him (1662-64); he helps Austria to beat the Turks (1664); he helps Portugal against Spain, and he tests his navy against the Barbaresque ones.
With the death of king d' Espagne, Philippe IV, his father-in-law (1665), it claims in the name of his Marie-Thérèse wife the Spanish Netherlands, removes in Spain any help by skilful negotiations, surprises it by a sudden attack, and after a rapid countryside (1667), it is made yield by the treaty of Aachen (1668) a great part of the Flanders (Lille and Douai).
