ABSTRACT
The very day, 24 October 1648, that the declaration of Saint-Germain was registered by Parlement, also saw the signing of the two treaties, at Munster and Osnabrück that together were to be known as the peace of Westphalia. Bewailing the ingratitude of his adopted country, Mazarin would hardly have appreciated the ironies of that October day. Yet Frenchmen, all, that is, but the handful who were in a position to appreciate the finer points of diplomacy, were likely to be concerned more with the costs of the continuing war with Spain than they were with gains of land, fortresses and rights which, unless they lived in one of France’s eastern provinces, were as unimaginably remote from their lives as if they had been colonies overseas. For the dynasts and the diplomats who served them Europe was a vast estate map: war was an acceptable means of acquiring property, only more expensive and hazardous than marriage.
