ABSTRACT
France, according to Vauban's meticulous report of 1707, was then a country of some 19 million inhabitants of whom over 0.75 million lived in Paris. Along with relatively small regions of northern Italy, the southern Netherlands and southern England, France had the highest proportion in Europe of inhabitants to land: about 40 to the square kilometre. The encroachment of royal government upon the towns of France might have been expected to produce a concerted campaign for the recovery of municipal rights. Commissioned artists and regulating academies were weapons in his campaign for France no less than tariffs, ships and trading companies. In August 1684 at Ratisbon, the Emperor, Spain and France agreed to a twenty years truce. France and Spain were to have one common interest from the outset, in opposing the extension of British sea power into the Mediterranean: for the British gained Gibraltar and Minorca.
