ABSTRACT

The Western fleet sailed from Belle-Ile on 23 June, passed down the Spanish coast without incident apart from the capture of two or three 'Turks', entered the Mediterranean on 17 July and was off Majorca on the 26th. Sourdis sent a ship to Marseilles to inform the commanders of the ships and galleys there of his approach and to suggest a junction, but neither ships nor did galleys appear. Part at least of the French Western fleet might have been spared for the Mediterranean, but that was not done. WHEN France joined in the Thirty Year's War in 1635 it was on what would appear at first sight to be the wrong side. A predominantly Catholic country only recently engaged in a long war against its own Protestant minority suddenly allied itself with the two champions of the Protestant cause, Sweden and the United Provinces, against the two great Catholic Powers, Spain and Austria.