ABSTRACT
Professionalism in diplomacy matched the growth in the power of states. It was the product, at first, of the insecure conditions of Renaissance Italy, the political laboratory of the western world: its frequent changes in and between states led rulers to seek reliable information from representatives on the spot. By 1600 only France, among Catholic rulers, held to the policy of exchanging ambassadors with Protestant powers. The Dutch had not been disturbed by Louis XIV’s purchase of Dunkirk from England in 1662 but they saw, in the invasion of Flanders, the possibility that Antwerp, if revived under French control, would again become a competitor in trade. Louis worked as methodically as ever, and with a new intensity of interest in state affairs and serious-mindedness that can be seen to have coincided with a change in his private life as he repudiated Mme de Montespan and turned for consolation to Mme de Maintenon.
