ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests France always had the size, population, wealth and know-how to be a Great Power. What were also needed were the will-to-greatness and the capacity to mobilize resources efficiently and without generating internal discord. Horn's approach is a healthy antidote to the Anglocentric model which compares economic development in France unfavourably with that in Britain. Prestige also embodied a belief in the superiority of French cultural and political norms. By the middle decades of the seventeenth century, France had started to eclipse Spain as the leading power within Europe. This meant that France always had the manpower reserves at her disposal to sustain high levels of military activity, even during the most bellicose periods of Louis XIV and Napoleon. France rapidly lost its English ally in the Dutch War, alienated Europe with her Turkish alliance and stood alone during the War of the League of Augsburg.
