He then returned to the old policy of Francis I., and meditated the humiliation of the house of Austria; great preparations were made for the enterprise, and Henry was on the eve of his departure for the army, when he was assassinated by Ravaillac, May 14, 1610. This calamity interrupted for nearly 15 years the progress of the kingdom at home and abroad. Under the regency of Henry's widow, Maria de' Medici, mother of Louis XIII., disorders were renewed; the public treasure was recklessly wasted; and the kingdom was distracted by war between the queen mother and the young king, soon after the latter reached his majority. Happily a great minister, Cardinal Richelieu, took the reins of government in 1624, consolidated the power of the monarch at home, and, partly reviving the political designs of the late king, threw the influence and arms of France into the European conflict called the thirty years' war. While annihilating the political power of the French Protestants, he energetically supported the German Protestants in their struggle against the house of Austria; to this end he spared neither money nor troops; and on his death, in 1642, the rival of France had been already many times humbled.

The successor of Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin, pursued the same policy; and the first years of the reign of Louis XIV., who ascended the throne as a child in 1643, were marked by brilliant victories, most of them won by the young duke d'Enghien, afterward the great Cond6." The treaty of Westphalia in 1648 not only asserted the triumph of religious and political liberty in Germany, but the victory of France over Austria, a victory which added to her territory the province of Alsace. The troubles of the Fronde, a faint image of the old civil wars, detracted nothing from the influence gained abroad by the French government, and Mazarin concluded with Spain, in 1659, the treaty of the Pyrenees, which secured two other provinces to France, Artois and Roussillon. This able politician resigned to the hands of Louis XIV. a kingdom well prepared for the full exercise of absolute power. Under this monarch France rose to the height of fortune and glory, while he himself was placed above all control. From the day of Mazarin's death (1661) he assumed the direction of public affairs, and his ministers, with the exception perhaps of Colbert and Louvois, were little more than clerks, intrusted with the execution of his designs. The first years of his administration were the most useful.

Colbert devoted himself to improving all the resources of the kingdom; every branch of revenue became prosperous; and, as at the beginning of the century under Henry IV., the national wealth increased with unusual rapidity. Intellectual progress kept pace with material, and everything conspired to create a literary period of unusual magnificence. A short war against Spain, which was terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668, scarcely interrupted this happy commencement; but it had awakened suspicions among the neighboring powers, and a triple alliance was formed between Holland, Spain, and England. Scarcely four years had elapsed when Louis XIV., at the head of more than 100,000 men, invaded Holland, which, being deserted by England, could be preserved only by the united exertions of Spain and Germany; the contest lasted six years; the French armies, under Conde, Turenne, and Luxembourg, were victorious in nearly every encounter, while French fleets distinguished themselves against the united naval forces of Spain and Holland. The peace of Nimeguen, 1678, put an end to regular hostilities, but not to the encroachments of Louis XIV., who, inflated by success, seized upon provinces and cities which, according to his own construction of past treaties, belonged to France. Louis had now reached the zenith of his greatness; he had added to his kingdom Flanders, Franche-Comte, the imperial city of Strasburg, and several other important territories; he was feared abroad and respected at home; he was Louis the Great for his subjects, and even his enemies scarcely refused him this title.

The league of Augsburg, devised by William of Orange, had united together the emperor, Holland, Sweden, and Savoy, and was joined by England on the revolution of 1688. Louis XIV., who undertook to reestablish James II. on his throne, engaged in a desperate struggle against this powerful coalition, and maintained it for nine years; his armies and naval forces, the former especially, still achieved many triumphs; and when the peace of Ryswick was concluded in 1697, the allies, although they boasted of success, were nearly as much exhausted as their opponent. The war of the Spanish succession, which followed the death of Charles II. of Spain in 1700, was brought about by mere family ambition. A more formidable coalition opposed the schemes of the king, who aimed at placing his grandson upon the Spanish throne; the two greatest generals of their time, Marlborough and Prince Eugene, were at the head of the allied armies; defeat after defeat befell the French forces, and the kingdom seemed reduced to extremities; but after a contest of 12 years' duration Louis succeeded in his bold undertaking, and by the treaties of Utrecht and Rastadt (1713 and 1714) the house of Bourbon inherited the best part of the Castilian monarchy.

The burden which he had borne was, however, far too heavy for his weak successors; he had moreover taxed the energies of France and stretched the royal power to such an extent that a reaction was unavoidable, and had by tyrannical and imprudent acts already introduced many of those abuses and elements of discord which were to have such disastrous results. The 18th century was an age of depression, decay, and ruin for all the institutions, doctrines, and classes that had hitherto commanded respect. Royalty lost its prestige, both through the unbounded licentiousness of the regent duke of Orleans and the king himself, and through the irretrievable corruption or imbecility of its ministers; nobility became degraded; the great constituted bodies fell into general contempt; the national treasury was exhausted; and an uncontrollable spirit of censure and raillery hastened the work of destruction. Even the remedies that were tried, such as the wild financial schemes of Law under the regent, only added to the universal confusion.