"He was," says Massillon, "a prince profound in his views, skilful in forming leagues and banding spirits together, more successful in exciting wars than on the battle-field, more to be feared in the privacy of the closet than at the head of armies, a prince and an enemy whom hatred of the French name rendered capable of conceiving great things and of executing them, one of those geniuses who seem born to move at their will both peoples and sovereigns." French diplomacy was not in a condition to struggle with the Prince of Orange.
M.de Pomponne had succeeded Lionne; he was disgraced in 1679.

"I order his recall," said the king, "because all that passes through his hands loses the grandeur and force which ought to be shown in executing the orders of a king who is no poor creature." Colbert de Croissy, the minister's brother, was from that time employed to manage with foreign countries all the business which Louvois did not reserve to himself.
Duquesne had bombarded Algiers in 1682; in 1684, he destroyed several districts of Genoa, which was accused of having failed in neutrality between France and Spain; and at the same time Marshals Humieres and Crequi occupied Audenarde, Courtray, and Dixmude, and made themselves masters of Luxemburg; the king reproached Spain with its delays in the regulation of the frontiers, and claimed to occupy the Low Countries pacifically; the diet of Ratisbonne intervened; the emperor, with the aid of Sobieski, King of Poland, was occupied in repelling the invasions of the Turks; a truce was concluded for twenty-four years; the empire and Spain acquiesced in the king's new conquests.

"It seemed to be established," said the Marquis de la Fare, "that the empire of France was an evil not to be avoided by other nations." Nobody was more convinced of this than King Louis XIV.
He was himself about to deal his own kingdom a blow more fatal than all those of foreign wars and of the European coalition.

Intoxicated by so much success and so many victories, he fancied that consciences were to be bent like states, and he set about bringing all his subjects back to the Catholic faith.

Himself returning to a regular life, under the influence of age and of Madame de Maintenon, he thought it a fine thing to establish in his kingdom that unity of religion which Henry IV.