The war with the Grand Alliance, of which King William III. was the heart and soul, lasted from 1688 to 1697; and the treaty of Ryswick, which brought it to an end, deprived France of cer tain territories on her frontier. But Louis saw in the Spanish question a chance of more than making up for this loss. The Spanish king Charles II. was dying, and the future of the pos sessions of Spain was doubtful. The astute diplomacy of Louis succeeded in winning the inheritance for his grandson Philip. But this involved France and Europe in an immense war (I700) and by the peace of Utrecht (1713), though the French prince re tained the Spanish crown, France had again to make concessions of territory.
The peace found France burdened with debt ; the reforms of Colbert were ruined ; and opposition to the king's regime began to make itself felt. Peace brought some relief to France, but the last years of the king's life were gloomy in the extreme. His eldest son, the dauphin, died in April 1711; his eldest grandson the duke of Burgundy in Feb. 1712; and his great-grandson the duke of Brittany in March 1712. The heir to the throne was now the duke of Burgundy's son, the duke of Anjou, afterwards Louis XV. The king died on Sept. 1, 1715, after the longest recorded reign in European history. The judgment of posterity has not
repeated the flattering verdict of his contemporaries; but he re mains the model of a great king in all that concern the externals of kingship.
The reign Louis XIV. is particularly rich in memoirs describing the life of the court. The chief are Madame de Motteville's memoirs for the period of the Fronde, and the letters of Madame de Sevigne and the memoirs of Saint-Simon for the later period. The king's ideas are best seen in the Memoires de Louis XIV. pour l'instruction du dauphin (edited by Dreyss, 2 vols.). His private life is revealed in the letters of Madame de Maintenon and in those of Madame, Duchesse d'Orleans. See also Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XlV.; P. Clement, Histoire de la vie et de l'administration de Colbert; Blenner hasset, Louis and Madame de Maintenon (191o) ; Martin and Besancon, Hist. du credit en France sous le regne de Louis XIV. (1913) ; d'Angelo, Luigi XIV. et la Santa Sede, 1689-93 (1914) M. L. E. Bertrand, Louis XIV. (1923) ; G. Mentz, Ludwig XIV. Sein Reich and Seine Zeit (Bonn, 1922), and bibliographies; G. Monod's Bibliographie de l'histoire de France; vol. v. ("The Age of Louis XIV.") of the Cambridge Modern History; and vol. vi. ("Louis XIV.") of the Histoire generale of Lavisse and Rambaud.