text: **France as the pivot of warfare**
  
  Under Louis, France was the leading European power, and most wars pivoted around its 
  aggressiveness. No European state exceeded it in population, and no one could match its 
  wealth, central location, and very strong professional army. It had largely avoided the 
  devastation of the Thirty Years' War. Its weaknesses included an inefficient financial 
  system that was hard-pressed to pay for its military adventures, and the tendency of most 
  other powers to gang up against it. 
  
  During Louis's reign, France fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine 
  Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: 
  the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions.[64] The wars were very expensive but 
  defined Louis XIV's foreign policy, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled "by 
  a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique", Louis sensed that war was the ideal way to 
  enhance his glory. In peacetime, he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught 
  his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French 
  military.[6] By 1695, France retained much of its dominance but had lost control of the seas 
  to England and Holland, and most countries, both Protestant and Catholic, were in alliance 
  against it. Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, France's leading military strategist, warned 
  Louis in 1689 that a hostile "Alliance" was too powerful at sea. He recommended that 
  France fight back by licensing French merchant ships to privateer and seize enemy 
  merchant ships while avoiding its navies: 
  
  Louis XIV 