France, History Of, Foreign policy and financial crisis

The monarchy's international performance from 1715 to 1783 was basically creditable. From the time of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 14), when France had been invaded and nearly beaten, French statesmen pursued a double goal - the preservation of the balance of power in Europe, and, in the world at large, the expansion of the French colonial empire and the containment of England.