In May negotiations were opened at Ryswick; the obstacles thrown in the way of an accommodation by Spain and the Empire were set aside in a private negotiation between William and Lewis; and peace was finally signed in October 1697. In spite of failure and defeat in the field William's policy had won. The victories of France remained barren in the face of a united Europe; and her exhaustion forced her for the first time since Richelieu's day to consent to a disadvantageous peace. On the side of the Empire France withdrew from every annexation save that of Strassburg which she had made since the Treaty of Nimeguen, and Strassburg would have been restored but for the unhappy delays of the German negotiators. To Spain Lewis restored Luxemburg and all the conquests he had made during the war in the Netherlands. The Duke of Lorraine was replaced in his dominions. A far more important provision of the peace pledged Lewis to an abandonment of the Stuart cause and a recognition of William as King of England. For Europe in general the peace of Ryswick was little more than a truce. But for England it was the close of a long and obstinate struggle and the opening of a new aera of political history. It was the final and decisive defeat of the conspiracy which had gone on between Lewis and the Stuarts ever since the Treaty of Dover, the conspiracy to turn England into a Roman Catholic country and into a dependency of France. But it was even more than this. It was the definite establishment of England as the centre of European resistance against all attempts to overthrow the balance of power. [Sidenote: William's aims.]