Whilst Don Juan was engaged in these trifles and equally futile government measures, such as endeavouring by decree to make the courtiers dress in the French fashion instead of Spanish, the taxes were as heavy as before, the prices of food higher than ever, the administration remained unreformed, and the law was still contemned: the Spanish troops were being beaten by the French in Catalonia for lack of support, and King Louis still occupied Sicily. Don Juan’s own supporters, too, soon got tired of him when they saw that he was grudging of rewards, even to them; and pasquins and pamphlets rained against him and in favour of the Queen-Mother. The latter and the imperial ambassador had, before the coming of Don Juan, betrothed the King to his niece the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, aged nine, the daughter of the Emperor; as if the miserable Charles himself had not been a sufficient warning against further consanguineous marriages in the house of Austria: but Don Juan promptly put an end to that arrangement, and proposed to marry Charles to a little Portuguese Infanta of similar age. Peace was now an absolute necessity to all Europe. The pourparlers between the powers at Nimeguen had already lasted two years, and ended in an arrangement between Holland and France, in which Spain was left out. Louis could then exact his own terms; and, as usual, they were crushingly hard on Spain, which lost some of the richest cities in Flanders and all the Franche Comté (September 1678). But it was peace, and the rejoicing of the overburdened Spanish people was pathetic to witness.