Charles himself, though he never intended to break with Louis and lose the French subsidies, was not averse to an occasional display of independence. With an impartiality more creditable to his cleverness than his honesty, he kept on foot negotiations for an alliance with Spain, France and the Dutch at the same time, waiting to see which side would offer him most. By December 1667, however, it became abundantly clear that the English people would not tolerate an alliance with France, or permit Louis to make himself master of the Low Countries. Charles accordingly took the line of the least resistance, authorised Temple to conclude a treaty with the Dutch, and wrote to Louis to explain that he had been obliged to act against his own wishes. [Sidenote: =Formation of the Triple Alliance, 1668.=] The treaty was signed at the Hague on the 13th of January 1668, and on May 15th Sweden, angered by the threats of Louis, joined the alliance in order to secure the payment of some old-standing claims upon Spain which were guaranteed by the English and Dutch governments. The Triple Alliance, as the treaty was then called, bound the allies to help each other if attacked, and to endeavour to restore peace between France and Spain, on the terms of the surrender to Louis, either of the districts in the Low Countries which he had conquered, or of Franche-Comté and a few specified frontier towns in the Netherlands. By a secret clause they further bound themselves to compel peace on these terms, and, if France refused, they agreed to make war upon her until she was reduced to the boundaries fixed by the treaty of the Pyrenees. [Sidenote: =Louis outwitted.=]