This treaty was on the face of it more unfavourable to France than the preceding one, and it may well be a matter of surprise at first sight that Louis was prepared to make such great sacrifices in order to obtain it. To seat the archduke Charles on the throne of Spain, while his brother Joseph ruled at Vienna, was a strange termination to the policy of one whose life had been spent in determined antagonism to the House of Habsburg. Yet on consideration it will be seen that the objections to the treaty from the French point of view were more apparent than real. Spain was in such a disorganised condition that it was impossible for her to count among the powers of the world. Her resources were great, but they neither were nor could be developed without capital. Of capital available for such a purpose neither Austria nor Spain had the worth of a dollar. The revenues barely paid for the expenses of the court in either country. Even ambassadors had not enough for the expenses of their household. Important as Spain would soon become if annexed to energetic and prosperous France, she could not but remain a nonentity when joined to sluggish and bankrupt Austria. But that was not all. France was relieved of all serious rivalry on the side of Spain for many years by the disorganisation of the Spanish and imperial finances. She was placed in a position of absolute superiority to Spain by her acquisitions in Italy. The possession of Naples and Sicily made her mistress of the Mediterranean. No communications could pass, no troops could be sent from Austria to Spain, without running the blockade of the French fleet in the Gulf of Lyons. No army could ever reach a port of embarkation without the consent of the duke of Lorraine or the republic of Venice. The gift of the Milanese to the duke of Lorraine completed the policy of Richelieu in 1625. It closed the Valtelline to the armies of the Austro-Spanish power. Were the duke to forget his associations with France, or remember them only too well, and side with her enemy, French troops from the ports of Tuscany and Finale could reach Milan before a German lance flashed in the Valtelline, and French ships could blockade the harbours of Genoa and Savoy at the first note of danger. Even during the war of the Spanish Succession, when English ships rode triumphantly in the Gulf of Lyons, when the imperial armies held Milan, and Genoa was friendly, it was found by no means easy to victual or reinforce the archduke’s troops from Germany. It would have been an absolute impossibility had France been undisputed mistress of the sea.