While Parma was forced to turn against Henry, who was pressing Paris hard, Breda was captured (March 1590) by a very daring stratagem carried out with extraordinary resolution--an event of slight intrinsic importance, but exceedingly characteristic. During the summer several other places were reduced, but Maurice was planning a great and comprehensive campaign. The year gave triumphant proof of the genius of Parma as a general, and of the soundness of his views as to Philip's policy. Henry was throttling Paris; by masterly movements Parma evaded the pitched battle, for which Béarnais thirsted, yet compelled his adversary to relinquish the siege. Nevertheless, Henry's activity was hardly checked; and when Parma, in December, returned to the Netherlands, he found the Spanish provinces in a deplorable state, and the Dutch states prospering and progressing; while in France itself Henry's victory had certainly been staved off, but had by no means been made impossible. Throughout 1591, Maurice's operations were recovering strong places for the States, one after another, from Zutphen and Deventer to Nymegen. Parma was too much hampered by the bonds Philip had imposed on him to meet Maurice effectively. And Henry was prospering in Normandy and Brittany, and was laying siege to Rouen before the year ended. In the spring Parma succeeded in relieving Rouen. Then Henry manoeuvred him into what seemed a trap; but his genius was equal to the occasion, and he escaped. But while the great general was engaged in France, Maurice went on mining and sapping his way into Netherland fortresses. In the meantime, Philip's grand object was to secure the French crown for his own daughter, whose mother had been a sister of the last three kings of France; the present plan being to marry her to the young Duke of Guise--a scheme not to the liking of Guise's uncle Mayenne, who wanted the crown himself. But Philip's chief danger lay in the prospect of Henry turning Catholic. Parma's death, in December 1592, deprived Philip of the genius which had for years past been the mainstay of his power. Henry's public announcement of his return to the Holy Catholic Church, in the summer of 1593, deprived the Spanish king of nearly all the support he had hitherto received in France. Before this Maurice had opened his attack on the two great cities which the Spaniards still held in the United Provinces, Gertruydenberg and Groningen. His scientific methods secured the former in June. In similar scientific style he raised the siege of Corwarden. A year after Gertruydenberg, Groningen surrendered.