Poor and exhausted as we have seen that the country was, the labours of Olivares had not been quite without result, and with great effort funds were raised to present a front to the enemies of {155} the faith worthy of Spanish traditions. The Queen offered her personal jewels to fight her own countrymen, the French; the nobles contributed a million ducats in cash from their ill-gotten hoards; the pulpits and altars of Spain and the Indies rang with priestly exhortations to sacrifice for the faith; and the clergy itself undertook to maintain twenty thousand troops during the war. The property of all French subjects in Spain was confiscated, and for once the energy of Olivares was felt in all branches of the Spanish service. It was as if the old times of Philip II. had returned. Feria and Spinola, the one on land, the other at sea, forced the French to abandon their conquests in the Valtelline and Genoa. Spain, in a fever of pride and jubilation, hailed the young King, who personally had done nothing and had never left Madrid, as "Philip the Great," and Olivares caused the title to be officially accorded to his young master. But after a time the diplomacy of the Spanish Queen of France and Olivares did more to end the war than the skill of the generals. Richelieu was a cardinal of the Church, and could not entirely ignore the remonstrances of the Pope, prompted by Olivares, against his making common cause with heretics to fight the orthodox Catholic Power; and a treaty between France and Spain was patched up in January 1626 with regard to the Valtelline, where the Catholics were to enjoy full liberty of conscience on payment of a tribute to the Protestant Grisons. But in Germany the war, now mainly a religious one, went on, the arms of the Emperor being to a great extent successful, thanks to {156} the genius of Tilly and the ample aid in men and money poured into mid-Europe by Spain. Spanish resources, too, were plentifully sent to the Infanta Archduchess to carry on the eternal war with the Dutch, who were, as of yore, upheld by their brother Protestants in England and France. Once more the Dutch privateers harried Spanish commerce, and again all traffic between Holland and Spain was prohibited, to Spain's detriment. But the new-born spurt of energy favoured Spanish arms even here; for Don Fadrique de Toledo destroyed the Dutch fleet off Gibraltar, and Spinola at last, after a siege of ten months, captured Breda. To complete the picture of Spain's unwonted success, the Dutch were expelled from Guayaquil in South America and from Puerto Rico in the West Indies, and the Moorish pirates who had harried the Mediterranean, and even the Spanish coasts, for years, were crushed by Philip's galleys. [Sidenote: "Philip the Great"]