Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
In addition to sweeping domestic reforms, Louis XIV aspired to make France the leading European power. His ambitions pushed other leading European states to form alliances against an increasingly aggressive France.
The War of Devolution (1667–1668) saw the French forces overrun the Habsburg-controlled Spanish Netherlands and the Franche-Comté. However, a Triple Alliance of England, Sweden, and the Dutch Republic forced France to give most of it back in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) pitted France, Sweden, Münster, Cologne, and England against the Dutch Republic, which was later joined by the Austrian Habsburg lands, Brandenburg-Prussia, and Spain to form a Quadruple Alliance. After years of fighting and a series of exhausting battles, the 1678-1679 Treaties of Nijmegen declared the Franche-Comté and the Spanish Netherlands French territories, making France Europe’s strongest power.
The Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) once again pitted Louis XIV against a European-wide coalition, the Grand Alliance. By the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) Louis XIV retained the whole of Alsace but was forced to return Lorraine to its ruler and give up any gains on the right bank of the Rhine. Louis also accepted William III as the rightful King of England.
All these wars exhausted France financially but turned it into the most powerful state in Europe.
Louis’s expansionist ambitions culminated in the final decisive war of his reign: the War of the Spanish Succession.