Till late in the year 1700 the understanding between France and England, or rather between their two Kings, the one representing legitimacy and Catholicism, the other Protestantism and the English revolution, governed the movements of the world. The need for peace and the wish for its continuance prevailed over their great and permanent antagonisms.

The internal differences of England also had no small influence in this direction. The French ambassador often told Louis XIV that he believed, as things now stood, that William was the best King France could wish England to have. For he had no right by birth to the throne; he was not only a foreigner, but, thanks to his preference for the Dutch, to whom he entrusted all important business, he was disliked by the English, whose interests were opposed to those of Holland. The French King sometimes even thought that under the pressure of these home-disagreements, William might be brought to depend on him as his predecessors of the house of Stuart had done. Tallard did not go so far: he had a nearer view of persons and things. It seemed to him a sufficient foundation for his political aims, that the condition of things in England compelled William to be on good terms with France. For the King, who was so powerless in England, was so powerful in Holland and with the German princes, that any stipulation agreed on with him was sure to be carried out.