Through all these years the wars in which Spain was engaged had gone on. Mazarin's many enemies in France had been encouraged and bribed largely by Spain, and the greatest of French commanders, Turenne and Condé, for a time entered Philip's service against their own country. This changed the aspect of affairs, especially on the Flemish frontier, whilst in the south of France the leaders of the Fronde with Spanish aid kept Mazarin's troops busy there. When Turenne again returned to the French side the tables were turned somewhat (1655), and after a series of defeats the Archduke Leopold, Philip's Governor of Flanders, had retired, leaving Condé in command of the troops, whilst Don Juan, King Philip's son, succeeded the Archduke as Governor (1656). This brilliant pair of young men did much to restore Spanish prestige in Flanders; but when the alliance between Cromwell and Mazarin was signed Spain was outmatched, and all observers could see that France in the end must be victorious.
Loss of Dunkirk
One after the other the Flemish frontier places surrendered to the allies; but the great blow to Philip's arms fell in the summer of 1658. Dunkirk, a Spanish port in Flanders, promised to Cromwell by Mazarin, was closely blockaded by an English fleet, and besieged on the land side by Turenne, who was accompanied by young Louis XIV. himself; whilst a Spanish army under Don Juan and Condé, with whom was James Duke of York, now nominal Admiral of the Spanish fleet, was endeavouring to break through Turenne's lines and relieve the place. By a coup de main Turenne outflanked the Spanish force, whilst Cromwell's fleet bombarded them from the sea. Panic overtook the Spaniards, who fled precipitately with great loss, and Dunkirk soon after capitulated. This Battle of the Dunes seemed the last drop in Philip's cup of sorrow, for by it all Flanders lay at the mercy of the French royalists, and city after city fell into their hands.
Shortly before this, and soon after the christening of Philip Prosper described above, an equally fatal catastrophe had fallen upon Philip on the Portuguese frontier. There for years a state of hostility had continued, with frequent raids on both sides; but, growing bolder with Philip's increased exhaustion, the masculine Spanish Queen Mother of Portugal[[18]] had laid regular siege to the great Spanish frontier fortress of Badajoz. At any cost this daring insolence had to be met, and Philip, with no able commanders now available, Don Juan being in Flanders, entrusted the leadership of his forces of 8000 men, raised with infinite sacrifice and difficulty, to his favourite, Don Luis de Haro. On the news of his approach the Portuguese raised the siege of Badajoz and recrossed the frontier; but Haro, utterly inexperienced in warfare, was drawn into pursuing them, led into an ambush and put to ignominious flight, with the loss of guns, baggage, and most of his men.
Peace with France
This defeat, followed by the Battle of the Dunes a few months afterwards, proved to all the world that Spain had come to the end of her tether and could struggle no more. Material resources, faith in herself, belief in her mission, even confidence in her God, had all fled, and nothing was left to her but besotted pride and a sanctimonious ritual devotion which lightly covered a scoffing mockery of the noble ideals that had made her temporarily great. Peace had now, indeed, become for Philip absolutely necessary. There had been many efforts made through the influence of Anna of Austria, Queen of France, to come to an understanding with her brother, ever since the treaty of Münster; but the demands of Mazarin, that the French should continue to hold all they had taken including Catalonia, had in every case frustrated the attempts. But the aspect of affairs was changing. Catalonia was heartily tired of the French, who left the province less liberty than it had enjoyed under the Castilian Kings, whilst the grave discontent and division in France against Mazarin's Government had rendered peace necessary even for him. But that which, above all, contributed to a peaceful agreement was the fact that Philip's health was evidently failing, and that only one life, that of the scrofulous epileptic infant, Philip Prosper, stood between the house of France and the Spanish throne. It is true that when Queen Anna had married Louis XIII. she had solemnly renounced for herself and her family the right of succession to Spain; but some of the dowry which was to have been paid to her had not been paid, and it might be contended that as one condition of the contract had not been fulfilled the others could not be enforced as against the house of France. Mariana, Philip's second wife, was at Madrid quite as much in the capacity of Austrian ambassador as of Philip's consort, and she had always tried to prevent any closer union between France and Spain; her object, aided by the German agents who prompted her, being to maintain the fatal alliance between the two branches of the house of Austria, which had dragged Spain to ruin.
In the summer of 1656 a sincere attempt had been made by France to come to an understanding with Philip. A skilled diplomatist, M. de Lionne, in the confidence of Mazarin, had arrived with great secrecy at Madrid, and was lodged at the Retiro, where he and Haro held many conferences, with a result that an agreement on many points was arrived at, especially upon the retrocession of Catalonia (though not of Roussillon) to Spain. In one of their conferences Lionne noticed that Haro was wearing in his hat, doubtless for a purpose, a medal impressed with the portrait of the Infanta Maria Teresa. "If your King would give to my master for his wife the original of the portrait you wear," said Lionne, "peace might soon be made."[[19]] Haro passed over the matter lightly, for in the absence of a male heir to Philip it would have been impossible to marry Maria Teresa to the King of France; but the idea was not a new one, and the possibility of bringing about such a match as a pledge of peace between France and Spain had often been mooted by the quidnuncs of Madrid.[[20]]
Peace negotiations
Lionne's negotiations came to nothing at the time, mainly because the knotty point of the Prince of Condé's position could not be settled; but when the birth of Philip Prosper provided Philip with an heir, the marriage idea again came to the front, and made both sides in the subsequent peace negotiations much more conciliatory than they otherwise would have been, especially when there was a talk of marrying Louis XIV. elsewhere. He was, indeed, on a courting expedition to the south of France to meet the Princess of Savoy, when Haro, in May 1659, sent Antonio Pimentel in a hurry to Mazarin reminding him of what Lionne had said three years before about a Spanish marriage. Anna of Austria and Mazarin were quite willing; and in a very few weeks the diplomatists on both sides had drawn up a protocol suspending hostilities, and providing for a meeting of plenipotentiaries of both Powers in the little Isle of Pheasants in the Bidosoa River that separates France and Spain. This was to take place in August, and in the meanwhile ministers were busy drawing up marriage settlements and agreeing upon the main points in dispute between the two Powers. Mariana struggled hard to prevent the agreement by proposing a marriage between the Infanta and the Archduke Leopold, the Emperor's heir. She even prevailed upon her brother to send the Archduke Sigismund to replace Don Juan in Flanders, and to bring a strong imperial army with him to defend Spanish territory there. Before they could meet the French, however, the truce between Philip and Louis was signed (June 1659), and the Austrian interest for the present had to accept defeat.
Peace or war, the stereotyped merrymaking never ceased for very long in the Court of Madrid. Like Olivares before them, Philip's ministers were constantly on the look-out for new musicians, buffoons, or beauties to distract him, and discovering fresh pretexts for shows.[[21]] To celebrate the birth of the sickly Philip Prosper, the festivities continued for months; and in answer to the nun's remonstrances about it, the King invites her to tell him how he can fulfil his desire to withdraw his mind from worldly things, "since it is obligatory for me to live amongst men, and to be present at festivities and other public occasions, which I cannot avoid attending. In the midst of all this turmoil I should like to execute your directions, if my frailty does not prevent me from doing so. Help me, Sor Maria, and pray to God and His holy Mother to aid me in attaining such a boon."[[22]] In one of Philip Prosper's frequent illnesses a saintly friar from Jerusalem, one Father Antonio, went to see Philip, and brusquely told him, in reply to his request for prayers for the Prince's health, "that he, the King, ought to pray also, and leave off all these comedies and other rejoicings."[[23]] The Madrileños of Philip's time would no more abandon their idle pleasures than they would their daily bread. Fresh taxes of 2 per cent. more were put upon food, and upon every payment made of any sort; even fireplaces and windows were taxed more heavily, the idea being to make people redeem these taxes by paying a sum down, and so, as Barrionuevo says, to get money quickly. "All this makes men of business desperate, for it is said that even upon loans and payments of every sort the tax is to be charged; so that we shall soon have nothing to pay with but water and sunshine."[[24]]