2F - France and the policy of Reunions: the drive to annex ‘lost’ territories to France such as Luxembourg, Casale and Strasbourg
Learn how Louis XIV used legal claims, military pressure and diplomatic opportunity to extend French influence after Nijmegen. Strasbourg, Casale and Luxembourg show different methods, while the settlement at Ratisbon reveals the difference between recognised possession and secure, permanent ownership.
Legal claims and the Reunions
Treaties had given France important lands, but seventeenth-century territorial rights did not form a simple modern border. A town or lordship could possess rights over dependent villages elsewhere. A treaty might transfer a territory together with its “dependencies” without agreeing the precise extent of those dependencies. Louis's government used this complexity to claim further places after the Peace of Nijmegen.
The Reunions were the attachment of territories claimed as dependencies of possessions already acquired by France. French legal bodies, including chambers at Metz and Besançon and the sovereign council in Alsace, examined old documents and issued judgments supporting royal claims. Their reasoning could reach back to earlier relationships of lordship. Refusal to accept those judgments could be followed by occupation or military pressure.
Reunions
Louis XIV's policy of claiming and attaching territories said to depend historically on lands already ceded to France. French judicial decisions supplied a legal justification, backed by the ability to enforce possession.
The phrase “lost territories” describes the French justification, not an agreed historical fact. Opponents disputed both the legal reasoning and the authority of French courts to determine other rulers' rights. A court operating under Louis's authority was not a neutral international tribunal. It could turn ambiguous treaty wording into an argument for expansion without obtaining the previous owner's consent.
The policy could improve security by removing enclaves and strengthening routes between possessions. It could also increase territory and prestige at lower immediate cost than a major general war. These benefits explain its appeal after Nijmegen. They also explain its danger: neighbouring powers could conclude that a treaty would never restrain France if Louis continually reinterpreted it in his own favour.
Strasbourg and Casale in 1681
Strasbourg was a free imperial city and a strategically important crossing of the Rhine. French control of much of Alsace did not already make Strasbourg an ordinary French town. Its independent position left a potential opening through which enemy forces could operate and limited Louis's control of the Rhine frontier.
In September 1681, French troops placed overwhelming pressure on the city, which capitulated. Louis combined coercion with guarantees that retained significant local institutions and privileges. The outcome gave France a valuable fortified crossing and demonstrated how military pressure could achieve a major gain without a long battlefield campaign. It should not be described as merely the routine implementation of an uncontested court judgment.
Casale lay in northern Italy, in the territory of the duke of Mantua. Its importance was its fortress and its position near Spanish-controlled Milan. In 1681, Louis obtained the right to establish a French garrison through an agreement with the duke. A contemporary print catalogued by the French national library presents Strasbourg and Casale in its title as parallel submissions to Louis. That wording is evidence of royal celebration, rather than proof that both places entered French control by identical means. BnF catalogue: the submissions of Strasbourg and Casale, 1682 print.
Casale extended French military influence into Italy and threatened Spain's position there. It was not simply annexed to France through a Reunion chamber. The distinction matters: Strasbourg involved a coerced capitulation; Casale involved an agreement permitting a strategic garrison. Both supported aggrandisement, but neither should be forced into one legal mechanism merely because they belong to the same expansionist policy.
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