Golden Iris

In 1617, the 16-year-old Louis XIII launched a coup in the shadow of the Louvre, killed his mother's favorite ministers, and took over the royal power personally. At that time, France was experiencing internal and external troubles: its finances were on the verge of collapse, the aristocracy was divided, and the Habsburg dynasty was surrounded from three sides. The young king was just a transitional puppet in the eyes of his ministers. Using reform as a sword, marriage as a chess piece, and power as a shield, he gradually forged France into the most powerful war machine in Europe. In 1635, France declared war on Spain and officially joined the meat grinder of the Thirty Years' War until the two sides signed the "Pyrenees Treaty" in 1659. Spain lost, but France won? Is all this really necessary? Is more than twenty years of war really worth it?