We can, in a general way, draw a distinction between two different kinds of Treaties of Peace.

There are but few of them that for any length of time have modified the leading subjects of contention. Such have been in the sixteenth century the religious Peace of Augsburg, and the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis between Spain and France; in the seventeenth the corresponding Peace of Westphalia, and that of the Pyrenees (for although a new and important subject of contention sprung out of the latter, still it was in reality a new difficulty, and one which depended on a very distant eventuality); in the eighteenth the Treaties of Utrecht and Paris, and even those of Hubertsburg and Kainardji; in the nineteenth the Acts of the Congress of Vienna, and what directly preceded it.

In the crises which ended with these Treaties of Peace, the contending powers had once more strained their strength to the uttermost: consequently the settlements which followed always brought after them a long time of quiet, and contained the germs of new developments.

Among great pacifications of this kind we must not count the Peace of Ryswick. It is one of those treaties which mark the completion of a considerable stage in the onward progress of affairs, but do not indicate their full end. As the treaties of Aachen and Nimuegen correspond to the development of the power of Louis XIV at the very epoch of its rise, so at Ryswick we see the first clear appearance of the resistance it encountered.