It is no small skill to quit the game when one is winning, because one secures one's gain,

and one can count that, which remains among one's possessions.

Cardinal Maturin Maceran. On January 6, 1646, France issued its third peace proposal, which sought greater gains for the country and a more ambitious post-war settlement.

It revolved around its recent acquisitions along the Rhine, including Bryce Sack, Philpsburg and some minor Rhine fortresses, as well as Lorraine, Alsace and

French Comte in their total form.

Cardinal Jules Matzarin, the French minister and the individual charged with guiding French

foreign policy, was confident that by demanding more than they previously had, France could

use the additional demands as later bargaining chips that could be negotiated

away in the form of carrots for the enemy. France's position, Matzarin believed, was strong

enough to demand such satisfaction because neither the Habsburgs nor Bavaria were able to withstand

France along the Rhine, and Sweden had so penetrated the inner sanctum of the

Habsburg heartlands that further fighting would threaten the very existence of the

Habsburg family itself. Life in the two vital Westphalian cities of Osnabrook and Moonster,

adopted as a diplomatic and representative base by Sweden and France

respectively, was alight with a flurry of activity. The need within the negotiations taking place

within them was to ensure that every decision, every treaty signed and every agreement reached,

was approved by governments not only represented by France and Sweden, but also by representatives

of the representatives of the

princes of the Holy Roman Empire that had elected to leave Frankfurt and seek to represent

themselves. Frankfurt had sought to uphold the Emperor Ferdinand III as the sole voice of the

empire. It had tried to establish that voice through interstate negotiations in the city, with the goal of then

assembling this voice into a strategy that could be represented at the two cities. It failed with

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