jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pBetween the Restoration in 1660 and the Revolution in 1688 the English public abandoned its century-long animus against Spain and began to identify France as its chief enemy. Historians often hold that the most significant intervention in shifting the balance of public opinion was the Dutch-inspired pamphlet,jats:italicEngland's appeal from the private cabal at Whitehall</jats:italic>(1673), written by the Huguenot Pierre du Moulin. It is argued here that an immensely influential earlier intervention was made by François-Paul de Lisola, in hisjats:italicBuckler of state and justice</jats:italic>(1667), which, at a critical juncture, presented a rhetorically powerful body of arguments about the nature of the European state system. A Catholic in the service of the Habsburg emperor, who spent nearly two years in England in 1666–8, Lisola was an accomplished and versatile diplomat and publicist. This article interweaves diplomatic history with the history of geopolitical argument, tracing paths which led to Europe's Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.</jats:p>