Turin has grown as a fortified and planned city since becoming the capital of Savoy, whose Duke Emmanuel Philibert has limited the power of numerous localities and centralized state finances.

Increased taxes and economic recovery have allowed him to maintain a small but disciplined standing army, which will become the basis of Piedmontese military power.

Emmanuel Philibert has substituted Italian for Latin as the official language, and at the time of his death on August 30, 1580, is arranging for the acquisition of the marquisate of Saluzzo, which had passed to France in 1548.

His son Charles Emmanuel succeeds him.

The Marquisate of Saluzzo, embracing the territory lying between the Alps, the Po and the Stura, had been extended on several occasions.

It had had a checkered existence in the Middle Ages, often being in conflict with powerful neighbors, chiefly the Counts (later Dukes) of Savoy.

After long struggles for independence, the marquisate had been occupied in 1548 by the French, as a fief of the Crown of France—with the name of Saluces.

The ambitious Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, following a policy of expansion for his duchy and taking advantage of the civil war weakening France during the reign of his first cousin Henry III, in autumn 1588 takes possession of the city.

Saluzzo will henceforward share the destinies of Piedmont, with which it forms "one of the keys of the house" of Italy.

Henry suspects during the Estates-General that the members of the third estate are being manipulated by the League.

He becomes convinced that Guise has encouraged the duke of Savoy's invasion of Saluzzo in October.

Viewing the House of Guise as a dangerous threat to the power of the Crown, Henry decides to strike first.

Henry IV, as the new King of France, has demanded from Savoy the restitution of the Marquisate of Saluzzo, but Charles Emmanuel refuses, and a war ensues.

Don Juan Fernández de Velasco, 5th Duke of Frías (governor of the Duchy of Milan and Constable of Castile), crosses the Alps in early June 1595 with an army of twelve thousand men from Italy and Sicily.

He is joined in Besançon by Catholic League chief Charles of Mayenne.

Together they move on Dijon in order to take the city.

Warned of their movements, Henry IV races to Troyes with three thousand men that he is able to gather.

The battle takes place on June 5 at Fontaine-Française.

That morning, Henry IV had accompanied his scouts, who had encountered the Spanish troops by accident, and—as at the Battle of Eu the year before—Henry attacks them with light horse.

Against all odds, he surprises them and forces them to retreat temporarily.

Henry decides after this charge to recruit local residents (largely peasants) and to arm them with scythes and any metal object that might shine in the sunlight.

He regroups them on a hill with military troops, thus attempting to ruse the opposing force into believing he has a larger army.

Fernández de Velasco is meanwhile convinced that Henry is waiting for reinforcements, and observing the troop movements from afar, comes to believe that Henry's forces have superior numbers.

He decides to retreat.

The French royal victory marks an effective end to the Catholic League, although the Ninth War of Religion will not come to a complete end until the signing of the Peace of Vervins on May 2, 1598 and the Spanish ceding of captured French towns.

Geneva is one of the last European strongholds where Protestants of other lands successfully seek refuge from persecution.

If Geneva, as a Protestant bastion, can be defeated, it will mean a great deal to Catholic hegemony of Europe.

Charles Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy, has for years coveted the wealth of Geneva, which is not a member of the Swiss Confederation.

When Charles Emmanuel came to the throne of the House of Savoy in 1580, he longed to make Geneva his capital north of the Alps and crush Protestantism.

Pope Clement VIII has offered encouragement; in 1602 he appoints as Catholic bishop of Geneva Francis de Sales, an effective preacher who had recently been successful in re-Catholicizing the Chablais district of Savoy on the south side of Lake Geneva.

The forces of the Duke of Savoy, under the command of the seigneur d'Albigny, and those of Charles Emmanuel's brother-in-law, Philip III of Spain, launch an attack on the city-state on December 11 and December 12 (Old Style) 1602—the longest night of the year.

The troops march along the Arve River at night and assemble at Plainpalais, just outside the walls of Geneva, at 2 o'clock in the morning.

The original plan had been to send in a group of commandos to open the gate door and let the other troops in.

The Geneva citizens defeat the men by preventing them from scaling the wall (a climb in French is an escalade).

The night guard Isaac Mercier raises the alarm, church bells are rung, and the Genevois are alerted.

The populace fights alongside their town militia.

The duke's two thousand-plus mercenaries are beaten.

The Genevois lose eighteen men in the fighting; the Savoyards suffer fifty-four fatalities and the troops have to retreat.

Thirteen invaders who had been taken prisoner, including several well-born gentlemen, are summarily hanged the following day as thieves, since they cannot be treated as prisoners of war, peace having been repeatedly sworn on the part of Savoy.

The Duke of Osuna, viceroy of Naples, and ...

...the Marquess of Villafranca, the Governor of Milan, direct the Spanish policy in Italy, which has encountered resistance from the Kingdom of Savoy and the Republic of Venice.

Savoy returns Monferrato to Mantua by the terms of the Treaty of Pavia, signed on October 9, 1617, between representatives of the Spanish Empire and Savoy.

Moreover, the treaty manages to establish an unstable peace between Savoy and Milan.

German and French troops carry the bubonic plague to the city of Mantua in 1629, as a result of troop movements associated with the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).

Venetian troops, infected with the disease, retreat into northern and central Italy, spreading the infection.