His reign was then weakened at the end due to the disastrous War of Spanish Succession, which left France broke. Also, he implemented the Edict of Fontainebleau, which rejected the Edict Nantes, forbids the practice of any religion but Catholicism in France. This caused hundreds of thousands of French Protestants, most of whom were artisans and skilled workers, to flee to more tolerant countries depleting the national workforce. At the end of Louis’s reign, France was in debt and on a decline from the great nation it had earlier in his reign. Both men were extraordinary in their ability to unify their country with government reforms and war. Peter was the better ruler because he built up Russia and put the empire on the fast track to power, whereas Louis XIV helped France become a large power, but then at the end of his reign the country began to quickly