... thanthis. He maintained that the war between France and the Netherlands in1672 resulted from the irritation of the French King, Louis XIV, over the issuing of certain medals and the spreading of offensive ... the state of war’, on the one hand, and ‘its acts’, on the other. A state of war can exist even in the absence of any acts of waron the part of either side. ‘War’, concluded Grotius, ‘is the ... beattacked.36In other words, a declaration of war, according to Grotius,was required by the law of nations (i.e., by the voluntary law) but not by the law of nature, since the law of nations ruled the realm...