The Battle of Lens took place on August 20, 1648, in northern France, at the end of the Thirty Years War. The French Army, composed of 16,500 men and led by Louis de Bourbon (Prince of Condé), defeated the Spanish forces, under the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, who wanted to retake the fortified city of Lens, which had been captured by the French the year before. During the battle, the superior Spanish infantry beat the French foot soldiers (Gardes Françaises); however, the French cavalry, which was twice the size of the Spanish, charged several times at the enemy, enveloping and defeating the Spanish Army. The result of this armed encounter, and of the Thirty Years War, ushered in the emergence of France, under the House of Bourbon, as the new European super power and the decadence of Spain and Austria, ruled by the Habsburgs, as such.

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